Good morning, adventurers!
I have mountains on the mind (again). We’re back in Colorado for the winter and are enjoying breathing in some altitude.
On Thanksgiving, we scurried 3,300ft up Mt. Saint Vrain and then made some homemade Caprese Empanadas. The whole day made me wanderlust-sick for El Chalten, Argentina (where I first ate my weight in empanadas at the bus station). If you’re interested in baking them, here is the empanada recipe as well as a video on how to make the dough.
El Chalten - 2018.
If you’re not here for empanada recipes, I’ll forgive you.
Here are a few other things I thought were worth sharing this month:
Things I’m Listening To:
I listened to this beautiful episode of We Can Do Hard Things called How to Host A Magical Gathering with Author Priya Parker. It was an amazing reminder about how the language we use to set the stage for gathering can make or break a party. I highly recommend listening to it before the holidays.
We went to see the California Honey Drops in Denver and I can’t stop humming their new song Bye Bye Baby. I also decided that the album Dripfield, by Goose is my favorite album (maybe ever, but definitely this past year). Honorable mentions for 2023 include Your Smith Radio and Dope Lemon’s new album.
New Nordic Ski Design - October 2023 - Claire Kalina Designs
Things I’m Watching:
I really enjoyed the Netflix series, Life on This Planet. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, (need I go any further) this Planet-Earth-style documentary uses .ai to tell the story of life on Earth. I’m not a diehard .ai believer, but I did really enjoy seeing how the filmmakers used technology to re-imagine and present a visual story of prehistoric life on Earth.
For Ski Buffs, I enjoyed the short Youtube Film, Polar Star, about Cody Townsend’s backcountry journey to Baffin Island (a remote destination that’s been on my list for years).
Other shows I enjoyed watching this fall were: Outlast, a reality show about survival in Alaska (aside from the ending, which annoyed both Nick and I) and Super Pumped, The Battle For Uber (after watching, I’ll be switching to Lyft). Honorable mentions include Biggest Little Farm, a documentary about starting a farm outside L.A. (I cried), and The Woman in the Window, which felt like a modern (but well-done) version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
Things I’m Reading:
I liked this essay about Kurt Vonnegut and his dog, most notably the line “it’s a terrible waste to be happy and not notice it.”
Art created after my Sept 2023 trip into Denali National Park.
I was housesitting and couldn’t resist opening the book The Mountains of America, which turned into a full afternoon of me spiraling into Edward Abbey’s words. I really resonated with his epiphany: “I had discovered that I was the kind of person who cannot live comfortably, tolerably, on all-flat terrain. For the sake of inner equilibrium, there has to be at least one mountain range on at least one of the four quarters of the horizon—and not more than a day’s walk away.” (Agreed). His essay also inspired me to look into hiking the Arrigetch Range up in Alaska.
I also read that Thoreau was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms, and that sounded nice to me. I’m all for the adult snow day.
I chuckled out loud while reading this sarcastic article on self-care tips for toddlers.
Things I’m Working On:
I’ve got some big projects spinning out there, and have managed to land a few amazing outdoor industry partners heading into 2024, but I can’t share them with you (YET). Stay tuned on my instagram, and my Spoonflower page, and of course, please reach out if you want to partner together on a future project.
In the meantime, thank you to everyone who supports my designs and my ridiculous compulsion to keep hiking upwards. I am grateful to you and I wouldn’t be here with out you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.