Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Miscellanea

For anyone skilled at sewing, there exists a pattern for a stuffed kiwa hirsuta toy, better known as the Yeti Crab.

For anyone with a serious interest in photography, here is probably the best photography blog I've run across, by a gentleman in Alberta. He discusses the whole nine yards: technical matters, composition, inspiration, practicalities, selling work. Makes me want to shoot more.

For anyone interested in Iranian mountaineering, here's a good trip report describing what it's like. Interestingly, the author's guide was an Iranian Jew who left and later returned because he missed Iran's mountains (which if you don't already know, are bigger than anything in the lower 48). Of course, anyone interested in these things at all had better see Grass, the 1925 documentary by Merian C. Cooper (King Kong), following the migration of a tribe of 50,000 Bakhtiari nomads across flooding rivers and over a 12,000-foot pass. Detractors claimed he staged it all in the San Joaquin valley; I don't think so. God, I'd like to go to that country! Preferably without joining the Marine Corps.

Finally, here's a landscape looking west from the Sangre de Cristos during a brief break in storms last weekend. The mountains breaking through the clouds in the distance are the Jemez Range, and the cloud carpet looks to be at about 8,000 feet. This winter's been a thrill in new Mexico; should have bought snowshoes this fall!