Walking on water: discovering standup paddleboarding

Shouldering a 10-foot standup paddleboard to the bank of the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula, I suddenly felt imbued with the coolness of surfing. As a landlocked mountain junkie, this was an unfamiliar experience. A teenager asked where I was going and I felt a sudden urge to call him “brah.” The glances of passing girls lingered a bit longer than usual. Then I realized, man, these paddleboards get pretty heavy after a couple blocks.

As people on the river path oggled, I, in true surfer style, pretended to be too cool to notice. In reality, I couldn’t move my head — I had no idea how to carry that damn board, and angling it across my shoulder and head while holding it with one arm might have looked cool, but I was well on my way to rupturing every muscle in my neck.

Osprey pack catalog and the Rattlesnake Wilderness

Osprey used one of my images in their latest pack catalog...

Hard to do the beauty of that creekside campsite justice with all the graphics on top of it. Here's another shot from the same spot:

This was one of my favorite trips of last summer — a four-day bike-and-backpacking adventure into the Rattlesnake Wilderness. My then ten-year-old son, Silas, and I rode from our front door, through the outskirts of town, and into the mountains...

Campfires of 2009

I was going though my recent images the other day and noticed that I had a lot of campfire shots. Which got me thinking -- how many campfires did I have last year?

Using a highly scientific method (i.e. reflecting for about 60 seconds) I've determined that I was lucky enough to have about 40 campfires in 2009. Took images of about half of them. (A few were in cold, wet, windy weather where the last thing on my mind was getting out the camera. And sometimes it's just nice to have a fire and relax without scampering around trying to make pretty pictures all the time. Which is why I don't have pics of them all...)

For the next couple weeks I'll post pictures from a different campfire every day. Or darn close to every day.

These first shots are from a quickie overnight camping trip Silas and I took in the mountains outside of Missoula last spring. He's roasting pig sphincters, er, a hot dog, which tasted awesome, as hot dogs roasted over campfires always do...

Night running, vol. 2

First ski day of the year!

New story hits mailboxes

My latest story should be arriving in mailboxes any day now. Encompassing a summer's worth of overnight bike rides, or S24Os, it features epic riding, family shenanigans, and a big picture of me and my two boys mountain biking on our super-long, three-seater bike. We call it the Teasdale Train.

The cover is a self-portrait from a solo-overnight on Sheep Mountain, my favorite near-Missoula backcountry ride, with ultralight camping gear this September. Took about ten tries to get the shot right. I'll do another post about that soon, with a few alternate covers we considered from the same shoot.

The cover and opening spread are below. If you'd like to see the entire article, go here.

The night run series

I often run late at night. Not because I love running when most people are going to bed, I'm not even much of a runner, but because days are busy and I meant to run and all of a sudden it's 10:00 p.m. and, by Jove, I'm not going to let that stop me from getting a run in that day. So out I go.

I also recently purchased a Canon S90 camera, which is a rocking little point-and-shoot that shoots RAW files and has surprisingly good low light performance for a camera its size. I was so excited about this that I started carrying it on my runs. At first I just wanted to see what it could do in low light, but then I started having fun taking pictures on Missoula streets in the dark of the night and it evolved into a mission: shoot at least one shot on every night run.

So now it's a series: Missoula By Night; or A Night Owl With Running Shoes and a Camera; or Mommy, Who's That Strange Man Standing in the Street Taking Pictures of Streetlights?

I'm not sure what to call it yet, but here are the first few images...

Last rides of the year

I love riding in late autumn. The air is always crisp and bracing. The colors are muted yet rich. The trails are firm and snow lingers in the shadows. Here are a few images from recent rides...