vlog

Enter The Dragon (M4), RMNP

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My climbing partner Enrico Calvanese just finished editing this video of a mixed ice and rock climb we did in Rocky Mountain National Park this March. This was my first climb coming off of having Covid – I was smoked!!! It was fun to pair up with someone dedicated to the videography as I usually neglect documentation in favor of focusing on the climbing.

Enjoy the video! It should be available with Italian subtitles as well. Enrico has other great mountaineering videos on his channel too – check it out!

It might not be the last time I make an appearance on there…

The climb will not be televised!

Daniel 2 Comments

I bought a GoPro last summer for a specific project. It has been rarely used since. Nothing against the GoPro – it’s a tremendous camera – but using it changes the context of things.

Climbing is one of a vanishing number of modern situations where you can feel free of cameras and expectations. Your buddy might bust out the phone for a quick photo at the belay, but in general the nature of the activity prevents obsessive documentation. All the really great climbing photos are taken by a third party, usually planned well in advance.

We brought the GoPro out on a recent outing in RMNP thinking we might capture some really badass mountaineering footage.

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Armchair Travel: Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Daniel 1 Comment

Armchair Traveler is my series about places I have no personal experience with. Usually, it’s just a piece of content someone else produced that I find fascinating and think my audience would also enjoy!

If you spend a lot of time on the Internet, you probably recognize Drew Scanlon as this guy with the weird blinks:

For about a month in 2017, this GIF was a super popular meme. Almost unavoidable on social media. Which was weird for me, since I recognized Drew from Giant Bomb, a video game site where I used to be a frequent contributor. We used to chat in the IRC.

But times change, and Drew doesn’t work there, and I don’t think about video games much anymore (read an essay about that, here).

When he’s not moonlighting as an Internet meme, Drew produces a series of travel videos, called Cloth Map. He recently visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, and documented the strange experience of visiting a place most of us have only ever seen in computer games.

See the 30-minute video below:

You can support Cloth Map on Patreon.