18 years past and I find myself here once again. Connemara is a place of legends and wild rugged landscape. It is an environment of delicate peat bogs, lakes, stone walls, craggy peaks, sheep, and a sense of peace. There are few places more uniquely Irish than Connemara. In a country that has gone through (and continues to do so) profound social and economic upheavel one can still come here and get a sense of something above the rush of the cities and modern life. Connemara is not just a place it is a feeling. Situated in west County Galway the people there make a clear distinction between this place, themselves and the rest of Galway if not the rest of Ireland. You couldn’t fault them for doing so. It is wild, peaceful, magic and mysterious. But it can also be loud with the sound of wind blowing across it mountain tops, it’s people laughing and traditional music escaping from bars and halls. It is home to Connemara National Park and the Twelve Ben peaks in the Maumturk mountain range where you can hike for days with sheep watching your every move. The Glencoaghan Horseshoe is one of the best hikes I’ve done anywhere and is an Irish classic. Not to mention the Diamond Hill hike which is a great way to get your day started.
It has forever been a hub for artists and writers for it’s easy to be inspired here. The main town of the area is Clifden and if you’re lucky enough to be in Connemara this week of October you’ll catchClifden Arts Weekwhere Irish Poet Laureate and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney will be in attendance. Whilst in Clifden I had the pleasure and good ‘craic’ of strolling into the Lavelle Art Gallery where I met owner and himself a talented artist Gavin Lavelle. Gavin is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. We mused over the state of the art world in Ireland and I left laughing with promises to return to continue the conversation. If you’re one for acommodations that strike at the heart of you and ooze with character I’d highly recommend the Old Monastery Hostel in Letterfrack. Situated 35 paces from the National Park entrance. If you need to write a book, make decisions, or just be in a hospitable relaxed atmosphere you’d stay here.
This is a special place and a unique one. You won’t find the likes of it anywhere else. And that’s fact. The people who live there know it and when they say goodbye they do so with a cheeky smile because they know chances are you’ll be back. They wave with one hand and with the other they have a tight hold that lasts forever.
A little techy moment now for all of you geeks. The video is shot with the new 5d Mark II and edited in Final Cut. The mark II presents it’s own challenges when it comes to editing it’s files and getting them into a format where I could edit natively in Final Cut but after much digging round the internet I worked a few things out.
Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was drowned in 1913 to create a reservoir that would bring water and energy to the sprawling cities of California as far south as Los Angeles. A lot of people never really think about where their water comes from besides out of their tap or in a plastic bottle. A lot of us have lost our connection to the source of our water and our food. For many it starts in the aisle at the supermarket where most food isn’t even found in it’s original state.
In 2006 I made my first trip to this part of Yosemite. A few weeks later I found myself in the central valley of California near the Salton Sea after being in Joshua Tree National Park. In this part of the state where the land is basically desert and doesn’t naturally support growth of anything substantial lies vast swaths of land that is developed for industrial agriculture that feeds on the water of Hetch Hetchy. This water is transported almost 400 miles to grow food for over burgeoning populations. Not forgetting of course the use of large amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In the space of 2 weeks I was seeing the water at both ends of it’s journey. From the crystal clear fresh snow melt waters of Yosemite’s majestic Tuolomne River that roars through granite canyons until the O’Shaughnessy dam disturbs it’s flow, to the fields of unnatural food and industrial farms that defy nature. The result of which unless we change our ways will ultimately defy us. If we have lost our connection to the basic things that sustain us, food and water, and we fail to understand that they are not to be taken for granted and not to be manipulated in ways that are not sustainable then soon it will all backfire on us. For thinking we’re pretty smart we can be awfully stupid as well.
These pictures were taken on a 4 day hike on the weekend of June 13th 2009 into the backcountry of the Yosemite wilderness. we went into an area called Jack Main Canyon and our final destination a place called Wilma lake. We covered a total of 46 miles round trip starting at 3815ft and reaching just under 8000ft at Wilma. Many areas were water logged as we were still in melt run off season. Twice I had to wade in water and there was plenty of bushwacking. The toughest part of it was climbing out of the mouth of the canyon on the way back out. The first night at Backpackers campsite was marked with what I thought was a strobe light going off in my face and then realizing no I was not in the studio anymore. That was a nice bolt of lightning. 3 seconds later it was followed with one huge crack of thunder right over our heads. I turned to my backcountry partner and gave him a little smile. Despite it’s obvious danger in the mountains I do get excited sometime by a darn good electrical storm. It’s the elements. Mother Nature doing her thing. The storm clouds lingered for the whole entire time we were there, menacingly overhead, but the storm never came. The rain began to drizzle down on our last day when we were only just a mile from our exit from the wilderness.
No bears at all on this trip which has to be the first trip in a long long time into Yosemite that I have not seen a bear somewhere. Managed some twilight visits from deer to our camp though. One was a big guy with horns and he wasn’t shy. He looked rather stately. The mozzies were present in large numbers as they usually are this time of year but fortunately my friend had remembered the repellent and we managed to empty the bottle.
There isn’t much that a walk into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada can’t do for me. It challenges me on all levels and gives me the space, solace and comfort to think about who I am, what I want out of my life and how I want the planet to be and finally to accept everything that comes my way no matter how it comes. It revitalizes and it inspires. When I walk in nature, nature walks in me and life is good.
