Dirtbag Drop-Outs on Film

I just watched 180° South. Basically, some dudes take a trip to Patagonia, surf, climb mountains, and talk about conservation, and the meaning of life with Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (the founders of Patagonia and North Face, respectively). It's sort of a re-creation of a trip Chouinard and Tompkins took in 1968 in which they drove south from California to climb Fitz Roy, then made a movie about it called Mountain of Storms (which now I guess I'll have to track down and see). 180° South was good, but I wouldn't say amazing. The surfing and climbing shots are of course beautiful. The soundtrack is very good, but a little too heavy on the Jack Johnson for my tastes. The discussion of dropping out/the meaning of life is fairly simplistic when it's from the point of view of the main narrator, but I think that Chouinard and Tompkins, given their impressive experience as both businessmen, dirtbags, and philanthropic conservationists, had more interesting and nuanced things to say. It should go without saying that the movie strengthened my wanderlust.

Trailer for 180° South
Trailer for Mountain of Storms

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S
Read more

The 50th Year of Trying to Hold the Western States Endurance Run

Image
I ran the 50th Western States Endurance Run June 24-25 in a disappointing 28:54.  I mean, 50 years ago a guy ran a horse race, and 47 times since then a footrace of similar distance has been held. (There was one fire cancellation and one COVID cancellation.) So it's kind of the 48th running in the 50th year, but whatever. By disappointing I mean it took me longer than 24 hours, and it took me longer than the 25:30 it took me when I did it 10 years ago. (And by 10 years ago I mean 10 years, not eight, though I believe I applied eight times in those 10 years, having not bothered to apply in 2014, and if I remember correctly, COVID meant they rolled over 2020 without a new lottery.) I trained hard and consistently from early March through May 20, going as far as hiring an online coach. That seemed to work well, until it didn't. I hurt my hamstring running the Silver State 50K (more on that in my previous post ) and babied my hamstring for the final five weeks prior to Western Stat
Read more