Waiting for 'da snow

Never has a snowstorm been so anxiously awaited as this week in Boise, with Bogus Basin Ski Resort still barren and closed in mid-January, the worst snowpack in its 69-year history.  Up in Sun Valley they've been skiing since Thanksgiving, making snow on Baldy and maintaining what they do have quite well on the nordic trails north of town. We skied the 32-kilometer Boulder Mountain Tour trail Saturday and returned the next day to ski around Galena Lodge. Hey!--are those storm clouds on the horizon?

League of Extraordinary GentleWomen (& Men)

Each year the Jones clan, of which I am a member by virtue of my sweetie being the eldest of 5 Jones sisters, gathers for a post-Christmas Christmas, usually in the Ozarks of central Missouri. They are individually remarkable people -- Paul the Methodist theologian turned Trappist monk and prolific author; the twins Suzanne and Elise, both environmental leaders  and now becoming political leaders in addition; Wendy, a bilingual educator who emerged from recent cancer treatment with a sense of equanimity and gratitude for life; Amy, a gifted calligrapher and artist who also has a pretty sharp left brain too; and of course Katherine, a photojournalist, columnist and printmaker. Then there's the nephews and significant others, like Karl the rocket scientist. A pretty diverse lot, but what they share in common is a focus on living intentionally, something that is reinforced at these annual gatherings through family rituals and ceremonies. This group portrait was made at the end of the last gathering.

Mink Stole Trout

While scouting a location on the Boise River last week a mink swam by with a freshly caught trout in its mouth. I think he was using an elk-hair caddis.

Pinto Bennett, Back Soon

For my project "Where Music Lives" I recently photographed iconic Idaho singer/songwriter Pinto Bennett at his sheep camp home outside Hammett. Pinto is doing mostly gospel these days and has a new album, "Back Soon," coming out. He shares his sheep wagon with a dog, a cat, a Danelectro guitar and a Fender amp.

Where Music Lives: Rosalie Sorrels

Since last Spring I have been photographing musicians at their homes and personal spaces. I've wanted to create portraits of musicians in the environments they have chosen and created, places where they are  most grounded -- where music lives. On Tuesday I visited Rosalie Sorrels at her storied Grimes Creek home -- on land her grandfather settled and in a house her father built by hand. Here she plays "Nevada Moon" under the rapt attention of her dog Dudley while the afternoon light of autumn filters through trees planted  generations ago.

Changing of the Seasons on the South Fork Snake

Just my personal opinion, but there is no better place to experience the turning of autumn than the South Fork Snake River canyon.

Fighters & Friends on the Middle Fork

I never take a Middle Fork Salmon River trip for granted: floating 100 miles of crystal clear water running through the heart of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is always a gift. But it is often easy to take for granted the fact that there IS a crystal clear Middle Fork and a 2.3 million acre wilderness surrounding it. These things seem so obviously right that anything else -- a dam, clearcut forests, an open pit mine -- seem inconceivable now. But of course it was only by the work of dedicated people that the Middle Fork and places like it are still the wild and untrammeled lands they are today.

Last week I rafted the Middle Fork with several of those individuals -- Bill Arthur, Debbie Sease, Jim Blomquist, Rose Kapolczynski, Russ Shay, Ken Gersten--who met one another in the early 70s as young environmental activists and are now senior leaders in organizations like the Sierra Club and the Land Trust Alliance. They're still fighting the good fight, working to keep places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from becoming an oil field. Should they succeed, future generations will no doubt find it crazy that the arctic plains would be anything less than the magnificent, wild and pristine land of caribou and wolf and polar bear. It will be so obviously right. But not without the passion and work of people like my new good friends. Thanks.