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Kosovo

Jordan Manley — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:39:56 +0000

Prizren, Kosovo – The 400 year old ornate ceiling of Sinan Pasha mosque soars above our heads. We ask the imam, a man in his late 40’s, if we can climb it’s stone minaret. It’s a long shot. He agrees. It’s the imam’s first time going up, too, he admits. This kind of gracious hospitality has been the norm in Kosovo. He unlocks the small wooden door and we step into the dark. It’s black as night, and barely shoulder width wide. We probe and spiral our way up the steep steps. It takes concentration. A thick coating of dust and pigeon crap makes the footing unsure. Every few minutes spiraling tunnel comes to life as we pass a small window. Five, maybe 10 minutes go by. We emerge into the daylight at the top of the tower. Prizren bustles below us, and fades to the west. I briefly look up to the Shar mountains behind us. They haven’t been as kind as we hoped. In this moment, it doesn’t matter.

Japan: A Skier’s Journey

Jordan Manley — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:20:09 +0000

Tokyo: I’ll miss the feeling of ambiguity & simultaneous intimacy, crammed in your tiny bars getting to know their 8 occupants, surrounded by 30 million people; your weird and wacky Capsule hotels.

Niseko & Black Diamond lodge: I’ll miss your calm and cold nights on the chairlift, and deep days in the forests, winds blowing up high.

Tokachidake: I’ll miss your Onsens, gifts from the boiling mountain! And you too, Mr. Hokkaido Fox.

As seen in forthcoming Japan: A Skier’s Journey Ep1 [Season 3] and Powder magazine feature article on Tokachidake, coming 2012/13 ski season.

Argentina: A Skier’s Journey EP3 [Season 2]

Jordan Manley — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:11:09 +0000

Baffin Island: A Skier’s Journey

Jordan Manley — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:31:06 +0000

Take a step through a magical world…

This just in.

Jordan Manley — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:27:17 +0000

Video editing [for months] is bad for…….well, the list is too long.

Friends of Shames: A Skier’s Journey

Jordan Manley — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:58:58 +0000

Here it is, episode one from season 2 of A Skier’s Journey that I produced. Chad Sayers does all the fine skiing. Stay tuned for Baffin Island, coming December 12!

Aka Skidor cover

Jordan Manley — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:19:07 +0000

Here is a new cover (though actually kind of an old photo) from my friends at Aka Skidor in Sweden. 5th cover with them, they have been quite good to me – thanks Tobias and Örjan!

Costa Rica

Jordan Manley — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:25:09 +0000

Sept. 28th. 9am, the sun is already high, blasting rays down on my head and this remote beach on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. It’s hard to believe Jacqui is doing so well in the humidity – she normally hates it.

18kms to go.

We arrive at the ‘park entrance’ 2k into the hike along a perfect beach, our reservation isn’t quite adequate the Parque Nacional Corcovado ranger tells me en espanol. We needed one more confirmation note. You’re kidding me. I keep staring at him. The 11hr bus ride to Puerto Jimenez, the 3hr collectivo ride in the back of a pickup truck through the jungle this morning, the wierd ghost looking spider that almost gave Jacqui a heart attack, and the 2km hike to the park entrance meant we weren’t going to turn around on some bureaucratic technicality. Common sense and compassion prevail and the ranger lets us pass.

We get intimate with the largest preserve of lowland tropical jungle in Central America. It’s my third time doing this $&*! slog. The last time I had bad blisters, Corcovado managed to deliver the most painful experience of my life. But it’s of the most biodiverse places on the planet. The magic of biodiversity and the promise of seeing nature’s evolutionary answers to complex problems is what keeps drawing me back.

The crocodile we see when wading across the 200ft river crossing seems relatively small, and nice. And we aren’t attacked when we come upon several troops of fabled White Lipped Peccaries (endangered, though here they often travel in groups of 300). We had been warned, repeatedly.

Jacqui steps over the flange buttresses of what is likely a species of Fig tree. A [big] silk weaving Golden Orb spider sits idle in the foreground.

Flange buttresses, one of the many mind blowing evolutionary adaptrations found in this neotropical wonderland.

Prunes.

Santa Teresa. One of my favourite places anywhere.

Monteverde, cloud forest.

On assignment: Spatsizi Wilderness/Sacred Headwaters

Jordan Manley — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:31:15 +0000

August 12th. I found myself in a Turbo Twin Otter – the work horse of the North, blasting through turbulence above Northern British Columbia’s Skeena mountain range – a beauty not easily surpassed by many other places in the province (to be fair, most of the provinces ranges are stunning – and to categorize is to diminish). En route from the small town of Smithers to a place with no roads, only rivers: the Spatsizi plateau. On assignment for Coast Mountain Culture magazine, I was there to write and photograph a piece about the prolific anthropologist/ethnobotanist and author Wade Davis, and to bear witness to the story of Spatsizi Wilderness, an outfit run by the Collingwood family that lies adjacent to several large scale development projects that threaten the integrity of this vast and unique wilderness park and it’s rivers. Stay tuned for the article in the spring.

Billy Labonte flies his 1960’s canvas Cub over the Stakine river, where the mighty river is only in it’s infancy.

Ray Collingwood has lived in the Spatsizi Wilderness since the 1960s.

Double rainbow, anyone?

We Miss You

Jordan Manley — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:24:57 +0000

One of the best things I’ve seen in a while.