This photo comes from friend, reader, and honorary Dirtbag Diaries board member Josh Norris.  Josh snapped a photo of Griffin on his first steps into the vertical.  Josh may have his hands full later in life — from an early age Griffin loved to be tossed, twirled and spun in the air.  There may be some hospital bills in the Norris family future. Please send those photos in for Friday stoke.

I spent the last weekend up at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.  There was an incredible array of outdoor oriented films and many of them were big budget productions with hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown towards plane tickets, helicopters and post production editing.  When all was said and done though, a small budget/big hearted film from Canada won out becoming the first film to win the People’s...

…the final installment of Jason’s Alberts essay. A discussion I began to have frequently with my wife in Madagascar revolved around the premise of students becoming teachers and teachers becoming students. My middle school teaching career was interrupted to facilitate the Madagascar adventure. We explored the paradox of teachers and students: the notion of learning as an accumulation of discrete...

…today we present part two of Jason Albert’s the Big Red Island… Outdoor school began. Draped above our tent was an old-growth Tamarind tree. Sporadically we heard jostling in the limbs above. Unzipping the tent, my son gawked up. A group of six sifaka, a striking lemur species with thick white hair and contrasting black face, busied about. My wife and I made loud “shoosh” gestures to prevent...

This week we’ve got a special guest — Jason Albert. Like so many adventures, his family’s work trip to Madagascar started as an inspiring idea, got painfully epic in the process and ended up being the most important journey  in Jason’s life. There is a lot of insight in Jason’s words, but I’ll let him speak for himself.  Please stay tuned for the next two parts later this...