Louis Norris

It is easy to connect modern Madagascar to its history. The country is an ephemeral concoction of many things, all of which appear, as an outsider, to be constantly shifting and evolving. Similarly, the island has seen Arab traders, French colonizers, Asian settlers and African immigration, despite the fact that Madagascar was one of the last places on earth to be settled by humans. The capital has an air of desperate poverty; many people live on less than a dollar a day. They move in and out of vision, selling whatever they can. The informal economy serves many more people than the established stores and restaurants, who's high prices can only be met by the Malagasy elite and us-- the visiting fahaza. Outside the cities, much of the land seems to be rejecting the best efforts of the people to create stability. The wet season obliterates many of the roads. Getting around is not easy. Madagascar is constantly near the top of the UN’s famine watch list. To say that the people are liv...

My good friend Sam Swanson once described the high sierra season as “drinking cheesecake out of a fire house”. It’s a lot of something good. It can also be a lot to take in, but you better make sure you get as much of the cheesecake as you possibly can before the hose turns off. I returned to this metaphor from time to time as my friends and I used every second of our time off from work to chase the melt that cascades down the Sierra mountains at sporadic intervals during the spring.   Coming into this season, I was less goal oriented than I have been in previous years. My main objectives were centered around getting outside with my friends as much as possible, sleeping on my Z rest, and perfecting fire-in-pot cinnamon roles (which still eludes me). So much of the high sierra is intangible; water levels fall well outside of the domain that we can control and the added work siphon made my schedule much more rigid than is necessary for the “drop everything and go” mentality that beco...

  What the hell are you gonna do with a canoe in Islamabad?  A fair and poignant question from the Turkish airlines employee in the Atlanta airport as our teams invaluable Bernie Engelmen attempted to get his "canoe" to Pakistan. Despite her skepticism, she let him slide and Bernie, along with the rest of the American tough guys, were on our way to a 1 am reunion in the Islamabad baggage claim.  Our team was comprised of TL Ben "Big Daddy" Luck, Cody "Weak Link" Beach, Bernie "Sauce Boss" Engelmen, and myself-- Louis "Baby Eugggg" Norris. With solid nicknames in place, we felt that we were ready to take on anything, even the Indus.  A few key statistics from our trip:  Number of soiled underwear: 4.5  Number of drivers named Amos: 2  Number of drivers named Amos who knew what they were doing: 1  Amount of Chai tea consumed: n+1  Number of Urdu words learned by the crew: 2.5  Games of Chess lost by Ben Luck: 0  Number of portages: Wh...