Groovin’… The Calendar 2012

With the help of my good friend and amazing graphic designer Sophie Binder (April groover girl), production of the first edition of “Groovin’… The Calendar 2012″ is complete. Many of you may have no idea what a groover is and why it should warrant such recognition in a calendar. Well let me explain.

Many of you know river rafting is a big part of my life and work.  I especially love multi-day river trips. In river rafting terminology, a “groover” is an old military surplus rocket box which serves as a latrine. Having a portable toilet with you on a river trip is now commonly required as it helps ensure sanitation and preservation of the river and its camps. As legend has it, the name comes from the grooves you get on your thighs and buttocks when you sit on the thin metal rim of the box to make your deposit.

Nowadays, most people pack a toilet seat for increased comfort, but the name remains. Thus, on a river trip you go to the groover to groove. The location chosen to set up your groover is very important as you might imagine. Convenience, privacy, and above all, a location capitalizing on supreme river side views are all of great importance.

It is the variety of stunning scenery found at a well chosen groover site that motivated my regular boating buddy (and December groover girl) Andraea Tanner and me to begin this calendar project. Over the last two river seasons, and with the generous and immodest help of many other willing boating friends, I created a series of photographs that now find themselves in the first edition of Groovin’… The Calendar 2012.

Here is a full preview of the calendar. You can flip through all the pages.

If you are interested in ordering copies of the calendar, place you on-line order with me through the Groovin’… The Calendar web page. At just $15.00 they will make perfect Holiday gifts for all your boating buddies. If your on my gift list there’s no guessing what what your getting.

The calendar includes holidays, river permit application dates, and many more obscure yearly celebrations. Don’t forget to visit the official Groovin’… The Calendar web page.

On Assignment: Dominguez Escalante NCA

7 image Panorama of the Gunnison River in the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area photo by Richard Durnan

In the Spring of 2010 I was contracted by the Western Rivers Conservancy (WRC) to photograph some private land parcels along Colorado’s Lower Gunnison River. The 396 acres of private land they had me photograph is outstanding river frontage adjacent to the newly designated Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area.

Access to this remote land necessitates floating the Gunnison river. This made it the perfect assignment for me because of my years of rafting and kayaking experience. Serving as the River Ranger for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from 1997 to 2001 on this section of river also gave me an intimate knowledge of the area.

The video below is a behind the scenes video journal style look look at how I did the shoot.

*Note: If you are an email feed subscriber and reading this post in your email program, you may need to go to the actual blog site to see the video.

Since I did this shoot, the WRC purchased this land and conveyed it to the BLM as part of the newly formed Dominguez-Escalante NCA (see my earlier posts on the NCA here and here). This helps to ensure the survival of four species of endangered warmwater fish: Colorado pike minnow, humpback chub, bonytail chub and razorback sucker and protects habitat for wildlife and rare desert plants. This acquisition also enhances recreational access to backcountry trails and beautiful red rock canyons. Additionally the WRC purchased and conveyed 214 acres of private land further down stream in the Bangs Canyon Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA), just outside of Grand Junction.

In June of 2011, I again was hired to float the Gunnison River through the NCA for the WRC. My assignment documenting recreational activities on the Gunnison River and in-land called for models that could raft, canoe, hike and camp.  My good friends Sophie Binder, Marion and August Frebourg met the prerequisites and were more than willing to take on the job with me.

Here are more of the photos from that shoot.

Read the Western Rivers Conservancy press release here.