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KentTreptow

@kent.treptow

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Casting spells.

I actually have no idea what’s going on here. No one does. The last person who understood its meaning likely died thousands of years ago. Only parts of it remain, the rest destroyed by rainwater running down the cliff, their fate determined by the slightest nuance in the rock that allowed water to flow here but not over there. If you look closely, you can see hints of other figures that once stood only an inch or two away from those that are still fully intact.

But even in its diminished state it’s a magical work of art, one that starts to move if you stare at it long enough in dim moonlight. And as usual for this style of rock art, the detail and craftsmanship are incredible. One of my favorite panels. by @kent.treptow

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4 days ago

So this just happened. Together over 20 years, married today. Love you forever. by @kent.treptow

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23 days ago

Ancient faces, sandstone cliffs and a little black bear that followed us up the canyon one night.

I’d searched for this rock art panel - painted about 700 years ago - a half dozen times in recent years before finding it this past fall, in a fairly obvious spot I’d somehow missed. It’s yet another thing I love about this country - always some new discovery right around the corner. by @kent.treptow

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a month ago

Another old panel with small figures and outsized impact, from the same timeframe as the one I posted a couple weeks ago.

Many people assume there’s deep meaning here, maybe a commemoration of a great event or a petition to supernatural powers from a time when the world was bigger and more mysterious than it is now. But I look at this one and wonder if sometimes people just painted because they liked to, for the fun of it. And I like the thought of that. by @kent.treptow

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3 months ago

Bad weather, good light. by @kent.treptow

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3 months ago

A couple things our government did this week:

One, it slashed Bears Ears and Grand-Staircase Escalante national monuments by 90%, exposing one of Amerca’s most sublime landscapes and 100,000 archaeological sites (in Bears Ears alone) to damage and destruction from uranium mining and oil extraction.

And two, it gutted the Endangered Species Act, allowing extraction industries as well as developers to operate in critical habitat for endangered species. If you think epic American landscapes deserve protection, and that our country is a better place with manatees, bald eagles, Florida panthers and wolverines in it, these actions should be a gut-punch. by @kent.treptow

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3 months ago

Last fall I went on a greatest hits tour of southwest American rock art.

This site has been photographed a thousand times, but still I need to see it. I sit under this overhang for long minutes pondering the mystery and genius of it, in the same way I would with a Monet in a museum.

This figure is old - very old - from one of the earliest known rock art traditions of the Southwest. It has been on this rock face at least 1,500 years, and possibly over 7,000. Conjured, perhaps, from dreams or nightmares, the central figure stands upright like a person but with the head of a desert bighorn sheep and the tongue of a snake. What looks like a bird rests on one hand and a snake on the other. Multitudes of smaller sheep, some no bigger than a thumbnail, approach from either side. It’s deceptively small, less than a foot tall.

The aspen were fading in the high country as I drove in, just a few patches of gold instead of entire mountainsides covered with it. Still beautiful. by @kent.treptow

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3 months ago

Fog on the water. Last year’s leaves. Pastel skies. Light through my porthole.

Little things that keep me sane. by @kent.treptow

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4 months ago

Through great effort over many years, I’ve learned to see things I used to ignore. It’s what saves me when I hit a wall, as I’m doing now at ten weeks on the ship. I find any excuse to go outside and just . . . notice. Sunlight on water. Birds in formation. Iridescent beetles stumbling on deck, trying to make sense of burning steel under their carapace. I stop now and marvel, let it fill me up. Finding pretty things in ugly places has become my survival skill.

The ship is tired and grey, weakened by saltwater and the abuse of heavy machinery. I walk the deck as rain comes down in sheets and buckets, draining rust and filth into clover leafs where butterflies drown in oily water and cargo cranes tower overhead. by @kent.treptow

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4 months ago

When a thousand feet of ship meets twenty feet of typhoon swell. The ingenuity of man against the awesome power of nature.

Every sailor has a clip like this on their phone. But for most people this is probably something seldom, if ever, seen.

I might make another video montage of my time at sea (like my Greenland adventure on Youtube - search my name there if interested). If so, this will be the opening scene. by @kent.treptow

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5 months ago

At sea by @kent.treptow

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6 months ago

Back to the job. Out to sea. Four months of all day, every day, working on a ship thousands of miles from home. A hard bargain but fair, to be able to see things most people never will.

Humpback mother and calf in a South Pacific dream, one last breath before disappearing. by @kent.treptow

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6 months ago