WISH YOU WERE HERE…
PHOTO SET: Zach Pińa
The alarm goes off, shrill, and just out of reach. Somewhere below the lofted ceilings of a high-alpine A-frame, the blue flame of a gas burner flicks to life, setting off a chain reaction of activity as the dark space springs to life. Coffee is poured, bottles filled. Tires pumped, snacks stashed in bar bags and derailleur batteries snapped into place. As the sun creeps over distant evergreens, we assemble on the deck for photos through the haze, cold and colorful.
It’s simply not been the year for many of the things we once took for granted. With even the best-laid plans falling victim to the general malaise that has been 2020, we still committed to at least once gather in a house on the outskirts of Lake Tahoe to ride around its iconic blue shores, take photos, and enjoy the company of others in the collective safety of a like-minded pod. A plan was quickly put into place – perhaps so as to catch the year’s own maleficence off-guard, and soon we found ourselves gathered on the porch, in no immediate hurry to depart for what would be the day’s hundred mile adventure.
Suddenly we do feel the wind. It howls, rushing past ears and whipping vest collars as it bites at exposed skin in the chill of an early morning start. Lungs not yet acclimated to the altitude quickly feel the sting of even light pedaling efforts. But we’re not here to race, we’re here to experience. The pace relents, and the miles begin to tick by. We begin to relish the stops along the way – regrouping often for a photo or a snack, soon shedding layers in the afternoon sun.
In many ways, navigating the many trials that have made their mark on 2020 has required a slower, more methodical approach than what many of us are used to. It's one that’s involved surrounding ourselves with the people, the perspectives, and the things most dear to us, embracing the constant of change while celebrating individual moments between, rather than milestones. It’s a methodology that’s not unlike the ethos behind Photo Pace itself, where the collective aim is only the pursuit of moments on a path whose length or destination might not be entirely known. And so we'll get through it.
We made it home just in time for the alpenglow's fleeting warmth, basking in the day’s effort, its many moments neatly organized by singular filenames hidden away in memory cards, where they'll be relived in the weeks and months to come. One hundred miles.
But this century hits different.
DIGITAL ZINE LIVE ON INSTAGRAM
A PHOTO BOOK BY KYLE THORNHILL
Kyle’s newest zine Wish You Were Here logs Photo Pace’s trip to the Sierras—an alternate route due to the wild fires that swept through all of California during the summer and fall. Unlike the previous photo essays, Wish You Were Here has been shot entirely on film negative. The tones that are cast through the light from the hazy sky are rendered beautifully on each film stock. Wish You Were Here is now on sale.
