This is the shorts, and you're listening to The Dirtback Diaries, a duct tape

and beer production, with support from New Belgium Brewing, Kuat Racks, and Patagonia.

Travel south long enough on the Baja Peninsula, and you eventually stumble

across Tota Santas, a whisper of a village two hours north of Cabo San Lucas

Mexico. The town is known for its authentic Mexican charm, while also serving as an

artist's getaway in world-class surfing destination. In December 2012, life

washed me ashore in Tota Santas. Back home in Portland, Oregon, literal and

figurative deaths had been flaring up like wildfire. It all started with my 98

year old grandfather passing away. Then the family dog. A few days later,

so-and-stole my bike, the apartment I was subletting suddenly became unavailable.

A relationship unraveled, and my job was relocated to New York City. This all

went down over the course of two weeks. Yet underneath this tempest was a

silver lining. I had been experiencing a growing itch to leave Portland for a

few years, so I took this tidal wave of turnover as a signal to make my move

now. I moved to Mexico. How City in a simple place in Tota

Santas, I discovered the space to breathe, to study, to write, and to create again. I

also found myself studying maps and trails of a nearby wilderness area, the

Sierra de la Laguna. From town, this mountain range erupts over 7,000 feet above

sea level, dividing Baja's southern cape severely down the middle. In 1994,

UNESCO designated the Sierra a biosphere reserve, due to its unusually high

rates of endemic species in biodiversity. With an average rainfall 40 inches

per year, these mountains source some majority of water for the half million

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