Kyle Obermann Photography

Super happy for as she leaps into this new chapter with . So many more trails await.

Thanks as well to my friends at (if you want to understand China's trail running scene, this is THE platform) for bringing me out here to shoot with a friend. We've both come a long way since 2018, when it was your first time on an airplane outside China, and I scratched an entire Mercedes' bumper trying to get out of a European parking spot to get you to the start of your debut international race at 6am 😂😂

Lots has changed over the years, but one thing hasn't: my legs always get pretty sore on the first day trying to keep up. Love that feeling.

加油姚妙!

Well. I finally learned how to deal with frostbite.

Alaska in winter tastes like salt. Not salt from ocean air or running sweat, but salt from my freezing nose, running down into my mouth for 10 hours a day, sealed under a layer of Vaseline and tape, one hand warmer, a nose mask, a balaclava, and a buff outside in -30 degrees F.

The Vaseline-under-tape was a trick a local Native American woman taught me. She was in our lodge one day, cooking meals for the elders. When told her that I got frostbite on my nose on the first day's 55 mile snowmobile journey down across the frozen Innoko River, this was the trick she recommended.

You look like a fool, and it feels like pulling your face off to take off, but wow, I really couldn't recommend it more. It did the trick.

Overall, my week in the Innoko Valley finding and filming the rare wood bison now living there was something unlike I've ever experienced. Life at -30 is perilous, feels as razor sharp as the sword shadows of spruce in the low sun, but beautiful. People make a home here, wildlife make a home here, and the entire valley slumbers and shakes with the resilience and creativity of a life made on this incredible, wonderful planet.

Happy to be where it's 100F warmer now, and if it's cold i still prefer to be at least 4000m above the sea, but man, was that an experience I'll always cherish. Thanks again to and for the trust and invite, and to for tying us together!

It's a big, beautiful world out there. One worth everything we have to explore, cherish, and love it.

Blizzard in Brooklyn - 2.23.2026. New York hasn't seen a winter storm like this in 10 years. Feeling really lucky to be here today and able to get out there this morning. It was a really magical few hours.

Now, who wants to take bets whether I will make my flight to Anchorage from LGA tomorrow?

More frames from the NYT story on domestic, feral, and free-ranging dogs in the Himalaya. A whirlpool of interlaced systems - religion, tourism, military, and climate - have brought Lakdah's wildlife to the brink by the new apex predator that has been allowed to thrive here, and elsewhere across the trans-Himalaya (so China, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan too).

More frames from the story of domestic, feral, and free-ranging dogs in the Himalaya. A whirlpool of interlaced systems - religion, tourism, military, and climate - have brought Lakdah's wildlife to the brink by the new apex predator that has been allowed to thrive here, and elsewhere across the trans-Himalaya (so China, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan too).

Trying to capture all of these different causalities for this story was a challenge, one that often lacked oxygen (my favorite types), and rolled out over many months and two years of visits to India.

Feral Dogs on the Roof of the World - NYT 12.26.25

This story has a web of roots: in 2009, a smash hit Bollywood film, "3 Idiots," catapulted Ladakh into a number one travel destination for the modern Indian tourist. Years later, Ladakh is transformed. A web of home stays and restaurants stretch across the region. With it, an immense amount of new trash and food waste has arrived.

Meanwhile, on the contentious border with China and Pakistan, the military is building its presence on either side. More trash; more waste.

The Indian subcontinent heats up. More tourists come in the summer. More trash; more waste.

There is neither the infrastructure or policy to deal with such waste in the Himalaya, yet. But the waste allows once small populations of feral dogs to survive winter and breed ferociously across the landscape. Because of this, endangered wildlife like Pallas cat have been extirpated from some areas.

Meanwhile, due to religious and cultural respect for animal lives, extreme measures such as culling the dogs isn't legal. Neutering isn't keeping up with the pace of breeding.

And, the dogs, as they move generation by generation away from domestication, are re-wilding, even interbreeding with wolves. The locals have a new name for this chimera: khibshang.

While Ladakh faces a unique mix of causes, this is a trans-Himalayan issue, from China to Kyrgyzstan. The solutions must come from the policy level.

While cities like Leh are beginning to implement more stringent waste control policies, it feels like crisis like these need national momentum, funding, and enforcement - especially in regards to regulating how military camps affect the land they are on.

Afterall, without biodiversity, without a healthy living planet, what's left fighting for?

2026 approaches. As the earth returns to where it was a year ago, so much is changed around me. 2025 was one of the most wild, thunderous years, and the changes that happened this year will affect the rest of my future. 2026 will be filled with more scenes like this. Exciting plans underway!

As the earth returns to where it was a year ago, so much is changed around me. 2025 was one of the most wild, thunderous years, and the changes that happened this year will affect the rest of my future. 2026 will be filled with more scenes like this. Exciting plans underway!

From some of my earliest work with in Sichuan, China, nine years on a hard drive I only got back in August. The village of Ganbao (甘堡） is tucked away amidst the myriad of mountain valleys in the region, where the villages and ruins that hang from the hilltops resemble scenes from the French Riviera. But what made Ganbao special for us at the time was CI's introduction of mixed agroforestry practice - chickens happily clucking under gnarled cherry trees or amidst rows of corn, all growing together out of tangled carpet of legumes below.

Hidden corners of Yunnan: when asked me to come to China and film some her story, I knew this was the project I wanted to cap of my year with. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

We covered quite a lot of ground: Wuhan, Dali, & Lijiang in a week, and I left wishing we had just a bit (or a lot) more time. But this spot in particular blew my mind. I had first seen it from a car window 10 years ago. I haven't been able to stop wondering about it ever since. Of course everyone in China knows the Tiger Leaping Gorge now, but when we finally travelled to this little corner, we found no tourists and unfettered access down to the banks of the Yangtze. It was a dream come true and felt like an entrance into another world - an affirmation that curiosity still opens the door to places in China few know about, even when they exist in nearly plain sight.

Now, of course, the editing.

When fall turns to winter amongst the tallest peaks of New York State.

A quick and not uneventful trip for , chasing storms in the ADK.

The wonderful Samarkand for

A focal point of cultural, religious, technological, genetic, and economic exchange for millennia; the once-domain of Alexander the Great, Persia, the Arab Conquest, the Tang Dynasty, the Mongols, Timur, and Russia. So much of humanity's stories have passed along these streets and walls. Equally humbling and connecting to come here one more this fall with Nat Geo.

When you see this I'll already be in Turkmenistan (one of the hardest places to visit in the world) with no internet for the next few days. See you on the other side.