JOIN THE SUNSET COMMUNITY
facebook.com/
SunsetMagazine@Sunset
on Twitterpinterest.com/
SunsetMag@sunsetmag
on InstagramWrite to us, tweet us, or tag us on Instagram; we promise we read
each and every one of your comments.IRENE EDWARDS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | @irene_sunset | [email protected]Grand getaways
Autumn is a magical time
to travel the West. Check out
our picks for cool desert des-
tinations, wine-harvest trips,
and mountain drives explod-
ing with changing leaves.
sunset.com/fallgetaways.ONE EVENING NOT TOO LONG AGO, I
booked a last-minute flight from Oakland
to Jackson Hole , Wyoming , to join the
crew shooting the cover you hold in your
hands. The journey turned out to be rife
with random travel mishaps—a lost bag,
a bout of altitude sickness, a heart-
pounding connection in Salt Lake City.
None of it mattered, however, once I was
riding shotgun next to photographer
Taylor Glenn in a vintage FJ40 and cruis-
ing through the wilds of Grand Teton
National Park. I was rapt in wonder at
the mountains , gobsmacked at my good
fortune, and grateful I’d remembered one
of my cardinal rules: Never turn down an
impromptu adventure.
Because this was my chance to meet
Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi , the
husband-and-wife team behind the new
documentary Free Solo. The film, aboutbehind the
scenes: on
location for
this month’s
cover in grand
teton national
park.pro climber Alex Honnold and his untethered 2017 ascent of Yosemite’s
El Capitan , has already been tapped for a number of high-profile festivals
and built a considerable amount of buzz. I was fascinated by the epic scale
of the couple’s collaboration—the stakes were so high on this project, liter-
ally life or death —but what I was most drawn to was the downright nor-
malcy of their domestic sphere. “Jimmy is excellent at shooting this type
of movie,” Vasarhelyi told me. “But the power of the story comes from me
being interested in totally different things.”
We crawled around the family camper van with their adorable tykes ,
waiting for golden hour to break above the peaks. It was one of those fine
Wyoming evenings. I asked Vasarhelyi about her daily juggle, the constant
yearning for balance—typical questions from one working mom to another.
“For me, having kids made my work better,” she responded. “It’s made me
more focused. My decision-making is sharper.” Maybe it wasn’t quite as
dramatic as dangling without a rope off the side of a mountain. But some-
how it was precisely what I needed to hear at exactly the right time.
#latergram
This year Sunset turns 120,
so we asked our Instagram
followers to vote on favorite
past covers. The winner?
This beauty from September
1963, featuring Arizona’s
Canyon de Chelly. Follow us
@sunsetmag for future polls,
contests, and more eye-
catching photography!Pretty palettes
Getting hitched this fall? Our
wedding decor ideas take
inspiration from the season’s
glorious colors: sunset.com/
fallweddingcolors.6 OCTOBER 2018 ❖ SUNSET
CONVERSATIONS
New
& Now