the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

As one of the few people who has been snowboarding since the mid-1980s, Eric Blehm remembers duct taping moon boots to his all-wood Slicker snowboard, then slipping his surf-bootie-clad feet into the moon boot bindings. More often than not, ski areas would turn him away, telling him that they didn't allow surf-skiers or ski-surfers or whatever that thing was taped to his feet. But Eric stuck with the sport and eventually ended up as editor of TransWorld Snowboarding in the mid-1990s. He is renowned for working closely with The Chameleon, a snowboarding revolutionary who infiltrated almost every anti-snow- boarder ski area in America (including Taos, Alta and Aspen). Some industry insiders claim that Eric himself is The Chameleon but he will neither confirm nor deny this rumor. Eric quit TransWorld three years ago to travel the world. His latest adventure was a bullet-riddled snowboarding expedition to Iran (Mullahs and Mountains, page 80). If you want to question Eric about The Chameleon or anyth ing else, drop him a line at blemish@home,com. When he isn't trying to evade ra ilroad security personnel, Matthew Power (Trainhopping, page 36) divides his time between New York City and the road, Last year, he could be found climbing 200 feet above the forest floor with activist tree-sitters of the Pacific Northwest and searching for traces of the possibly extinct thylacine (a marsupial wolf) in Tasmania, When in New York, Matt writes, works in community gardens in the South Bronx and harasses Mayor Giuliani. A cautionary note: This past summer, Matt was given a 65-dollar ticket and a stern warning for riding a boxcar through Tennessee. In 1971, North Bank Fred hopped his first train in Los Angeles after spending a whole day trying to hitch a ride to San Francisco. Ever since that first run, Fred was hooked on tramp life. Rubbing elbows with old-time hobos from the Depression days, kids riding for fun , migrant workers and hobos with names like Short Track and the Keddie Bum, Fred has zigzagged across America, living on train time and keeping an eye out for the railroad bulls. His trips have ranged from weekend jaunts up the California coastline to a 14-day, 15-train, 2,500-mi le pi lgrimage to the National Hobo Convention held in Britt, Iowa. His photographs in this issue (Trainhopping, page 36) are testament to this subculture of proud, rai l-riding nomads. Sallie Shatz has been photographing the Middle East since 1993. Last December, she teamed up with blue Executive Editor Claire Hochachka to experience Jerusalem during the Millennium (City of Divine Obsession, page 44). There they found the city teeming with spiritual pilgrims and people awaiting the apocalypse and return of Christ. "Attempting to translate the intensity of Jerusalem during the Millennium into photographic images was one of the most incredible experiences of my life," says Sallie. " In th is unique moment in time and place anything seemed possible. We were dancing with the end of t ime and savoring every last second. Then we woke up on January 1, 2000, and were surprised to find Jerusalem still stand- ing!" When Sallie is not traipsing around the Middle East, she is an active member of Mountain Rescue-Aspen. Her images have been exhibited on Capitol Hill and at the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, DC, in Jerusalem and in a traveling exhi- bition through Australia, During 2001, they will appear in Amnesty International's worldwide photo exhibit to launch their new anti-torture campaign,

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