Watch this Great Short About Backpacking with Man's Best Friend
Ace Kvale became a legend in the 1980s, alongside fellow photographer Marko Shapiro, documenting the exploding ski bum scene in Verbier, Switzerland. He moved to the Southwest in the 1990s and has spent the last twenty years exploring with his dog Genghis, who is also known as Desert Dawg.
Ace recently turned 60, and to celebrate, he planned a 60-day, off-trail backpacking trip around Utah’s Canyon Country, leaving from his front door. He had a dozen friends join him for different sections of the trip, and one friend who joined him for the whole thing: his blue heeler, 10-year-old Genghis Khan. They covered more than 400 miles on their journey, and Ace wore one pair of shoes for the entire trip: Vasque Inhalers. Filmmakers Forest Woodward and Brendan Leonard captured the trip, and Genghis and Ace’s special relationship, in the short film “Ace and the Desert Dog” above.