In these hot summer months, we have to find any way that we can to cool off. The fine folks over at Wend decided to break out that old Slip-n-Slide they had hiding in the office closet and have a little fun. You can see the results below. And for anyone keeping score at home, we’re now on our 52nd day of triple digit temperatures her in Austin, TX. I need to go look for my Slip-n-Slide too!
Last week I posted about PlanetFear’s guide to the essential gear of adventure racing, and this week, the same website is back with another adventure racing themed article. This time, they take a look at the role of the support crew for an adventure racing team.
For those that don’t know, in some longer adventure races, teams are required to bring their own support crew, which is usually a bunch of their friends who have volunteered (or have been drafted!) to meet the team at designated transition areas with all of the equipment the team will need. For example, the team may roll into the Checkpoint/Transition Area and will be going from a trekking leg to a mountain biking segment. The support team will have their bikes ready, cycling shoes prepared, and gear boxes open to restock anything the racers might need. They may also have some food waiting as well, so that the team can recharge and restore some calories before heading back out onto the course.
The PlanetFear article does an excellent job of breaking down the skills that are required to be a good support crew, and have some great tips for anyone filling that role. They discuss approaches to staying organized, setting up the TA, and even some thoughts on prepping the food as well. All in all, it’s a really interesting article for adventure racing fans who have probably never thought about this aspect of the sport before.
This year’s Primal Quest Badlands is an unsupported event, meaning that the race organizers are in charge of the logistics of moving gear around, but last year, while in Montana, I had the opportunity to see the support crew role played out to perfection. The teams love and appreciate their crew, and it showed when they would wander into a CP/TA, beyond tired and ready for some relief. The support crew would take over, spoil them with attention and goodies, and raise their spirits before they hit the trail once again. It was fun to watch them interact, and it will be very different to not see that this year.
ExWeb has some good updates today from the Karakorum, where things are mostly winding down, as teams depart and begin preparations for the fall season in the Himalaya.
The biggest piece of news is that climbers are still getting organized on Latok I in an attempt to go up the mountain and look for Oscar Perez, who has been stranded above 6500m for six days now, and there hasn’t been any contact with him at all since the weekend. At this point, his home team has no idea what his condition is, and everyone is just hoping for the best. ExWeb says that five other Spanish climbers have left their home country and are headed for Pakistan to try to help out, but considering the remote nature of the mountain, time in transit, and so on, they won’t be in a real position to assist for some time yet.
Fabrizio Zangrilli is already on the scene however, and a fly over of the campsite resulted in no visual confirmation of Oscar’s condition. Fabrizio will attempt to climb up to Oscar’s position tomorrow, and assess the situation and possibly aid in bringing him down. Once again, lets all keep our fingers crossed for a happy ending here.
Meanwhile, in other news, the Arash Mountaineers team that has been working a new route on Broad Peak reportedly has abandoned the route after running out of supplies and time. They had established the route up to Camp 3, but now say that they’ll have to return to give it another go in the future. They do, however, plan to make a summit bid along the normal route before coming home.
And finally, fresh off of her 13th 8000m peak, Korean climber Eun-Sun Oh is expected to return home tomorrow, where she’ll take a much deserved break before returning to the Himalaya in September. At that time, she’ll set her sights on Annapurna, her final obstacle before becoming the first woman to complete all of the 8000m mountains. She is firmly in the driver seat now to claim that honor, as this story from National Geographic Adventure points out, but Annapurna won’t yield up its summit easily. In fact, many consider it to be the second toughest 8000m peak to climb, behind only K2. But the other contenders, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Edurne Pasabán, and Nives Meroi have all hit snags in their bids to be the first woman to join the elite list of men to have topped out on the 8-thousanders. Miss Oh has come out of no where to knock off four of those mountains his year, and seems poised to claim her fifth in a few months.
Update: Mountaineer and author Clyde Soles has posted more info on the Oscar Perez story. Seems that the Spanish climber is actually on Latok II not I and that he is suffering from a broken arm and leg, which is why he is stranded at high camp. A radio malfunction or dead batteries might account for the lack of contact as well, so there is reason to believe that he is hanging on and waiting for a rescue. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow.
I saw this video over at the Best Hike Blog, and it stars Les Stroud of Survivorman fame and the famous gecko from the Geico Commercials. The show may be gone, but Les is still trying to show us how to survive in the outdoors. Pretty funny stuff.
The New York Times has an interesting article up how the removal of dams from rivers across the country is proving to be a major boon for kayakers looking for new runs with plenty of rapids. The removal of the concrete structures has also benefitted the flora and fauna in the surrounding areas as well.
The story says that during the 1950’s and 60’s a new dam was built roughly ever six minutes, as the U.S. looked to hydro-electricity to meet it’s growing demands for power. Now, a half-century later, there are more than 75,000 aging dams out there. Some of them are being repaired and used, while others are being torn down completely, and in the process, it is altering the water flow along those rivers, and providing some great new whitewater for paddlers.
Approximately 430 dams have been destroyed since 1999 and the end of the article lists some of the places where dam removal had created new kayaking opportunities. For example, the Embrey Dam along the Rappahannock River in Virginia was removed in 2004 and it created a half-mile long paddling corridor with constant rapids, while along the Tuckasegee River in North Carolina, the Dillsboro Dam has been slotted for removal, and when it goes soon, it’ll create Class II rapids, and plans are already in the works for whitewater park.
The side benefit of these dams being removed is that the ecology around the area is improving too. There are reports of more fish in the streams and the land surrounding the dam sites has begun to reclaim areas along the river, with trees and grasslands sprouting up once again.
An urgent appeal went out to climbers over the weekend with ExWeb helping to lead the charge. It seems that Spanish climber Oscar Perez has become stranded above 6500m on Latok I, and as of this writing, there is no update on his status. His team was requesting that any high altitude climbers who could aid in a rescue contact them so that they could organize a team on the mountain. Oscar’s climbing partner, Alvaro Novellon, is already in BC suffering from frostbite.
Oscar and Alvaro were attempting to scale the unclimbed north face on Latok I in alpine style, and estimated that it would take them 7-8 days to complete. It is unclear at this point as to what exactly happened while they were climbing the 7145 meter peak, which is located in northern Pakistan. Latok I is the first of four summits in a cluster on the Panmah Muztagh region of the Karakorum.
When ExWeb posted their story a few days back, Oscar’s team hadn’t had contact with him in three days. Everyone is still holding out hope that he is alive and well, but perhaps his radio is not functioning properly or has dead batteries. Hopefully we’ll have an update on the situation soon, but the following contact information is offered in case anyone in the region can lend a hand:
Essar Karim:
ADVENTURE TOURS PAKISTAN
P.O.Box # 465,
G-9 Post Office
Islamabad
Pakistan
Phone # +92-51- 2260820, 2252759
Fax # +92-51-2264251
Email: info@atp.com.pk, atp.global@gmail.comwww.atp.com.pk
Lets keep our fingers crossed on this one folks!
Last Sunday, a cargo ship traveling from Cairo to Dubai set out on a routine voyage that would take it through “Pirate Alley”. The ship is called the Maersk Idaho and along for the ride is Douglas Stevenson, head of the Seamen’s Church Institute’s (SCI) Center for Seafarers’ Rights, who has been twittering throughout the voyage, and keeping his eyes peeled for pirates of the coast of Somalia.
Stevenson is hoping to avoid the pirates of course, but he is trying to connect with sailors who routinely pass through those dangerous waters. in recent months, the Somali pirates have become increasingly bold in their attacks, and although there haven’t been any high profile incidences like the ones that took place back in April, in which U.S. Navy SEALS shot and killed pirates holding an American hostage.
You can follow Stevenson’s Twitter feed by clicking here. So far, there is nothing as exciting as “Taking fire from pirates”, but it is still interesting to follow the progression of the journey. The ship is scheduled to reach it’s destination on this Sunday, and as of this writing, the boat is moored in Djbouti. It’s highly likely the rest of the journey will go with out incident, but it should still be an interesting thing to watch unfold.
You can read more about the journey here.
Roald Amundsen is perhaps the greatest polar explorer that ever lived. He was the first person to reach the South Pole, and then later went to the North as well. He also became the first person to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage in a time when it was thought to be impossible. In 1928, while mounting a rescue mission for explorers who had crashed in an airship returning from the North Pole, Amundsen’s plane crashed into the Barents Sea, and his body was never found, although debris believed to be from the plane was later recovered. It was a mysterious end to the great explorers life.
Now, a major expedition is being mounted to go in search of Amundsen’s remains, and his plane, the Latham 47. The team will set out, with a Norwegian Naval Ship and special sonar equipment, for the Barents Sea, in hopes of locating the wreckage and salvaging it once and for all. The Expedition’s website has more information about what they intend to do, and it includes more of the history between Amundsen and Umberto Nobile, the man he was trying to rescue. There is also a Search Blog in place that I presume will be updated with info once the expedition gets underway at the end of the month.
Back in 1926, Amundsen and Nobile flew across the North Pole together in an airship designed by the Italian. Two years later, when Nobile’s latest airship went down, Amundsen was asked to join the rescue, but in doing so, lost his own life. Ironically, Nobile was successfully plucked from the ice, and went on to live to the ripe old age of 93.
While there doesn’t seem to be a great mystery as to what happened to Amundsen, it would still be interesting to see his remains found after all these years. And I’m sure, they’d be taken home to his native Norway, where he would be given a heroes welcome. Hopefully the team will find what they are looking for.
Much like Indiana Jones, I’m not especially fond of snakes. Maybe that’s why stories like this one from Environmental Graffiti give me the creeps. The story tells the tale of the giant anacondas, found lurking deep in the Amazon, and the people who are crazy enough to go looking for them.
Anacondas have been measured as much as 32 feet in length, and over 500 pounds in weight, although snakes of that size are quite rare. Natives to the Amazon tell stories of much larger snakes deep in the jungle, but if they’re out there, they have yet to be discovered. Still, scientists haven’t ruled out these giants existing out there somewhere.
Looking at the videos and photos with this story, you’ll begin to understand just how scary these snakes are. When I was in the Amazon earlier this year, I only saw one anaconda, and it was roughly six feet long, but the ones pictured here are in excess of 20 feet or more, and the videos demonstrate how powerful they are. Crazy stuff, and I’m glad I didn’t encounter anything this big while I was stumbling around down there.
Mid-week always brings us a new episode of The Rest of Everest, which continues this week with an in depth look at the Annapurna IV climb and ski descent. Podcast creator Jon Miller is once again joined by mountaineers Ben Clark and Josh Butson.
Episode 110 is called “The Slog”, and it deals with Ben and Josh going down the mountain, back to Base Camp, after giving up on their summit bid last week, when they were trapped inside the tent, waiting for the weather to change. While down climbing the mountain, they talk a bit about their disappointment in having to retreat, while still knowing that it wast he safe move none the less. The episode also gives us more insight into a part of climbing that we seldom see in the form of the descent. Most films are dedicated to getting to the top, but as usual, the Rest of Everest shows every aspect of a climb.
This episode also does a great job of really showing the conditions that climbers deal with on these big mountain. I often write about climbers dealing with deep snow at altitude, but this episode of the podcast really puts that in perspective, with plenty of the white stuff on display, both higher on the mountain, and on the descent, which made for a major challenge for Ben and Josh. You’ll also have a better understanding of the title of this episode as well!
As usual, grab the episode directly from the ROE website or from iTunes.
