Famed mountaineer Conrad Anker, who is part of the PQ climbing team, has joined forces with The Conservation Alliance and Timex Expedition to launch the Return To The Outdoors initiative which is designed to inspire people to pursue outdoor adventures and reconnect with nature.
The Return To The Outdoors website encourages us all to share our stories  of what draws us to go outside and explore the world around us. By writing about, or video taping, your own adventures you can win some cool gear and possibly inspire others to venture outside as well. Conrad shares what inspires him in the video below.
The Chinese Olympic Torch Team on Everest finally reached their goal today, standing on top of the highest peak in the world, with the Olympic Torch burning brightly. The team’s lone female member, a Tibetan woman, carried the torch to the actual summit, where the rest of her teammates celebrated, unfurling Chinese and Olympic flags.Â
The climb was not without controversy however, as the entire North Side of the mountain, was shut down to all other teams this season, and the South Side of Everest, which falls in Nepal, had severe restrictions placed on it until after the Chinese Team completed their goal. Today those restrictions have been lifted and the South Side teams have begun their own summit bids.Â
The following video from Reuters shows the triumphant Chinese on Everest as they light the specially designed Torch and hold it aloft.Â
Here’s a video that I came across a week or so back and forgot about, but a friend was kind enough to remind me of it earlier today. It’s a first person perspective of a couple of hikers exploring the El Camino del Rey in Spain. The name means “The King’s Pathway”, and the trail offers access to a popular climbing location, but just getting there is part of the adventure, as you’ll see.
John Wilton-Davies has announced his intentions to go solo, and unsupported, to the South Pole later this year. Of course there always a number of explorers each year that make that expedition, and a few even go solo and unsupported as well. However, once John reaches the South Pole, he’s only halfway to his destination!
That’s right, he’s not only going to the Pole, but he’ll also turn around and return to Hercules Inlet where he began. Solo and unsupported the whole way. It what is being called the Last Great Challenge, John hopes to become the first man to ever accomplish this amazing feat. He predicts that it will take approximately 77 days to make the historic round trip journey on skis, pulling his sledge behind him.
Of course, my personal favorite section is his gear list which has a complete run down of all the equipment he plans on taking with him. When looking this over, keep in mind that he’ll be pulling it all behind him on a sledge that will be 2 1/2 times his own body weight. He’ll also need to average roughly 20 miles per day, through some of the most in hospitable terrain on the planet, in order to stick to his schedule. Piece of cake!
You may remember John from his solo and unsupported 2006 expedition to the South Pole. Back then he reached 88.5Âş S before running out supplies and time. He truly gave it everything he could, and came up just a bit short, but clearly he learned a lot, and feels he has unfinished business at the bottom of the world, and he’s going back with a vengeance.
Good luck John! We’ll be following your adventure and rooting for you come November.
The Wend Blog, official blog for Wend Magazine posted this amazing video clip of snowboarder Terje Haakenson making the first descent of Peak 7601 in Alaska. Terje is delivered to the summit via a helicopter and then rides a near vertical face down the side of the mountain. It’s a crazy and thrilling ride to be sure. I’d have probably made it down about three meters while still on my board. The rest of the “first descent” would be on my face. Enjoy!
You know the old adage “What goes up, must come down”? Well, that applies to mountaineering as much as anything. However, I don’t think they considered someone stepping into a pair of skis at 24,688 feet, then dropping off the top of a perfectly good summit with nothing but 9000 feet of vert to contend with when they coined the phrase.
A few days back I posted a link to a special edition of the Rest of Everest podcast in which producer Jon Miller chatted with climbers Ben Clark, Josh Butson, and Tim Clarke. At the time, the three men were preparing to leave for Kathmandu where they were embarking on their Annapurna IV Expedition.
Famed mountaineer Ed Viesturs and renowned polar explorer and dog musher John Steston will be heading back into the Arctic this Friday, April 25th. The two men will be heading to Baffin Island, where they’ll pull their sledges for 150 miles, over the course of 20 days, as they explore some of the most remote, and untouched regions of the Canadian Arctic, in an effort to raise awareness about global climate change.
In what’s being called the “Healthy Planet = Healthy People” expedition, Viesturs and Stetson intend to document the effects of global warming on Baffin Island by visiting remote Inuit villages and interviewing the people that live there, much the way that Will Steger did last year with his Global Warming 101 expedition.
While the calendar says it’s officially Spring, the Colorado Rockies are still enveloped in the deep snows of Winter. It is 12:00:01 AM and the race has just started with temperatures hovering around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. 125 teams of two have assembled in Crested Butte for the 11th edition start of the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse (EMGT). A mere 40 miles of Colorado back country lie ahead for participants before they reach the finish line at the base of Aspen (Ajax) Mountain Ski Resort. The course traces the 1880’s mail route between the once booming mining towns of Crested Butte and Aspen Colorado. The front running teams hope to have an incident free night in order to reach the finish in under eight hours but that is not typically what the EMGT doles out. Anything from gale force winds and extreme avalanche danger to equipment failures potentially await teams as they race into the dark.Â
“Don Mann is one of the pioneers of adventure racing in the US and has always supported the grass roots racers. I think PQ’s offer is awesome! Seeing the USARA National Champs get a chance to square off against the best teams in the world will be thrilling. We are excited that PQ has extended the offer and look forward to cheering on the 2007 national champions at Primal Quest.”
While the calendar says it’s officially Spring, the Colorado Rockies are still enveloped in the deep snows of Winter. It is 12:00:01 AM and the race has just started with temperatures hovering around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. 125 teams of two have assembled in Crested Butte for the 11th edition start of the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse (EMGT). A mere 40 miles of Colorado back country lie ahead for participants before they reach the finish line at the base of Aspen (Ajax) Mountain Ski Resort. The course traces the 1880’s mail route between the once booming mining towns of Crested Butte and Aspen Colorado. The front running teams hope to have an incident free night in order to reach the finish in under eight hours but that is not typically what the EMGT doles out. Anything from gale force winds and extreme avalanche danger to equipment failures potentially await teams as they race into the dark. 
