11 Winter Escapes That WON’T Leave You Bored

by Willy Volk on

Even if you love chillin’ at the beach thiiiiiis much, sometimes the thought of sitting on the beach for a week doesn’t sound like much of a vacation. While it’ll probably be fun…it doesn’t seem very exciting. And sometimes an exciting vacation is just what we need to get the blahs out of our lives.

If you need to get the blahs out of your life, Concierge has a ton of gnarly adventure ideas to jumpstart your blah-bashing vacation planning. For example:

  • Abseiling in the Dominican Republic
  • Snorkeling with whale sharks in the Galapagos
  • Safariing in Sri Lanka
  • Biking through Kauai
  • Bonefishing in the Florida Keys
  • Hiking Chile’s Atacama desert

And those are just a few of the great ideas on the list. Admittedly, many of the ideas seem a bit costly, but you can easily take one of the ideas and tweak it to fit your budget. For example, instead of heading to Chile, you could always go hiking in Big Sur.

Karl Bushby’s Goliath Expedition

by Erik Olsen on

There are epic trips and then there are…well, there is Karl Bushby’s Goliath Expedition. Bushby, an ex-paratrooper is in the midst of undertaking one of those trips that truly flabbergast. He’s trying to walk around the entire globe. The self-declared stats he has on his site say it all:

12 years
36,000 miles
4 continents
25 countries
6 deserts
7 mountain ranges

But I guess those numbers don’t truly reflect the magnitude of this journey .And this being the 21st century ,you can go to Busby’s site and follow his journey in text, video, audio and photos. According to the site, Bushby, if he succeeds, will become the first person to complete an unbroken round the world walk.

The site says that Bushy is readying himself for the next leg of his journey, and he should be heading out from Russia sometime, well, I’m not sure when. He has apparently been having problems in obtaining the special permits required for the Chukotka region of Siberia. Here is the route is has taken and plans to take. Coming up from Tierra del Fuego way way up then over the Bering Sea and then all the way across Russia through Europe. The BBC has covered some of the story, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of it on US media. But maybe that will happen soon.

Banff Mountain Film Festival – New York City

by Erik Olsen on

Although I’ve only been once…to the one in Santa Monica, CA…I think that the Banff Mountain Film festival is one of those must-do events for outdoors enthusiasts. The event tours the country and Canada, showing off the best independent climbing, skiing and adventure films made today. Of course, the best one to go to is the one in Banff itself, where you can hobnob with the filmmakers and adventurers…which I suppose you can still probably do at some of the more local showings. But you won’t be in Banff.

Anyway, I was very pleased to see that the festival is coming to New York City and I will do my best, dear gadling readers, to attend. The festival will take place in NYC on Tuesday, March 6 and Wednesday March 7, 2007 at the Peter Norton Symphony Space Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York.

The film schedule can be found here. Most interesting to me are the films Asiemut, a film about a 2005 cycling expedition 8000 kilometers across Asia by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier and Patagonia – A Travel to the End of the World, a film with Børge Ousland about the first unsupported traverse of the Southern Patagonia Icecap. Gotta love anything about Patagonia.

If you’re curious whether there will be a showing near you, here is the Banff Calender

Safer Everest Rescues with Unmanned Chopper

by Justin Glow on

I can’t ever imagine climbing Mt. Everest myself, but that hasn’t stopped me from living vicariously through John Krakauer in his book, Into Thin Air, one of my all-time favorites. The dangers of climbing the world’s tallest mountain are unparalleled; the 2006 climbing season alone saw the deaths of fifteen people — that’s one in every ten successful summits.

New Zealand based organization, Everest Rescue Trust, is looking to make climbing Everest a little bit safer by building an unmanned helicopter capable of rescuing the injured from the mountain’s high elevation and extreme terrain. The organization’s “goodwill ambassador” is none other than Mark Inglis, the first and only double amputee to climb Everest and star of the amazing Discovery Channel show, Everest: Beyond the Limit, which featured a group of climbers as they made their 2006 bid for the summit. Mark, along with a few other members of the group, stirred up controversy for the decision to forgo a rescue attempt on an injured, dying climber they found on their decent. “If you’re above 8,000 meters, and you can’t walk, you can’t live,” he told a reporter in a television interview for the Everest helicopter project.

Even if the project is successful, it won’t be the first time a helicopter has been to the top of Mt. Everest. On May 14th, 2005, a Eurocopter (with pilot) flew to the the summit and briefly landed just long enough to give it a world record for the highest take off ever — one that’s impossible to beat, unless another mountain mysteriously grows taller than Everest in the next few million years.

So wait, why can’t one of these Eurocopters rescue someone? In short, the winds on Everest are far too dangerous and unpredictable at high elevations — so much so that any attempt to land in such conditions is a huge risk for the pilot. This is where the unmanned chopper idea really shines. With the pilot controlling the helicopter from the safety of base camp, the only risk in a rescue attempt is damage to the machine.

The success of this project could mean a lot for the safety of future Everest mountaineers, but it could also mean an influx of even more inexperienced climbers, whose lack of experience and skill is often replaced with money in the bank. Some say the recent rise in Everest’s amateur climber population is responsible for the growing number of deaths.

What might potentially save the climber could, in fact, end up killing him or her.

[via Engadget]

Missing Tourist Found After 8 Days On Indonesian Mountain

by Jonathon Morgan on

Franz Resch, a 46-year-old tourist from Austria, left his hotel on January 23 to climb the Sibayak Mountain. 8 days, and one rescue operation later, he was found alive in a village in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province.

After Resch’s hotel declared him missing, rescue workers found his boots, soft drink cans, books and mattress, but couldn’t locate the lost tourist. When villagers finally discovered him, they reported it to local police, who immediately took Resch to the hospital.

According to local police, he “is very weak.”

Being lost alone in the mountains must be a harrowing experience. After surviving this long, we can only hope Resch goes on to make a full recovery.