In case you missed it, you can go over to the superb outdoors site greatoutdoors.com and check out the action on Mount Everest. At the site, six-time Everest summiter and noted high-altitude guide Dave Hahn reports in day by day from various locations at Sagamartha. He’s a well-known mountaineering writer who has contributed to Outside Magazine and is regarded as one of the most successful guides of the decade.
NG’s Adventurer of the Year Award
Some serious congrats out to two modern adventurers, Magellans if you will, who were recently awarded National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year award. The award went to Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei, a very hard-core couple of activist travelers. The pair pulled off a rather amazing feat, even in this day and age when it would seem so many of the great adventures have been thought of and accomplished. The pair circumnavigated the globe entirely on human power. they began their journey in their hometown of Vancouver, Canada, way back in June 2004 and then via canoe, hiking, biking and skiing made their way through tough terrain and some even tougher circumstances to accomplish their goal.
We blogged a bit about them earlier this year, but there is lots of information about the feat here ,as well as a sublimely cool video from some of their expedition here.
Banff Film Tour Kicks Off
The films are loaded in the back of the van and the engine is revving.
That means it’s time for the Banff Film Festival to hit the road and tour the world with its fine collection of award-winning mountain and outdoor films.
The schedule has now been inked and can be found here.
The tour begans appropriately enough in Canada and will pop around the Great White North the remainder of this month and most of January.
Those of us in the USA hoping to catch this amazing festival will have to wait until the van crosses the border and sets up shop in Bozeman Montana on January 19th. Then it is a three-month whirlwind tour through North America and then on to the rest of the world.
Me? I’ll have to wait until March 17/18 to catch it in Santa Monica. I’m sure it will be as great as it always is.
Acne on Mt. Rushmore?
This is kind of a fun piece. One of the coolest trips I ever got to take when I worked for the National Park Service was to see Mount Rushmore. The view from the bottom that most tourists get is cool. Sure you can snap some pics down there and look up aht those four gleaming, magnificent pates. You think to yourself: Self, that’s pretty neat.
But I was lucky enough when I worked for the NPS, to climb up on top of the heads, to walk around on Lincoln’s prodigious brow, to do a jig on Washington’s curls. Now THAT was cool. And all of that is a simple preface to direct you to this gallery from MSNBC of the effort aways back to clean the heads of Rushmore. According to this piece from last year at NPR it was the first time that the four Presidents have had their faces washed since the sculpture was completed. One wonders if there were any signs of acne.
Land Diving in Vanuatu
It’s pretty interesting how pretty much all cultures have their right of passage ceremonies and traditions for boys who become men. We have the bar mitzvah and, well, Jim Beam and hookers. But in Vanuatu, for boys to become men, they must leap off of tall towers with nothing but a vine tied around their ankles. They are called the Land Divers of Vanuatu, and they are probably humankind’s first bungee jumpers. Here is a cool ittle video on YouTube that explains the tradition and offers several rather amazing facts. For example, did you know the land diver’s objective..or at least one of the requirements of the land dive…is that he must hit his head on the ground. Another part of the tradition is that a man can pretty much say whatever he wants to anyone he wants before he jumps. I suppose afterward he can then claim he forgot he said anything. Pretty smart. That’s using your…oh, never mind.