Nat Geo on Sherpas

by Erik Olsen on

On a few occasions in the past we’ve linked to stories about the famous Sherpas of the Himalayas, those hearty, hale and, well, helpful souls who basically make it possible for Western climbers to summit tall mountains. Without the Sherpas, it’s doubtful that we’d see nearly as many Gortex-clad city slickers summiting mountains like K2 and Everest.

The Sherpas are, without a doubt, the unsung heroes of mountaineering.

And if anyone out there can be trusted to put together a fine homage to the Himalayan Sherpas, it would be National Geographic. And so it goes. This wonderfully done multimedia feature provides text by the writer T.R. Reid as well as gobs of excellent photos, maps and even some downloadable audio for your listening pleasure. The photos are particularly good, but trust me, if you are interested in what the Sherpas are all about you can spend a few educational and entertaining minutes perusing this feature.

Luxury Camping in the Sierras

by Neil Woodburn on

A couple of months ago I had the wonderful pleasure of backpacking in California’s Sierras Nevadas. It was a difficult trek but one that was extraordinarily rewarding as a result. Hard work such as this gets you deep into the backcountry where the nature is pure and the people are few.

Backpacking isn’t for everyone, however. The thought of placing 40 pounds of food and gear on your back and tromping up some hillside is sadly unappealing to the majority of the population. Fortunately for such people, there is an easier alternative with an equally attractive payoff.

Susan Spano of the Los Angeles Times recently hiked just 1 1/2 miles in the High Sierras to spend a couple of nights at the Sequoia High Sierra Camp. And, she hardly had to carry anything! The camp is a “luxury” campground that includes permanent tents, twin beds, Pendelton blankets, hot showers, flush toilets, and meals prepared by the former private chef to Bruce Springsteen and Faith Hill.

Luxury in the High Sierras doesn’t come cheap, however. A two-person tent with three meals runs $400 a day. It sounds pretty cool but at that rate I’d hire Sherpas and find my own place to pitch a tent for the night–although I’d like to figure out a way to bring along that famous chef if I could.

Climbing Devil’s Tower

by Erik Olsen on

If you’re like me an legions of Steven Spielberg fans who loved, and I mean LOVED, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, then the mere mention of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming no doubt summons all sorts of images in your head of Richard Dreyfuss clamoring over scree to reach the backside of the mountain where he would encounter a city-sized saucer filled with egg-headed aliens. The musical language that brought aliens and earthmen together still gets caught in my head to this day, and at one point, I’d committed to memory the hand signals used in the film to converse with the ETs.

All that blabbering about one of my favorite films brings me to this story by the well-known Outside writer Mark Jenkins, who discusses his love for the towers (which he calls a 60-million-year-old stump of intruded magma ) and finds in them a spiritual connection that has more to do with earthly qualities than extra-terrestrial ones. He dishes up a healthy plate of history here, telling us about the Native American connection with the place as well as its designation as a National Monument and of course, this being Mark Jenkins, the story of the first ascent of the towers….in 1893 by two enterprising Wyoming cowboys, William Rogers and Willard Ripley.

An altogether fine piece about a place that you may have heard of…or in my case seen in the movies…but wanted to know more about.

Seattle Fun

by Erik Olsen on

I have a soft spot in my heart for Seattle. Even though the city does get is share of precipitation, it is about as lovely a lace as there is on the planet, especially just about now. If you are an outdoorsy person, Seattle’s offerings to ride bikes, to kayak, to hike, to fish…well, the list is nearly endless.

So I am always looking for pieces that highlight things to do in Seattle. Sure, my friends who live there probably aren’t too happy that we bring attention to the Emerald City. It’s crowded enough already, they say. But what can I say? I miss the place and this might just be a vicarious way for me to be back there, paddling the Sound. So I direct you now to Frommer’s list of top things to do in Seattle.

From riding the Water Taxi over to Alki Beach, to Sea Kayaking on Lake Union (easily one of my favorite things to do) and, of course, strolling around Pike Place Market, the list is a strong one. It’s a bit touristy, but that’s OK. I might also recommend checking out the neighborhood of Wallingford and taking a walk around the University. The campus grounds are lovely. Oh, and don’t forget to grab a cup of coffee in Pike Place and just sit and watch the ferry come and go. This is one of my favorite Seattle pastimes.

Pursuing the Pitohui

by Erik Olsen on

It has been a long time, to long, since we last visited the NPR Radio Expeditions site. I used to head over there quite often to listen to the numerous audio bios they’ve got posted of various well-known (and a few rather obscure) explorers and scientists. But I more or less heard them all, so I kind of went on to other things. But they are always producing new stuff, so it behooves us to check in every once in a while. To wit: I offer you today this excellent piece on a conservationist named Bruce Beehler who is wandering the mysterious cannibal-inhabited jungles of Papua New Guinea in search of a mysterious and poisonous bird native to the region called the pitohui. In typical NPR fashion, you really get a feel for the heat and the exoticness of the location, and as you follow Beehler and the local shaman that he befriends, you can’t help wonder, how did I end up in a damn office?