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.

Paddle Books

by Erik Olsen on

Well, we’re drawing to a close a rather wonderful summer. I don’t know about you, but out on the East Coast things were relatively mild and there were lots of opps to paddle, hike, bike or whatever. I got to do a piece about rock climbing that took me to the world-famous Gunks, and I had a killer time rappelling off a 200 foot cliff face. All cool. But what I’d really like to discuss briefly is paddling, and more than than, I want to discuss paddle books. You see, it’s about to get so cold that many will not be able to paddle, so the next best thing, I suppose, is to read about paddling. And so herewith, I offer you a solid feature from the folks at Sea Kayaker on hard to find paddling books.

Before I discuss some of the books listed here, let me briefly mention a few others I’ve enjoyed or plan to read. A while back, I bought Jon Bowermaster’s Alone Against the Sea and Other True Adventures, and while I STILL haven’t read it, I am confident it’s going to be great because I’ve liked all of Bowermaster’s other work. Also, sitting on my shelf at home is Eric Stiller’s Keep Australia on Your Left, which I enjoyed, even if it rambles a bit at times. It helps that Stiller is a friend and I am rather in awe of the expedition described in the book (attempting to circumnavigate the continent of Australia. Yes, you heard that right.

But to the list. Many of these books can’t be fond on Amazon, so I have no idea how you’d find them, but take the book Kayaks to the Arctic (1967)
by E. B. Nickerson. Tell me that the story of a women and her family paddling 1,000 miles down the Mackenzie River in Alaska and then hanging with the Inuvik doesn’t sound like compelling reading. Then, there is Enchanted Vagabonds (1938) by Dana Lamb. The Lambs, Ginger and Dana, left San Diego in 1933 and paddled and sailed their hybrid kayak/canoe/sailboat to the Panama Canal. Amazing. And I’m surprised in a way that this hasn’t been done yet as reality TV.

Anyhoodle, the list goes on.

It’s World Tourism Day Today!

by Adrienne Wilson on

I figured we couldn’t let the day breeze by without acknowledging World Tourism day. No, no! But what exactly does World Tourism day mean? Are you and all your friends planning extravagant vacations somewhere? Anyone just return from Tonga, Finland or Zambia? I’m not 100% sure, but I’m sure the folks at the World Tourism Organization have a clue. This year’s theme is Tourism Enriches and without reading much one can already guess that a theme like that goes in both directions: it enriches the country and the tourist.

Anyways, happy World Tourism Day!

Hunting the Dreaded Mosquito

by Erik Olsen on

It seems like a gazillion years ago that I posted a “creature Feature” about the bain of all mankind: the mosquito.I loathe these little beasts, and no matter what cascading cataclysm in the great Web of life we might experience should the mosquito be eradicated, I almost feel like it would be worth it to be rid of this viciously annoying little beast. But despite all our technological prowess, there appears to be no viable way of killing the mosquito. The most effective method ever used to kill it – DDT – was baned for killing birds and other wildlife…even though its use has seen a resurgence in places like Africa.

Well, I feel like I know a lot about the mosquito. I’ve read several books about it (shows you how obsessed I am) and always try and see what the new research is on mosquito eradication. Well, as you can tell from reading this fine piece in Outside Magazine, we are still far from ridding ourselves of the mosquito, but we do understand more than we did just a few years ago ,let alone over 100 years ago when malaria was thought to be caused by “bad air” rather than this blood-sucking insect. Written by Jennifer Kahn, my guess is that you will learn a lot more tan you already knew about the mosquito…as if that’s going to stop the itching.

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.