Category archives for Adventure in 60 Seconds
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Blind Thru-Hiker, 64-Year-Old Solo Kayaks Atlantic, Hardest Adventure Race Underway
Photograph by Mark Watson, Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. See more photos like this in our Ultimate Adventure Bucket List.A roundup of the latest adventure news from around the web. Triple Crown in Sight For Blind Hiker? Expeditions News reports that blind hiker Trevor Thomas, 41, plans to attempt to thru-hike the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail.…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Surfing Legend Andy Irons Dies, Heat Improves Performance, Send Your Name to Space
Check in daily for a look at what we are reading in the news… Andy Irons Death Investigated As Possible Methadone OverdoseTriple world champion surfer Andy Iron, 32, was found dead in his hotel room in Dallas yesterday, after suffering from dengue-like symptom. He was on his way home after pulling out of the Rip…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Everest Gets Cell Service, Robot Pioneers Space Travel, More
Check in daily for a look at what we are reading in the news… Everest Gets 3G Cell Phone Service The rooftop of the world has just been suited up with 3G cell phone service that goes clear to the summit by Ncell, a new private telecommunications company based in Nepal. Climbers currently tend to carry…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Travel Apps Reviewed, Banff Kicks Off, Chupacabra Decoded
Check in daily for a look at what we are reading in the news…Mobile Travel Guides Can Help, But Trust BooksThe New York Times looks at what’s working and what’s not in mobile travel apps. Read the article >> Banff Mountain Festival Kicks OffWell, if you are reading this, you are probably not headed out…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Goat Vs. Man; Next-Gen Parkour; Moo-bile Tech in Africa
Check in daily for a look at what we are reading in the news…Goat Vs. Man New York Times writer Tim Egan comments on the recent incident in Olympic National Park where a mountain goat—an herbavoire, even—gored an experienced hiker and lorded over him while the man bled to death. Egan suggests our natural balance…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Surfers Witness Indonesia Tsunami, Iran Hikers Get Trial, Everest Guide Lost in Slide
Check in daily for a look at what we are reading in the news… Australian Surfers Witness Indonesia’s Tsunami With death and injury tolls rising, Indonesia's aid workers continue to deal with the aftermath of the volcanic eruption, earthquake, and tsunami that each hit in separate parts of the country over the past few days.…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Ultraraces, an Uber-Climber, and the Mother of Paleontology
By Tetsuhiko Endo The problem with many adventurers is that they don’t know when to say when. Climbed Everst? Why not climb it without supplementary O2? You like to ski and BASE jump? Try combining the two, and why not add a wingsuit for kicks? You might call this the Mallory Paradox, named for the…
Daredevil Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Grounded By Lawsuit
By Tetsuhiko Endo; Photograph by Luke Aikins/Red Bull PhotofilesFelix Baumgartner’s attempt to break Joe Kittinger’s 50-year-old record for the highest successful skydive has hit what could prove to be a terminal snag today, as his sponsors, Red Bull have issued a statement calling an immediate halt to the Red Bull Stratos program. The announcement comes…
Update: One of Three American Hikers Jailed in Iran Released
By Alyson Sheppard After 410 days in jail, Sarah Shourd—one of three American hikers imprisoned in Tehran on espionage charges—was released this morning on $500,000 bail. According to her lawyer, she was on her way to the Swiss Embassy for protection, but where she will go from there is still unclear. Her family has requested…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: K2 Speed Summit, Teen Rock Climber, Research Shows Ditching Tech Helps Relax
Text by Tetsuhiko Endo Just when we thought another scene of Karakoram climbing had entered the history books, Austrian Christian Stangl surprised the world with a solo, speed summit of K2 this week. In a single, 70-hour push (with one rest and an emergency bivouac), he went from base camp to peak and back to…
Death on K2: Fredrik Ericsson Dies in First K2 Ski Descent Attempt
By Tetsuhiko Endo What started out as a week of great hope in the Karakoram has instead ended in tragedy with the Death of Swedish alpinist and skier Fredrik Ericsson on K2 on Friday. Ericsson and his partner, American Trey Cook, were hoping to become the first men to climb K2 and descend on skis.…
Spain: Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls – An Eye-Witness Account
By Tetsuhiko Endo To a man of spirit, cowardice and disaster coming together are far more bitter than death striking him unperceived at a time when he is full of courage and animated by the general hope. –Pericles, Funeral Oration to the Athenian People during the Peloponnesian War It’s six a.m. in Pamplona, the sky…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration
By Tetsuhiko Endo Since the popularization of whitewater rafting and kayaking, the North Fork of the Payette has become one of North America's premier stretches of whitewater with 15 miles of continuous Class V rapids, including the infamous series of drops known as "Jacob's Ladder." Record rainfall in the region has swelled the river to…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration
By Tetsuhiko Endo The villagers of a small mountain town in Peru, called Licapa, are hoping that they can save their home and reverse the loss of Andean glaciers, reports the BBC. The plan is to simply whitewash large sections of rocky peaks that used to contain important, water-giving glaciers that sustained the water needs…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
Text by Tetsuhiko Endo Here at Adventure, we have the tendency to focus our climbing expedition coverage on the largest and most dangerous mountains. In doing so, it is easy to forget that, besides Everest and K2, there are 13 other 8,000-meter peaks that can often be just as challenging to climb. The Polish team of…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration
By Tetsuhiko Endo It's been a slow season in the Karakoram, reports Explorersweb.com. With only 25 climbing permits sold for the entire region, we are going skip the usual climbing news this week, and look to other backdrops for our adventure fix. It was not a good week to be a sailor. A few weeks ago,…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
Text by Tetsuhiko Endo At the NG Adventure Blog, our reporting often focuses on adventurers of leisure–people who test themselves against Mother Nature in dogged adherence to the George Mallory school of philosophy: "Because it's there." Risk and reward for these modern thrill-seekers is high, but measured on a mostly personal scale. However, there is…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
By Tetsuhiko Endo And just like that, it's over. The circus has left the Himalaya and the only evidence that an army of international climbers spent all spring scrambling up and down its forbidding peaks are a few optimistic stragglers and the perennial accumulation of garbage on Mount Everest. As is usually the case, most…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
"Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." Those words were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1842, and although they were inspired by a storm off the East Coast of the United States in 1839, they sum up…
No More “Youngest” World Records in Sailing — Is There Such a Thing “Too Young” in Adventure?
It is expected that Australian Jessica Watson, 16, will complete her successful solo, non-stop, unsupported circumnavigation of the globe on Saturday. Over the past year, we have seen a dizzying number of teens attempt to bump each other out of the record for youngest solo, non-stop, unsupported circumnavigation. And though Watson will technically be the…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
Nepal Annapurna trek, photograph by Jeremiah Cunningham, My Shot This week in adventure, the mountains are taller, the controversy fiercer, the waves bigger, and the oil slicker. Thankfully, the beasts are tamer and the expeditions are sending back some pictures that you have to see to believe.—Tetsuhiko Endo MOUNTAINSMount Everest saw its first summits of…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration
It has been a wild week in adventure: Man has confronted nature with every type of result, but in the end, it was the women who stole the show. —By Tetsuhiko Endo MOUNTAINS Spring is always hectic in the Himalaya and 2010 has been no different. This week proved to be noteworthy for both its…
South Korean Becomes First Woman to Climb World’s 14 8,000-Meter Peaks, Rival Questions Feat
By Tetsuhiko Endo; Photograph of Annapurna by Svozka Svozil, My Shot After over a year of hype and speculation, South Korean Oh Eun-Sun has nabbed a come-from-behind victory and allegedly become the first woman to scale all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks. At 3:00 p.m. local time on April 27, after more 13 hours of climbing, the…
Travel Tech: The iPad Paradigm Shift
Just Enough of What You Need, Infinitely More of What You Want I am writing this on the subway platform in Brooklyn. On my iPad. Which has been my constant companion for the last week. The era of carrying a laptop to maintain productivity on the go is over. What’s more, this appealingly sleek, elegant…
Adventure in 60 Seconds: Branson Hosts Kiteboarding Competition Off His Private Island
After staging an impromptu kiteboarding race with Google founder Larry Page off the coast of his private island, Sir Richard Branson decided to host a full-on competition. The mogul throws open the gates to his $47,000-a-night Necker is March 1 to 5 for the inaugural British Virgin Islands Kite Jam. Expect high antics and high…