South Africa: In Durban, Comrades Marathon and the World Cup Take Center Stage

 
National Geographic Digital Media's Korena Di Roma will be traveling to South Africa to report on the Comrades Marathon, the start of the World Cup, and World Vision's humanitarian efforts in the country. Follow her dispatches here. Pictured: A Team World Vision training run in Durban; photograph by Andrea Peer/World Vision

I’m at the hotel in Durban, South Africa, a seaside city that’s buzzing with the energy of both the Comrades Marathon and the World Cup. Since stepping into the South African Airways boarding area at JFK, I’ve been wondering what decorated walls, magazine covers, and complimentary packets of airline toothpaste before the World Cup came to South Africa. Writing from a hotel across the street from the Comrades finish line and within sight of the city’s nautical Moses Mabhida Stadium, I’m thrilled to be here to witness it all.  

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 of the season came down to a weather window that lasted a few precious days and saw 447 people reach the highest point in the world, according to everestnews.com. The summitting started with a trickle last Saturday morning and turned into a torrent, which didn't let up until Wednesday. Explorersweb trained in unflinching eye on four wild days of route congestion, speed climbing attempts, frostbite, disabled climbers, successful rescues, failed rescues, oxygen tank theft, and summit after summit after summit. Of 447 inspiring stories that came out of this past week, two rise above the rest:

The Ice Vikings: How to Climb Icebergs in the North Atlantic

By Tom Prigg; Photographs by Ben McMillen

Five friends and I decided to drive 40 hours each way from Pittsburgh to Newfoundland, Canada, to climb icebergs. So we loaded up a short school bus bought and modified by our teammate Ryan Hostetter and headed out, complete with a jet ski in tow. The destination was the fishing village L'anse aux Meadows, population of 110, and the site of Leif Ericson's viking settlement.

Icebergs present many dangers that normal ice climbing does not. These huge, floating ice chunks can literally roll in the water due to changes in the center of gravity. Our first task was to evaluate the stability of the icebergs based on their shape.

Alaska-Yukon Expedition: Spring Conditions Terminology

Follow adventurer Andrew Skurka as he skis, hikes, and rafts 4,720 miles through eight national parks, two major mountain ranges, and some of North America's wildest rivers in Alaska and the Yukon from March to October. Read his blog updates here.

In talking recently with my parents and friends I gather that not everyone is familiar with the lingo I've been using to describe the current springtime conditions. I'll attempt to define a few of the most important terms now.

"Variable conditions"
In the winter and summer, conditions are relatively predictable. Winter: cold temps, dry snow, frozen rivers and lakes, full snow coverage. Summer: warm, wet, open rivers and lakes, no snow. But in the spring, conditions are something in between, and changes are happening rapidly in the transition from winter to summer. A slope may be covered in snow today, but bare next week. A river that had frequent ice bridges yesterday may be completely open tomorrow. The snow may feature a supportive crust at 8 a.m. but might be the consistency of a slushie by noon.

Swimming Everest: Advice From the World's Most Extreme Swimmer

Today Gadling reported that extreme swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh just completed his latest quest: snagging the record for the highest-altitude long-distance swim. He splashed out a kilometer at 17,700 feet in Pumori Lake to raise awareness to the melting glaciers in the Himalaya. Few people would actually SWIM in glacier-chilled waters to help them, so we tip our hats, er, swim caps, to Pugh. But as we learned in an interview with Pugh a few years ago, this guy has a different physiology than the rest of us which allows Pugh to elevate his body temperature with just his mind. No, it's not an X-men thing; it's a conditioned response called anticipatory thermogenesis. Learn how you can push your own limits—without superhuman abilities—in this interview.

Finding Machu Picchu: A Look at Explorer Hiram Bingham, A Real-Life Indiana Jones

 
Almost one hundred years ago, on July 24, 1911, a Yale University history lecturer named Hiram Bingham III climbed to the top of a mountain ridge in Peru and encountered one of the most extraordinary sets of ruins on Earth: Machu Picchu. In his new book Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu, the historian Christopher Heaney examines how Bingham got there, why he fooled himself into thinking he’d found the Lost City of the Incas, and what influence Bingham had on a certain whip-toting movie daredevil. Heaney spoke with Adventure contributing editor Mark Adams.

NGA: Hiram Bingham III wasn’t trained as an archaeologist or an anthropologist. His specialty was history. Was it a fluke that he ended up at Machu Picchu?

Christopher Heaney: It was a fluke in the sense that he didn’t set out to look for Machu Picchu. Bingham was really in Peru trying to find the last capitals of the Incas, Vitcos and Vilcabamba.

NGA: Explorers had been roaming the Peruvian countryside for years, searching for the legendary Lost City of the Incas, which they imagined was filled with gold. So how did Bingham end up as the one who made that famous climb on July 24, 1911?

CH: What’s amazing about Bingham is that he put himself in a position where he couldn’t not have reached Machu Picchu. He was really the first person to go into the region and gather up as much oral testimony as possible. Using the names of places mentioned in the Spanish chronicles and maps of past Peruvian geographers, he just went from point to point and never turned down an offer to go look for ruins. He was also working with the maps of at least one other explorer, a guy named Curtis Farabee who was at Harvard at the time.

Gear Crush: Near-Perfect Rapha Stowaway Cycling Jacket

By National Geographic Adventure Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of The Adventure Life 

To understand the power of the perfect cycling jacket, you need to know that I am not a morning athlete. Once I’ve had a few espressos and the sun’s climbed closer to its zenith than its morning horizon, I start to think about getting the blood going. But generally I’m not in serious motion until early afternoon. Rapha’s drop-dead gorgeous Stowaway shell is such a pleasure to wear, however, I find myself getting out of the rack and right on the bike, just so I have an excuse to wear it. Ridiculous, but true.

Jordan Romero, 13, Summits Everest - How Young is Too Young? You Tell Us

Photograph by Jake Norton. See more Everest pictures.

This weekend, American teen Jordan Romero, 13, climbed to the rooftop of the world where he reportedly called his mom. What a good kid. Though specific details regarding the climb are yet unknown, we know the team, which included Romero's dad, completed the climb without notable injuries. Romero's blog says "More to come after we load the yaks…." So we'll wait for more details and get back to you. In the mean time, we've asked our friends in the climbing world to weigh in with their perspectives on this question: Is there such a thing as "too young" on Everest? Or in high-risk adventure pursuits in general?

Let's look at sailing. Earlier this month Australian Jessica Watson, 16, completed her successful solo, non-stop, unsupported circumnavigation of the globe (though there was an issue with the length of the voyage). And though Watson is technically be the youngest person to pull off this feat, the title of "youngest" in sailing has become moot: The World Sailing Speed Record Council and other record-keeping organizations stopped recognizing "youngest" pursuits recently because they've become so controversial. 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. The youngest, Laura Dekker, 13, was prevented from attempting a solo circumnavigation earlier this year by Dutch authorities.

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 perfectly the situation in the Himalaya for the last two weeks. Climbers are hunkered in high camps on Makalu, Dhaulagiri, Everest, and a host of other mountains waiting for the wind to ease. Three Chinese climbers who chose to brave the gales lost their lives on Dhauligiri, while their companions were saved by the brave efforts of Fishtail Air and Air Zermatt. As this goes live, explorersweb reports that the winds are scheduled to drop on the 21st, opening the window to a tidal wave of summits, especially on Everest. But it won't necessarily be smooth sailing next week. The seasonal monsoons, which bring an end to the Everest climbing season every year, look to be making an early appearance, perhaps as soon as the 27th. If this is the case, summitting is going to come down to the buzzer.—By Tetsuhiko Endo

South Africa: The World's Oldest Ultramarathon Meets the World Cup

National Geographic Digital Media's Korena Di Roma will be traveling to South Africa to report on the Comrades Marathon, the start of the World Cup, and World Vision's humanitarian efforts in the country. Follow her dispatches here.

It’s been called the greatest footrace on Earth—56 miles through the brutal, hilly terrain between two South African cities. It’s a race that rivets the sports-loving country each year, and this spring it will take place for the 85th time just two weeks before the inaugural match of the 2010 World Cup.

The Comrades Marathon began in 1921 as a living memorial to South Africans who fought in World War I. That year, 34 runners took on the course between Pietermaritzburg and the coastal city of Durban. Today it’s the world’s oldest ultramarathon and, with nearly 17,000 runners set to participate, it’s also the world’s largest.