Fringe Elements Skills: Kayaking - Surviving a Whirlpool

By Fitz Cahall, Video still by Byran Smith.

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“The most intimidating feature for any swimmer, is real swirly, really deep whirlpools,” says professional kayaker and guide Paul Kuthe. “They have a tendency to hold you under water for a long time.”

To exploratory kayakers such as Kuthe, whirlpools sit at the top of the list of why swimming—kayaking parlance for coming out of a boat—through a surging tidal race could be hazardous. As Kuthe and his group of friends began applying whitewater kayaking techniques to sea kayaking, they had to accept that errant paddle strokes would result in swims through some of the ocean’s most turbulent sections.

Fringe Elements Video: A Different Kind of Race: Kayaking Tidal Races

By Fitz Cahall, watch more Fringe Elements videos and get advice from the athletes

“Even the biggest tidal races can be caught when they are small,” says sea kayaker Paul Kuthe of the river-like currents, whirlpools, and rapids that tidal shifts can cause in the ocean. “Most can be paddled into when they are completely flat. Then the rapid slowly builds around you. You can scout it out this way.”

Necessary Skills
Paddling tidal races—the river-like currents, whirlpools, and rapids that tidal shifts can cause in the ocean—requires mastery of basic sea kayaking skills. Before you drop in, you should be confident with your ability to roll a kayak, know how to re-enter your boat in open water should you swim (fall out of your kayak), and formulate a basic understanding of all the entry and possible escape points inside a tidal race.

Elephant Ivory Project: Explorers Finally Find Ample Elephant Dung, Begin Journey Home

By Andy Maser; Photographs by Andy Maser and Trip Jennings, Elephant Ivory Project, EP Films

We were recovering at our Obenge base camp when we heard the strange screams. “Pardon Papa! Pardon Papa!” over and over again, with a sound like bamboo being chopped down prompting each yell. Effrin, a local guide, pointed to the corner of camp and explained in half French, half English that Major Guy was whipping a 16-year-old boy for raping an 11-year-old girl earlier that day in the village. It was a wakeup call, just in case we needed one—we were still in Congo, where you should always expect anything.

Everest 2011: Camp 1, Western Cwm, More High-Wire Ladder Acrobatics (Photos)

A six section horizontal ladder in the Western Cwm. We decided to walk 15 minutes extra in order to avoid crossing it.

Text and photographs by Dave Hahn, a guide for RMI Expeditions and First Ascent. In May 2010 Hahn reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 12th time, the most of any a non-Sherpa climber. This time, he is leading a Bill McGahan and his 16-year-old daughter, Sara, on a bid for the summit. Follow the team's Everest expedition in dispatches here.

More Everest: See more Everest photos, take our Everest quiz, or watch expedition videos.

Five days ago we tried getting up through the Khumbu Icefall, but instead dropped down to Base Camp again to wait a day. We weren't firing on all cylinders, and it was clear that the jet stream was. The wind made a cardboard tearing sound as it scraped across the high peaks.

Four days ago we got up without a great deal of difficulty, reaching Camp I in about five hours from base camp. The climbers we talked to told stories of big winds at Camps I and II doing all sorts of tent damage and rubbing a bunch of nerves raw. We hoped we'd missed the big wind event as we crawled into our tents for afternoon naps ... but we could still hear it howling above and as the hours went by it got a little noisier right down in our own neighborhood. Spirits were high though as the four of us piled into one tent for dinner and climbing stories.

 
RMI Camp I with Lingtren (on left) and Khumbutse behind

Canoeing Down Everest: Kayaking Legend Mick Hopkinson Talks About His Life on the Water

Legendary paddler Mick Hopkinson kayaking the Kokatahi River, New Zealand. Photo by Ben Jackson

By Tetsuhiko Endo from Murchison, New Zealand

Mick Hopkinson is one of the pioneers of whitewater kayaking. Hailing from Yorkshire, in the industrial North of England, he spent the 70s traveling the world looking for the fiercest, most remote whitewater he could find—an ambition that took him to Switzerland, Austria, Nepal, the Karakoram, Baltistan, and Ethiopia, to name a few. According to Canoe and Kayak magazine, the documentary he and the late Mike Jones made of their first descent of the Dudh Khosi, Canoeing Down Everest, remains the most watched paddling movie of all time. Few people on Earth have as much experience and knowledge of rough water as Mick.

I showed up to his house, which doubles as the New Zealand Kayak School, armed to the teeth with questions, but few of them interest him much. Instead, he talks politics, testosterone, socialism, guns, the British class system, and the future of rivers almost uninterrupted for over an hour. All I can do is set my tape recorder down and hold on for the ride.

Swiss Climber Ueli Steck Solos Shisha Pangma in Just 10.5 Hours

Ueli Steck, renowned Swiss alpinist and Mountain Hardwear-sponsored athlete known for speed records in the Alps, takes his era-defining speed style to the Himalaya. Ueli has summited the Tibetan giant of Shisha Pangma (8027-meters and 14th highest in the world) in a mere 10.5 hours, but it’s only the beginning.

Holding impressive speed records on the Eiger, the Matterhorn and les Grandes Jorasses, Ueli is now focused on the Himalaya bringing his light and fast, solo approach to the tallest peaks on the planet, and Shisha Pangma is only the first in what Ueli dubs Project Himalaya.

Ueli left base camp at 5,306 meters on Saturday April 16th at 10:30 p.m. to solo-climb the southwest face and summit in just 10.5 hours. It is reported that just 20 hours after departure Ueli was back at base camp recovering comfortably from the high alpine assault already thinking about what’s next up in the high mountains of Tibet.

Ueli’s success on Shisha Pangma can be attributed to his Olympic-level training regime he has followed the past three years, and the two months he spent this spring training and acclimatizing in the Khumbu region of Nepal. Using sprints up Lobuche and Cholatse as warm-ups for the real deal, Ueli is redefining what is possible in alpine climbing.

For the full back story, on-site video and insights into the unfolding chapters of Project Himalaya, visit: www.HimalayaSpeed.com

 

Everest 2011: Sneaking Through the Turbulent, Tumbling Khumbu Icefall (Photos)

Text and photographs by Dave Hahn, a guide for RMI Expeditions and First Ascent. In May 2010 Hahn reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 12th time, the most of any a non-Sherpa climber. This time, he is leading a Bill McGahan and his 16-year-old daughter, Sara, on a bid for the summit. Follow the team's Everest expedition in dispatches here.

More Everest: See more Everest photos, take our Everest quiz, or watch expedition videos.

Today was a big day for our climbing team: Everyone was keyed up for an early-morning start and nervous about just what surprises the Khumbu Icefall might hold for us. I'm sure I was responsible for a good deal of the nervousness, having tried mightily in this last week of training to pass on my own respect, fear, and awe for the great tumbling and turbulent glacier we needed to sneak through. I'd portrayed this morning's mission as something of a final exam and a dress rehearsal—all rolled into one. Get up at the normal obscene hour we choose for taking on the icefall (we like the thing to be cold and frozen solid underfoot...less chance for breaking crevasse bridges). Then stick to a business-like schedule and pace in climbing safely up to the midpoint of the Icefall ... then come back down, just as safely, just as business-like.

Everest 2011: Big Days at the Mountain, Daily Storms

 
Text and photograph by Dave Hahn, a guide for RMI Expeditions and First Ascent. In May 2010 Hahn reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 12th time, the most of any a non-Sherpa climber. This time, he is leading a Bill McGahan and his 16-year-old daughter, Sara, on a bid for the summit. Follow the team's Everest expedition in dispatches here.

More Everest: See more Everest photos, take our Everest quiz, or watch expedition videos.

Dispatch 8: Big Days at the Mountain, Daily Storms

We've strung together a number of important milestones over these past few days. The Puja ceremony was a symbolic starting point to the climbing portion of the expedition. It seemed to go off without a hitch as we sat in warm sunshine and calm air for the morning... staring up into the Khumbu Icefall as we listened to the chanting and drums of the monks.

We were lucky enough to have the docs from "Everest ER," the HRA clinic, as guests at the Puja and even a few of our good friends from the "Icefall Doctors" team. The Icefall Docs were taking a well-deserved day off from fixing the route up to Camp I. Ang Nima, who has been building climbing routes on Mount Everest since the 1970s, told me they were waiting for a new shipment of rope from down-valley anyway, so relaxing at our puja was the perfect way to pass a morning, getting a little more blessing from the gods for the dangerous and essential job they perform.

We were blessed at the end of the Puja to see Mark Tucker marching into camp. Tuck is our base camp manager and is well-known as the de-facto mayor of the little community that springs to life about this time each year. Tuck and I started guiding together on Mount Rainier in 1986 and have been together on many expeditions to weird parts of the world, so on a personal level I was quite happy to see my friend arrive on the scene. Tuck got to work quickly, hunkering down with Jeff Martin to coordinate logistics and inventory lists in advance of Jeff's departure. He also began immediately to scope out venues on the rough glacial moraine for golf, baseball, and horseshoes... all the normal mountain-climbing related diversions. Bill was plenty happy to have another worthy games and contests opponent around... so he could get busy walloping Tuck at everything.

Fringe Elements: Deepwater Soloing Basics

 
By Fitz Cahall; video still by Byran Smith, for our new video series Fringe Elements. To get more advice from our athletes, see expert tips gallery >>

“There are only two mandatory criteria for deepwater soloing—overhanging rock and deep water. It’s pretty simple really,” says rock climber Matt Maddaloni, who helped bring this subsport into fashion in the early 2000s.

In climbing talk, free soloing is the act of climbing without a rope. Without the safety net of a rope, if a climber is more than 30 feet off the ground, a fall means death. “I was attracted to that kind of climbing, but I realized it has its limitations. You can’t push the difficulty,” says Maddaloni.

Deepwater soloing takes away a good bit of the danger by replacing the ground with water. Typically, climbers use a small boat or canoe to get themselves to a remote sea cliff. Aside from a pair of shoes and bit of climbing chalk, climbers don’t need any gear, ropes, or harnesses. With water below, a climber can execute acrobatic and difficult climbing moves and risk falling. While injury is definitely a possibility, most of the time a fall just means a short swim through warm ocean water to a waiting boat.

While deepwater soloing began in late 1970s on the sun-soaked sea cliffs of Mallorca and along the damper, chillier British coast, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the climbing community began to embrace the sport’s newest trend and started flocking to Vietnam and Thailand’s limestone towers perched above calm bays.

“Typically, limestone is the best rock for deepwater soloing,” says Maddaloni who authored a guidebook to deepwater soloing around Thailand’s Krabi region and established new routes in Vietnam and Malta. “It’s softer than granite, so the sea erodes away at the base and creates overhanging cliffs. That way you’ve got a clean shot into the water.”

Due to the overhanging nature of the rock, deepwater soloing tends to be difficult with the easiest routes checking in at 5.10. In Fringe Elements video “Safety Third,” Maddaloni found a suitable new route on the granite sea cliffs surrounding Squamish, British Columbia. However, the coastal waters of B.C. aren’t quite as warm as the Mediterranean.

“The water was so cold, I had to wear a wet suit,” remembers Maddaloni. “It was super difficult because once the suit was wet, water would run out onto my hands and feet as I was climbing."

Everest 2011: Training for the Khumbu Icefall (Photos)

 
Sara practicing on a Khumbu ladder

Text by Dave Hahn, a guide for RMI Expeditions and First Ascent. In May 2010 Hahn reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 12th time, the most of any a non-Sherpa climber. This time, he is leading a Bill McGahan and his 16-year-old daughter, Sara, on a bid for the summit. Follow the team's Everest expedition in dispatches here.

More Everest: See more Everest photos, take our Everest quiz, or watch expedition videos.

Dispatch 7: Training for the Khumbu Icefall


Bill concentrating

 
Sara going vertical


Bill on the up ladder practice