Writer Charles Graeber: Ad Hoc Enlightenment on India's Ganges

In an attempt to spread the word about our new, excellent, eminently purchasable anthology, we’ve been reaching out to various contributors, whose superior pieces of journalism appear in the collection. One such is Charles Graeber, who traveled India’s Ganges River in “Being the Boatman.” We asked Charlie if he wouldn’t mind writing something up that would give some insight to his story, and his relationship with the subcontinent. It would be small, amusing, and for the blog, we said. Weeks passed, no word. And suddenly, a few days back, a rambling tale (with footnotes!) arrives in our inbox. It’s funny and sad and true and…pretty long. Sometimes, with writers, and Charlie in particular, you get more than you bargain for. And for that we are so grateful. Enjoy this, and buy the book—because even though it’s not as free, it’s even better. —Ryan Bradley

Photograph by Ryan Bradley 

To read Charlie's tale, see after the jump.

K2 - Altitude Vs. Attitude in Ed Viestur's New Book

In recent years, mountaineering’s grand prize has begun to shift from the world’s highest summit to its riskiest: K2. Even after a serac collapse took the lives of 11 experienced climbers there in 2008, this year saw the vaunted peak’s first ever commercial expedition. Which makes K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain a particularly timely read. Co-writing with adventure contributor David Roberts, renowned alpinist Ed Viesturs relays a history of the mountain through tales of those who’ve climbed it, including his own.

Sebastian Junger, Scott Anderson, Chip Brown Read ADVENTURE

Some of our favorite writers will be reading from our new anthology, The New Age of Adventure, next Monday night at the Half King in New York City. Here's the lineup:

SEBASTIAN JUNGER, reading from “The Lion in Winter,” his profile of Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Afghan warrior who fought the Taliban in the years before September 11, 2001.

SCOTT ANDERSON, reading from “Coming of Age at Band-iAmir," a story about a year-long road trip he took across Asia with his father.

CHIP BROWN, reading from “The Last Cairn," a profile of Johnny Waterman, the mad genius of Alaskan mountaineering, and his mysterious disappearance.

Attendees will have the chance to win a Timex Expedition watch and other great prizes.

We'll post pictures after the event. Stay tuned!

GET IT NOW: Preorder your copy of The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing here.

Paul Kvinta on Man Vs. Nature

Yesterday, it became legal to kill a wolf in Idaho. A state-sanctioned wolf hunt began amid controversy, seeing as wolves were removed from the endangered species list only four months ago. There’s a good back and forth between Idaho hunters and conservationists here.

Contributing Editor Paul Kvinta has covered interspecies conflicts like this one for the past decade, including this essay, "Man Vs. Nature: When Animals Attacked," in our 10th anniversary issue. He’s been to Tanzania, where lions were killing farmers; the Himalaya, where snow leopards were eating livestock; and the Pacific Northwest to find sea-lions gorging themselves on salmon. He also wrote an award-winning piece on elephant attacks in India, a piece collected in our soon-to-be-released anthology, The New Age of Adventure, available  from National Geographic Books. Preorder a copy now

Parkour in NYC Photos: How to Get the Shot

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo; Photographs courtesy of Brett Beyer

Photographer Brett Beyer has documented everything from still lifes in tiny studios in Manhattan to landscapes in California. It should come as no surprise, then, that he jumped at the chance to photograph the emerging activity of urban free running, or parkour, as it is known in its native France.  

“When I first saw parkour on television, my visceral reaction was that it was really cool. But on a deeper level, I was intrigued by the way that they reinvented the urban landscape,” he explains.  

ADVENTURE recently sat down with Brett look at photos and talk about his new book, NY Parkour, and how he captured the young traceurs of the urban jungle in their natural environment. 

Continue reading and see more pictures with the photographer's captions >>

Climber-Author Bo Parfet: “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly”

Text by Tesuhiko Endo

When adventurer, entrepreneur, and author Bo Parfet began his quest to climb the Seven Summits, he was a 230-pound corporate financier working 100-hour weeks in New York City and subsisting off a steady diet of cheeseburgers and coca-cola. 

“I literally stopped at a sporting goods store on my way to the airport (en route to Kilimanjaro) and bought whatever gear I thought I needed,” he told ADVENTURE while in Manhattan for a presentation at the Explorer’s Club.

This doesn’t seem like the best approach for climbing any mountain, much less the highest in Africa. And of course, it wasn’t. But Parfet survived the experience (barely) and, in doing so, caught a climbing bug that would take him around the world in search of the highest peeks he could get his crampons on. Check out all his high altitude hi-jinks in his book Die Trying.  

“People thought I was nuts,” he admits. But Parfet said that such reactions to his habit of tempting fate on high mountains only encouraged him. “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly,” he offered while flipping through a brief slide show he was preparing to show to the people who were eagerly awaiting his presentation. 

Despite a penchant from dropping somewhat grandiose quotes into conversation, Parfet is not your typical self-aggrandizing mountain climber. “I’m not Lance Armstrong, I’m not Ed Viesturs, I’m just a normal guy who was really unhappy with his life.” He explained. “Anybody can make a change in their lives, but it’s a bit like jumping off a cliff–the cliff of change, I call it–you come up to the edge and look down, then you get scared and back off. What most people don’t realize is that going back and forth is usually more painful than actually making the jump.” 

Luckily for Parfet, he took the plunge and although it has meant its fair share of pain (food poisoning on Kilimanjaro, the flu on Everest, and enough altitude-related aches and pains to hobble a mountain goat) he has loved every step of it. A good illustration of this is that one of his favorite climbs was Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid), in Papua, New Guinea. This expedition involved dodging civil war, eating roasted rats, being smuggled through a heavily guarded gold mine, and handing out a small trust fund’s worth of bribe money.  

Despite the difficulties, or indeed, because of them, he has also always made a point of giving back. 

“I literally went around my office with a baseball hat taking donations and was able to scrape together enough money to send two African kids to medical school.” Although his projects became a bit more ambitious in the years to come, they were always done with the same goal. “I would like to be part of every country that I visit, and for me, philanthropy is a way of achieving that interest.”

He may have come a long way, but Parfet isn’t slowing down just yet. When he’s not at his day job running his own real-estate company, he is planning the first ascent (and subsequent first descent on skis) of an unnamed mountain in the Himalaya in 2010. It’s pretty busy schedule, but he seems to prefer it that way. “One of my favorite quotes,” he said just as our time was running out, “is from Mahatma Ghandi.  It goes: 'Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.' ” 

Three Cups of Trouble: Climber Greg Mortenson’s Taliban Problem

Text by Cliff Ransom 

This summer Greg Mortenson’s book, Three Cups of Tea, will hit 125 weeks on the best seller list. The tale of a K2 climber who started building schools in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and its message that only education can combat the ignorance that fosters religious extremism, has inspired more than three million readers. But in recent months, Taliban insurgents have battled feverishly with the Pakistani government in a bid to overrun a sizable portion of the country. This begs the inevitable question: What happens when these same gun-toting extremists show up at Mortenson’s schools? 

The answer, as with most things in Pakistan, is complex. Most of Mortenson’s 50 or so Pakistani schools are located in the remote valleys of the Karakoram mountains, areas traditionally free from militant Islam. The recent battles against the Taliban in the Swat Valley are more than 150 very rough miles to the west. So his schools are safe—for now. 

But a storm is gathering. In recent years, Islamic schools, or madrassas, run by anti-Western Sunni extremists have multiplied at an alarming rate. “In 2001 there were about 12,000 madrassas,” says Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, one of the foremost authorities on the Taliban. “In 2008 there were about 18,000.” These schools often operate as recruiting tools for militant groups, and they have expanded into every corner of the country. According to David Oliver Relin, the coauthor of Three Cups of Tea, “When I was last in Pakistan five years ago, extremist madrassas were popping up in the same area as Greg’s schools. Even in Skardu [the closest town to K2], which used to be a laid-back climbing outpost, there’s now a big, ultraconservative mosque.” 

For Mortenson, the situation is so sensitive that he politely declined to be interviewed, citing security concerns. Yet his influence remains as strong as ever. Recently he was awarded the Star of Pakistan, the nation’s highest civil honor, and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. And Pakistanis are taking note. “Before Greg, there were very few local organizations willing to set up schools,” Rashid says. “But he shamed them into it.” Newly formed Pakistani NGOs have started to tackle the immense task of reviving the state school system, a significant step in beating back extremist madrassas. For now, Mortenson continues his work undaunted, taking comfort in the words of the Prophet Muhammad: “The ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr.”

Mountainfilm in Telluride's Moving Mountains Prize Awarded to Burma VJ, Making the Crooked Straight

Text by Ben Skinner, author of A Crime so Monstrous and one of our 2008 Adventurers of the Year

Mountainfilm gave its Moving Mountains prize jury, consisting of Grammy-winning artist Shawn Colvin, documentarian Chris Paine, HBO Vice President Nancy Abraham, and me, the challenging privilege of selecting one nonprofit from six strong candidates. Each of the candidates was represented by a film documenting their work, and the festival pledged each nonprofit at least $400.

In 2008, the grand prize was $5,000, and was won by my favorite organization, Free The Slaves, the American wing of the world’s oldest human rights group. Within a month, Free The Slaves had used the money to rescue and to begin the rehabilitation of ten child slaves in Ghana.

This year, the economic downturn had reduced the prize to $3,000. Furthermore, the top two contenders were both supremely worthy causes, but our mandate was to give just one prize. In September 2007, a handful of courageous local journalists, the Democratic Voice of Burma, armed only with video cameras, brought the world’s attention to the horrors committed by the generals in their suppression of the Buddhist monk-led freedom movement. Their story was chronicled in Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country.

For two decades, Dr. Rick Hodes has dedicated his life to providing medical care to Ethiopians, many with very severe deformities, who would otherwise go untreated. His is angelic work, which encompasses all aspects of his life, and is chronicled beautifully in the spare yet moving film, Making the Crooked Straight.

As a jury, we agreed that some causes are too important to be nickel-and-dimed. We each made pledges to shore up the prize money. Within hours, other festival participants pledged even grander amounts. In the end, we didn’t have to choose between the top two: Hodes’ operation and the Democratic Voice of Burma will receive $5000 each. Both causes are worthy of much larger donations, but the awards nonetheless demonstrate why Mountainfilm is on a higher plane than most other film festivals: Its participants not only celebrate the indomitable human spirit, but also commit to reinforcing it.

Burma VJ from good with money on Vimeo.

Making the Crooked Straight - MF09 Trailer from Mountainfilm in Telluride on Vimeo.

Jim Whittaker, First American to Summit Everest: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space."

Photograph of Jim Whittaker (right) with photographer James Balog, copyright Merrick Chase / TELLURIDEPHOTOGRAPHY.NET

See a Mountainfilm photo gallery >>

Yesterday we caught up with Jim Whittaker, now 80 years old, at the Mountainfilm in Telluride Reading Frenzy, which is basically a book fair filled with impressive adventure authors—Ben Skinner, James Balog, David Breashears. No surprise, Whittaker stood tall (he's almost 6'6") next to an empty box that once held copies of his autobiography, A Life on the Edge. After graciously volunteering to mail us a signed copy, Whittaker answered a couple questions about Everest, risk-taking, and how to avoid taking up too much space.

Q: This past week your nephew, Peter, made it to the top of Everest. You must be one proud uncle.

Jim Whittaker: Absolutely. And I was glad that he was able to climb with Ed Viesturs. You see, Ed’s smart. He used oxygen this time. He’s done it without oxygen many times. But he used it this year to keep an eye on Peter. To help him get up the mountain safely. I really appreciate that.

Ed knows Everest.

He sure does. His first ascent was on the 1990 Everest Peace Climb, a multinational expedition that I organized. I picked Ed to go up with the Chinese and the Soviets on the first team. But he surprised me when he asked to go with the second group. You see, he knew that I wanted the first group to use bottled oxygen to assure their success. Ed wanted to climb the mountain without it.

What did you see in him?

I knew he was a strong climber. That’s why I picked him. But he was also smart. He gave up his bid to get up the mountain first so that he could go without oxygen. He realized there was a risk there, so he went in the second group.

So it doesn't surprise you that he has gained a reputation as one of the best climbers in the world at managing risks?

Not at all. You've got to be a smart climber to summit all 14 8,000-meter peaks without bottled oxygen.

On the other end of the intelligence spectrum, we’ve seen some films this weekend of people doing seemingly crazy things—like free climbing the Eiger and BASE jumping off of it. What do you think of the risks climbers are willing to take today?

James Ramsey Ullman, the author of Americans on Everest, put it this way: Challenge is the core of all human activity. If there's an ocean we cross it. If there’s a record we break it. If there’s a disease we cure it. If there’s a wrong we right it. If there’s a mountain we climb it. These guys want challenge. The human character is to push a little bit farther all the time. These guys are doing things that I would never do.

But you were certainly pushing the limits when you became the first American to climb Everest in 1963.

That’s right. And we still need people to challenge themselves, to push a little bit, to live on the edge. After all, if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.

New Book: The Best of ADVENTURE Magazine: Ten Years of Great Writing

For more than a decade, National Geographic ADVENTURE has brought its readers in-depth reporting and rollicking travel narratives from the farthest reaches of the globe, taking them along for the ride with grace, wit, and grit. The magazine's correspondents have solved mysteries on the highest slopes of Everest, conducted interviews amid stampeding elephants in India, and filed dispatches from the ice of the White Continent to the heart of the Sahara. Whether recounting a trip of a lifetime in Yellowstone backcountry or a solitary exploration of the Aleutian Islands, every story in this anthology offers an unforgettable reading experienceяan exhilarating look at The New Age Of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing (preoder a copy).

Here, collected for the first time, are 25 of the best stories from the first ten years of ADVENTURE magazine, featuring many of the finest writers in America.

Sebastian Junger visits Afghanistan's greatest warrior

Philip Caputo stalks descendants of the man-eating lions of Tsavo

David Quammen kayaks the Grand Canyon seeking solace and enlightenment 

Peter Matthiessen voyages to the end of the Earth

Gretel Ehrlich treks with the last of the Siberian nomads

Michael Finkel hitchhikes across the Sahara

Tim Cahill finds undiscovered backcountry waterfallsяmaybe

David Roberts solves a 75-year-old murder mystery

Chip Brown unravels a climber's suicide

Kira Salak dodges Congolese rebels and is kissed by a gorilla

Scott Anderson road-trips the hippie highway through Central Asia
Charles Graeber takes an ad hoc journey of enlightenment on India's holiest river

GET IT NOW: Preorder your copy of The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing here.