Your Adventure Civic Duty: Vote for the People's Choice Adventurer of the Year (Last Call)

We are down to just a few days left to vote once a day for your favorite Adventurer of the Year. On January 18 at midnight, we will have a new People's Choice Adventurer of the Year. We'd be thrilled if any of the twelve nominees won. So far the race has been tight! It's possible that the standings could change over the weekend, if people really come out and rock the vote every day. As a member of the greater adventure community, it really is your civic duty to thrown down your ballot (once a day) until the voting is done.

As a brief refresher, here's a look at each adventurers' video clips. Hiker Jennifer Pharr Davis, who set a new overall record on the Appalachian Trail, and kayakers Jon Turn and Erik Boomer, who completed the first circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island, were so consumed by their challenges that they did not shoot video. That in itself is pretty bad ass. Mountaineer Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner's footage will be shown in conjuction with an upcoming article in National Geographic magazine.

Who will be the People's Choice? You decide.

Vote Here

Microadventure 8: River Swim from Alastair Humphreys on Vimeo.

COLD - TRAILER from Forge Motion Pictures on Vimeo.

Danny Macaskill: Industrial Revolutions from Cut Media on Vimeo.

Brain Farm - The Art of Flight Trailer from Brain Farm on Vimeo.

SOLITAIRE: A Backcountry Skiing, Snowboarding, and Telemark Film from Sweetgrass Productions on Vimeo.

Remembering Italian Mountaineer Walter Bonatti, 1930-2011

By David Roberts; Map of 1954 Italian route up K2 by Computer Terrain Mapping

In December 2003, for a feature article, "The Bitter Legacy," for Adventure hailing the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of K2, I traveled to Dubino, Italy, to interview Walter Bonatti at his home. He hosted Charlie Buffet (a French journalist fluent in Italian) and me for three days with unstinting hospitality. Bonatti had been a hero of mine since adolescence, when I’d first read his electrifying climbing memoir, My Mountains. Now, despite the language gap, I felt intensely honored as Bonatti replayed every detail of the harrowing ordeal than K2 had meant for him.

Then, when I asked him about his astonishing solo new route on the Petit Dru in 1955, Bonatti fetched a rope and some carabiners from his garage and reconstructed the “bolo” device that he’d used to surmount a blank wall on the fifth day and save his life. Few moments in my 33 years of freelancing have been so thrilling.

I regard him today as perhaps the greatest mountaineer of all time. But beyond that, he was a kind, thoughtful, and generous man. The bitterness of K2 had not soured him. As we parted, I remarked that he had the bearing of a man who had fulfilled his dreams. Yes, he replied in Italian, at 74 he felt realizzato: “A man should live to realize himself. If not, life makes no sense.”

Read more from David Roberts on Walter Bonatti in the New York Times:

Exploits, Now Not So Daring

Walter Bonatti, Daring Italian Mountaineer, Dies at 81

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 base camp. Upon returning he told Explorersweb.com: “If mountain climbing were as the last 70 hours here at K2, I would immediately stop.” For more classic meditations on K2 climbing, check out the entire report.

And while the men dominated the mountains, it was the boys who ruled the crags. Fifteen-year-old French wunderkind Enzo Oddo has repeated Chris Sharma’s generation defining route Realization, reports Climbing Magazine. The route is famous for being the first one to unequivocally carry the grade of 5.15a. Climbers have since topped out on harder routes, but it will always be the first, and among the most respected in the world of sport climbing.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

By Tetsuhiko Endo

A spate of good weather has seen summits all over the Karakorum this week, according to Explorersweb.com. The third slovak climber to ever reach the summit of an 8,000er, Tomás Rigóci, topped out on Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain in the world, while the Basque team of Alberto Iñurrategi, Mikel Zabalza, and Juan Vallejo followed him shortly after while also opening a new summit route. Meanwhile, a Czech team of Radek Jaros, Libor Uher, and Petr Masek topped out on Gasherbrum II, the 13th highest mountain in the world.

Pangaea Himalayan Expedition: Exploring the Heights With Mike Horn (Video)

Follow South African explorer Mike Horn and his expedition team as they trek through Pakistan's Karakoram Valley high in the Himalayas.

The Pangaea Project (PAN Global Adventure for Environmental Action) is a four-year exploration spanning the globe initiated by South African explorer Mike Horn in 2008. The project was devised by Horn as a way to engage international youth in exploring the world around them, learning about human impacts on the environment, and actively participating in clean-up and community projects.

Having engaged in beach and island clean-up projects in Borneo and India earlier this year, Horn and his expedition team now find themselves in the majestic heights of the Himalayas, guiding a group of eight young explorers on a month-long trek over Pakistan's Karakoram Valley to witness firsthand the amazing views of Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, the Gasherbrum peaks, the Baltoro Massif, and the mighty K2.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration

Text by Tesuhiko Endo

This past week, an international group of alpinists went all in on Nanga Parbat, and for many, the gamble has paid off. One of the first to summit was Portuguese climber Joao García, who, as you might recall from an earlier blog post, was at home in Lisbon a little over a month ago, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber. It was his thirteenth of the fourteen 8000ers. Explorersweb.com reports that García and his climbing partners topped out in icy conditions with lots of snow and high wind. They are currently resting in Camp Four because the mountain is too overloaded with snow to safely descend to base camp. A day later, Ausrian Gerfried Goschl established a new route on Nanga Parbat but, his teammate, Wolfgang Koblinger, is reportedly lost on the mountain. Stay tuned for updates on his whereabouts.

Although the conditions were a bit better on Baffin Island last week, the climbing was just as daring. Climbing magazine reports that American Dave Turner has established a new, 4,750-foot route on Broad Peak (not to be confused with the also-formidable Broad Peak in the Karakorum). He climbed the line solo, in a non-stop 39-hour, alpine-style party. To date, this is only the second route established on the 8,000-foot mountain.

Scot Mark Beaumont was biking his way through the Yukon Territory this week and finding out exactly how bad the mosquitoes can get during a Canadian summer. Sometimes known as the Yukon’s state birds, mosquitoes will get especially bad after rainstorms, which there were plenty of last week. Luckily, he should be out of there by late August when the black flies show up (read more at bbc.co.uk).

Surprisingly, bugs were the last thing on Ed Stafford’s mind, as his biggest problem came in the form of a bad British economy. Stafford had been accompanied on his quest to walk the length of the Amazon river by friend Sam Dyson and translator/guide/voice of reason Gadiel Sanchez Rivera, aka, “Cho.” Unfortunately, the martial arts schools that Dyson runs back home are in a spot of financial trouble and he has abandoned the walk to try and save his source of income. With flooding season in full swing and four-foot electric eels patrolling the shallows, it’s hard to know if Dyson is happy or sad to go (read more at http://walkingtheamazon.com).

Big wave surfer Greg Long is always happy to go, on monstrous swells, that is. Last Monday, he won the Billabong International Big-Wave World Championship in fifteen foot surf at Peru’s famous Pico Alto (literally: “high peak”). Check out the thrilling footage at surfline.com.

Finally, if surfing isn’t your thing, but you are still looking for an interesting summer activity, why not sign up to be a sailor aboard the Phoenician Ship Expedition? The project seeks to recreate the first voyage around Africa, completed by Phoenician mariners in 600 B.C. Already in its second phase, the journey promises to be exciting, and full of learning experiences. The only catch is that it embarks in August, from the Gulf of Aden, known for a little one-eye, peg-legged problem. Then again, pirates will probably be less incline to raid a vessel that is built to 2,600-yea-old specifications. We hope. Read more at phoenicia.org.uk.

Skiing K2: The Fall of Man

Text by Christian Camerota

Take a tumble on a pair of K2 skis and you might twist an ankle. Fall on K2 skiing and it will likely spell disaster.

A solemn reminder of the inherent danger on the mountain's stolid slopes, Italian adventurer Michele Fait slid down an ice sheet to his death while skiing the SSE spur from atop an acclimitization camp on June 23. Fait and Frederick Ericsson had planned on scaling K2 and becoming the first people to ever make a complete ski descent of it before the tragic accident occurred.

Ericsson had been chronicling the pair's trip on Powder Magazine's website and, a few days before, even went so far as to report that the harrowing car ride through a waterfall to arrive at the mountain "was probably more scary than anything we will face on K2." Their first days on the slopes held great promise, with Ericsson commenting on the good quality of the snow, the excellent weather, and his excitement at the prospect of a push for the top.

The two arrived at K2 Base Camp on June 18 and had allotted three weeks for acclimitization, having plotted a course up the Cesen Route on the SSE ridge. At the time of Fait's accident, they were on their way down to Base Camp at 16,700 feet from an overnight stay at Camp 2, at an elevation of just under 20,000 feet. With Ericsson skiing well downhill from him, Fait apparently lost his edge on a patch of ice and was sent tumbling down the rocky slope to the base of the wall some 3,000 feet below. He was dead when Ericsson reached him about 20 minutes later.

Due to the avalanche-prone nature of the area, Ericsson and a guide who had come up to help from Base Camp were forced to secure Fait's body to the snow overnight. The two returned with eight other mountaineers the next day, holding a moment of silence for the fallen skier, wrapping his body, and burying him nearby.

Ericsson's updates have ceased and word is that he discontinued his trek following the loss of his friend. The event again justifies K2's moniker, the "Savage Mountain," which alludes to the difficulty of its ascent and its high fatality rate. Of the mountain's recorded 302 ascents as of 2008, roughly one-fourth (77 in total) have perished in their attempt to scale it.

Sean Wisedale, a mountaineer at K2 Base Camp, witnessed and blogged the account first hand. You can read Ericsson's first three Powder Magazine updates here.

Photograph courtesy of Frederick Ericsson

Climbing K2 Without Toes: Interview With Santiago Quintero

Text by Andrew Tolve

In February 2002 Ecuadorian mountaineer Santiago Quintero reached the summit of Aconcagua, the western hemisphere’s highest peak. The ascent was brutal. Only four men had ever climbed the south face of Aconcagua alone. In becoming the fifth, Quintero had endured 36 hours without oxygen in the throes of a storm at 21,000-plus feet. At the summit he took a moment to enjoy the view, then started back down.

At lower altitudes a tingling sensation overcame his feet. The doctor at base camp diagnosed it as mild frostbite. Back in Ecuador, the condition worsened. Quintero saw one specialist after another. Finally he flew to the MAZ hospital in Zaragoza, Spain, where doctors delivered the sobering news: Half his right foot and the toes of his left would need to be amputated. He never would climb again.

After his amputation, Quintero spent six months in a wheelchair, three months on a walker, then four months on crutches. Come December 2004, less than two years after the amputation, he was back at the summit of a mountain—this time Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador. He had reached the top without prostheses, rather he used the empty spaces at the toes of his boots.

In the years since, Quintero has summited every major mountain in South America. He added Pakistan’s Broad Peak to his resume in 2007 and tacked on Nepal’s Makalu in 2008. Now the 34-year-old has selected his most ambitious project yet: K2. This week he sets off for the top of the world’s toughest mountain, a summit bid he’s labeled K2 Without Toes.

As training for the event, Quintero climbed all 35 of Ecuador’s 12,000-feet-plus peaks in 50 days. ADVENTURE caught up with him at a hosteria in the north of Ecuador the day after he’d bagged number 13.

ADVENTURE: Why are you so determined to get to the top of K2?

SANTIAGO QUINTERO: After I lost my toes, I thought I would never climb again. Maybe not even a hill. Especially not K2. It is the greatest mountain in the world. When I summit my first mountain after my surgery, I started to cry because I understood that I will have the solution to resolve the pain in my feet and that I will climb K2. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but at that summit I need to fight to get to K2.

Continue reading this interview >>

Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

SPACE

The astronauts on the International Space Station are welcoming three more members to their crew, the BBC reports. The Soyuz TMA-15 capsule carrying three Russian astronauts docked with the space station Friday morning and discharged its crew, effectively doubling the number of men on board. Sound cramped? Well, one of the primary objectives of the mission is to see how well these men–one American, one Japanese, and four Russians–live together in a confined space. This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. (Read more at BBC.com.)

MOUNTAINS

A few miles below them, no one is laughing on Everest. Apa Sherpa, the man who holds the record number of Everest summits at a staggering 19, told Reuters that climate change has melted glaciers on the mountain exposing rocks and making it harder to climb (read more). Apa Sherpa is also involved in the project to clean accumulated trash off the mountain and reports that his team has picked up more than five tons of garbage. That includes old tents, ropes, different kinds of plastic, oxygen tanks, parts of an Italian helicopter that crashed in 1973, and, of course, plenty of human waste. This year, Apa Sherpa topped out with a metal vase containing 400 sacred Buddhist offerings in hopes of restoring some sanctity to the mountain. It appears Everest, or Sagarmatha, as it is know to the Sherpa, is going to need every one of those offerings.

Climbers all over the Himalaya were looking for a bit of divine help last week as they scampered down to lower altitudes with bad weather nipping at their heals. Everest is all but deserted except for a few optimistic souls still hoping to get a shot at the North Side, reports Explorersweb. The final week of climbing was one of the worst of the season, claiming the life of Kazakh climber Sergei Samoilov, who was attempting the Lhotse-Everest Traverse, and almost killing Norwegian Jarle Traa, who had to be rescued and driven to a hospital in Kathmandu where he is currently in stable condition (read more at mounteverest.net).

Although we must depart from the dizzying heights of Tibet, we can skip right over to Pakistan, wherer the climbing season is just beginning. Check back later this week for all the action from Broad Peak and K2.

OCEANS

If things were hard in the mountains, they were equally difficult for anyone tough/crazy enough to be rowing through the Indian Ocean this week. Brit Sarah Outen turned 24 on the 27th, and celebrated by sitting in her cabin and being battered by high seas. Despite the negative drift, she is approaching Mauritius and is in good spirits (read more).  A team of Irish researchers have just completed tests on a new unmanned submersible that they are promising will be better and cheaper to use than any of its predecessors (read more on the bbc.com). One of it’s main envisioned uses? Defining continental perimeters so nations can make legitimate claims to mineral rights. Just don’t mention it to the astronauts on the International Space Station, they have enough to deal with at the moment.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: The News

A look at last week's headlines, by Tetsuhiko Endo and Keith Rutowski

Last Friday (April 17), the EPA “formally” declared that man-made carbon emissions are the cause of global warming and a threat to public heath. As a result, emissions are now subject to regulation under the terms of the Clean Air Act. Despite years of mounting evidence, the agency has never come right out and stated this. The long-awaited decision came after a Supreme Court-ordered investigation of six gases yielded “overwhelming evidence” linking air pollution and warming (read more in the New York Times). Earlier last week the EPA released its Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which found that overall emissions had increased by 17.2 percent from 1990 to 2007. 

Archaeologists think they might have found the tomb of Anthony and Cleopatra. They have narrowed down their search to three sites near the costal city of Alexandria, where they found coins carrying the visage of the famous queen. NG Fellow Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, reports that the coins prove that Cleopatra was not “very ugly.” as some scholars have recently suggested (read the BBC article). 

In a move sure to provoke controversy in the climbing world, Italian alpinist Fabrizio Zangrilli has agreed to lead the first ever commercial expedition to the summit of K2, reports Rock and Ice (read the article). 

This year's Earth Day (April 22) is likely to be more visible across print and online media than ever before, thanks, in part, to growing consumer enthusiasm for eco-friendly products. But beware. The Canadian consulting firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing has just released a study finding that just 2 percent of supposedly green products actually have the credentials to back up their claims. The other 98 percent are guilty of "greenwashing," or exaggerating or inventing the eco-friendly characteristics of a product.