ExWeb’s Links of the Week

Here at ExWeb, when we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the wider interweb. Sometimes we’re a little too plugged in, and browsing interesting stories turns from minutes into hours. To nourish your own adventure fix, here are some of the best links we’ve discovered this week…

Climbing Blind: With virtually no sight, everyday tasks become quite impossible. Now imagine chucking on a harness, racking up and leading a route on a huge sea stack. Blind climber Jesse Dufton does just that.

Queen of the North Faces: Meet the woman who mixed it with the men during the golden age of Swiss mountaineering. She had a bit of an obsession with alpine north faces.

In the Zone: Psychologists have long discussed the Flow Experience, being so fully immersed in an activity that “Time flies. Self vanishes. Performance goes through the roof. This piece homes in on how the feeling drives top climbers such as Alex Honnold.

Wild West Swimming: The founder of the Outdoor Swimming Society recalls five days swimming down the milky green water of the Apache, Canyon and Saguaro Lakes in the American West.

Purja Profile: A wide-ranging profile and interview with Nirmal Purja — from childhood and army beginnings to the ethics of using oxygen on the 8,000’ers.

Baffin Blitz: This summer, a team of four climbers spent 35 days in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, where they put up a range of first ascents and repeated existing classics.