When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Sometimes we’re a little too plugged in and browsing adventure reads can turn from minutes to hours. To nourish your own adventure fix, here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.
Meet the Canoe-Racing Texans Tackling The Arctic’s Toughest Passage: The Northwest Passage is a gauntlet of water and ice that plays an outsized role in Arctic lore. This summer an American team comprising of West Hansen, 60, Jeff Wueste, 62, and 31-year-old Rebekah Feaster are aiming to be the first to paddle or row the entire Northwest Passage in a single season.
Peter Freuchen Amputates His Toes: When we last left Peter Freuchen, he had just saved his own life by fashioning a chisel from his own frozen feces to free himself from an ice cave that threatened to become his early grave. He ended his description of that adventure with the ominous statement, “Fortunately, I then did not know the ordeal was to cost me my foot.” And thus begins another tale.
A climbing maverick
Climber and author Andy Kirkpatrick. Photo: Andy Kirkpatrick
Reading Between the Lines – Andy Kirkpatrick: A big-wall connoisseur with a penchant for suffering. Andy Kirkpatrick is the author of Cold Wars and Psychovertical — both recipients of the prestigious Boardman-Tasker award – as well as numerous technical guides, including 1001 Climbing Tips. Andy’s writing has been translated into multiple languages around the world. He also writes a popular and thought-provoking blog.
Philip Kreycik Wasn’t Supposed to Die This Way: He was an environmentalist versed in the dangers of our warming world, an expert trail runner, and eminently capable of moving far and fast outside. The heat killed him all the same.
A Moose Trampled My Sled Dogs Just Weeks Before the Iditarod: A moose charged and trampled Bridgett Watkins’ dog team near Fairbanks, Alaska when they were on a training run to prepare for the Iditarod. Here’s what happened in her words, as told to Blair Braverman.
Crazy free soloists
A free soloist on Colorado’s Flat Irons. Photo: Brian Solano
A Reluctant Free Soloist Rescued On Her Lucky Day: Picture a conga line of unroped climbers — 10 of them, 20! — in a row on a flat, inclined slab. Some climbers wear rock shoes. They move well and have experience. Some wear approach shoes, laced up tightly. Others wear running shoes. Maybe it’s their first time doing this. And some — the scary ones — wear unlaced, white-soled tennis shoes that slide down a foot for every two feet of progress. As they catch themselves on a jug an instant before taking a lethal, 500-foot cartwheeling tumble, they turn to their friends and say, “That was sick!”
Les Houches — The Alpine Physics School with Altitude: Nestled on a hillside at the foot of Mont Blanc is an unlikely academic institution where some of the finest minds in physics — including 50 Nobel Prize winners and Stephen Hawking — have exercised their thoughts and theorems, interspersed with some high-altitude antics.
Swimming for Your Life in the Open Ocean: After two young pilots crashed their small plane into the water off Hawaii, they realized their best hope for survival was to make it back to land on their own. Sydney Uetmoto and David McMahon had been on a regular route between Oahu and the island of Hawaii, but now they were just specks in the sea with no way to call for help. In this tale from the Out Alive podcast, we hear about their remarkable endurance in the face of overwhelming odds.
