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 adventure fix, here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.
Why Does Everest Matter? In April 2022, undeterred by two years of pandemic-related challenges, crowds arrived yet again at Everest. Despite piles of trash, increasingly severe overcrowding, and growing ethical debates around labor and risk, the allure of Everest remains undimmed. Himal Magazine quite rightly asks, Why?
The Guardian View on The Warming of The Alps: A Challenge for Tourism: Higher temperatures mean less snow and ice, more rockfalls, and more fatalities on Europe’s overcrowded mountains. The collision between industrial tourism and the climate crisis is destroying some of the very environments that have attracted so many to the outdoors in the first place.
A different kind of Sherpa
Pasang Lama Sherpa. Photo: Dustynep
The Trail Builder of Everest: The name Sherpa has become synonymous all over the world with mountaineering guides. But here, in the villages below Everest, Pasang Lama Sherpa is better known as someone who has dedicated his life not to fixing ropes on Everest but to maintain the walking trails.
French Sailor Survives 16 Hours In Capsized Boat in Atlantic: A 62-year-old French man survived for 16 hours at sea by using an air bubble inside his boat after it capsized. The 12-metre vessel, which sailed from Lisbon, sent out a distress signal late on Monday evening from the Atlantic Ocean.
Canine climber
Photo: Anne Butler
The First Canine Compleatist of the Grahams: Meet Ralph, a recent finisher of the Grahams — the 219 mountains in Scotland between 600 and 760m, with at least 150m of descent on all sides. When Ralph completed his last of the Grahams in July, he celebrated with a large bowl of summit sausages. Ralph is socially anxious and a big softie who is scared of his own shadow and dislikes the hustle and bustle of modern life. Ralph is a six-year-old Border Collie — the first dog known to have completed the round.
The Best Wilderness Survival Strategies, Based on 103 Successful Rescue Stories: Harrowing survival stories can feel like the lifeblood of outdoor culture. The image of the gnarled outdoorsman spinning tales over a campfire about “that time I almost died” serves as a kind of social currency in the backcountry. It’s a tricky line to toe, as we both validate and admonish adventurers who get lost.
How Two Deaf Mountaineers Thrive on High Peaks: Communication can be the difference between life and death in mountaineering. Climbers Scott Lehmann and Shayna Unger know that as well as anyone.
