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.
Debunking The Myth Of The Modern-Day ‘Adventurer’: Tom Allen has spent years trying to develop the Transcaucasian Trail, a 3,000km-long hiking route across Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Chipping away outside the mainstream adventure scene has given Allen a different perspective on modern adventure and the people who hustle to make a living from it.
The Himalayan Tragedy That Forever Changed Mountaineering: In 1976, Nanda Devi Unsoeld, the daughter of legendary alpinist Willi Unsoeld, died while climbing the massive Indian peak for which she was named. Decades later, friends, family, and surviving expedition members offer new insights into what went wrong during this controversial adventure, shedding light on an enigmatic young woman who lived without limits.
Photo: Wikipedia
Journey To The Doomsday Glacier: The vast Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica could reshape the world’s coastlines if it were ever to collapse. But how do you study one of the world’s most inaccessible places?
Last of Their Kind: Jeju Island’s Haenyeo are a South Korean icon. The women of the sea make a living by harvesting seafood during strenuous freediving missions. But their lifestyle might soon be lost due to a lack of women wanting to follow in their footsteps.
The Sea Forests At The End Of The World: The southernmost tip of the Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia coastline accounts for 47% of global M. Pyrifera kelp distribution, rendering the region one of the world’s last pristine ecosystems. Yet, extending over almost 6,000km, the Argentinian coastline is one of the least explored in the world. The recent approval of a law to permanently protect the area gives hope for the future.
Vacation With A Difference
Photo: Erik Boomer/Sarah McNair-Landry
A Baffin Vacation: Most people’s summer holidays don’t involve skiing hundreds of kilometers over a frozen fjord in the Arctic Circle, but Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer are not most people. On a romantic getaway with a difference, the duo set off on a bold, multi-sport 45-day expedition through the remote landscape of Baffin Island in Canada, in search of stunning cliffs to climb and unexplored rivers to white-water kayak.
The Obsessive Quest of High Pointers: Some of the world’s most passionate athletes are high pointers, climbers who will do anything to reach the tallest point in every state, county, or whatever other designation they can dream up. A lot of those peaks aren’t so tall—like Delaware’s 136m Ebright Azimuth — but there’s plenty of challenge in this quest. Just ask John Mitchler, who had knocked off everything on his dream list except the tallest spot in a remote U.S. territory: Agrihan.
Big Wave Pioneer
Pat Curren, Enigmatic Icon of Surfing’s Golden Years: Pat Curren is dead at 90 years old. A Mission Beach, San Diego, kid, he was there on the day in 1957 when Oahu’s Waimea Bay was first surfed. Started shaping surfboards and discovered he was Michelangelo with a planer. Within a few years, Curren was the world’s best big-wave surfboard builder.
