One Revolution is the story of Chris Waddell’s (relatively) unassisted climb to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. In the video you’ll see members of his team using ropes to stop him from back sliding or propping boards under the tires of his handcycle, but we can be assured that he was never pushed, pulled or carried up the mountainside. He’s the first person to make it up the mountain only using his arms. He estimates that it took 538,000 revolutions of his handcycle’s crank in the six days they climbed the mountain. His movie, One Revolution, is screening around the US.
I guess it’s a little bit easier to walk away from an oil spill when the 24-hour news crews can’t easily setup on the spill. New reports have the Yellowstone pipeline dumping 1,200 barrels or 50,400 gallons of crude into the river, 20% higher estimates than Exxon originally released. Right now 750 people are working on sopping up the oil from the banks of the river or find out contaminated debris and passing it through a woodchipper before trucking it away. The floodwaters at the time of the spill pushed the oil deep into side channels, and now that the water’s gone down there’s crude clinging to every bank. Exxon says they’ll bring in more people and resources to help with the cleanup. What they should do is post a notice at the park entrance that any itinerant backpacker can earn $400 a day sopping up oil.
Backcountry.com Athlete Renan Ozturk shares a day in the life of recovery from his brutal ski crash last season. “Even though I’m not technically cleared for psychical therapy yet, the time has finally come for some soul therapy.”
It was a beautiful day, there was enough light to walk down, and they had plenty of water and warm clothes. It’s a wonder why the mountain rescue team didn’t tell them to “stay on the mountain if you’re tired” when they called and requested someone climb up to get them. They were told to meet on the summit, instead they walked down a gully and got lost. Finally fed up, the rescue crew walked the 20 minutes up the trail to assist the two hikers. It took them an hour to walk them back down.
A camper in Canada woke up in the middle of the night to a bear peeing in the woods next to his tent. He did what anyone in a dead panic who happened to be holding a gun and had no firearms training would do - he shot at the noise. Turned out just to be a woman peeing. He hit her in the torso. She survived, and he was arrested but later released. The woman has said she won’t press charges, though Canadian police have said they’ll investigate anyway. She’s a pretty forgiving person, eh?
While the rest of LA was stuck in traffic one man climbed into his boat and paddled his way to work. Going upstream on the way home should have been a lot more work, but I’m sure it seemed easier since he was on his way home.
Don’t let the underwear fool you. This man is a badass. Al Arnold became the first man to complete the Badwater Ultramarathon. This is a jog from Death Valley to the base of Mount Whitney, which takes you through three mountain ranges and covers 135 miles. It also takes place when Death Valley hits about 120F in the shade and the ground bakes at a toasty 190F. It took Arnold three attempts to complete the run, and he did so with only taking a few rests, none of them over 20 minutes long. So the next time someone complains about the heat in town, just strip down to your underwear and run 135 miles to teach them a lesson. Read more on Al Arnold at Coldsplinters.
After pleading guilty to over 130 poaching charges a father and son duo were sentenced to spend the next four deer hunting seasons in the lockup. That’s not four consecutive years, but 90 days each year during deer season. So basically, when these guys go to job interviews, they’re going to have to let their prospective employers know they’ll be taking a lot of vacation time during the fall. They’re guilty of Oregon’s longest and most expansive illegal hunting scheme, taking loads of trophy-size animals out of season, so don’t feel too bad for them.
If you can somehow relate the details of an upcoming adventure you have planned to climate change, preservation and sustainability, you may be able to squeeze $25k out of the Explorers Club and Eddie Bauer. The duo is offering two grants for expeditions, one to students currently enrolled in school and another to anyone who can put together a proposal. Get details on the free money here.
