Adventure Links of the Week

When we’re not outdoors, we get our adventure fix by exploring social media and the web. Here are some of the best adventure links we’ve discovered this week.

Underwater Bones: Free diver Anna von Boetticher spent hours preparing the hole in the ice for her dive in East Greenland. As she slid into the water, she experienced the inevitable moment of commitment. She controlled her breathing, stopped thinking about the temperature, and pushed herself through the slush forming on the water.

Snow on top of the ice made the swim dark. As her eyes adjusted, she saw huge skeletons all around her — the bones of whales that had been killed by local communities.

The Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Everest Had Been Climbed: In May 1953, Tenzing Norway and Edmund Hillary made the first successful climb of Mount Everest. A London Times reporter waited at a camp at 6,400m for the news.

As soon as she heard, she hurried down to base camp. The only way to get the news to the rest of the world was by one of the mail runners who carried news from the expedition to Kathmandu.

Ten Tsewang Sherpa ran over 300km so the world could learn that Everest had finally been climbed. He died a few weeks later; it seems the run killed him. All the stories and formal reports about this historic climb never mention him by name. Peter Frick-Wright delves into his story and speaks to those who remember him.

Thumbs up to hitchhiking

Confessions of an 82-Year-Old Hitchhiker: Many people think that hitchhiking is a thing of the past. Hilary Bradt believes otherwise.

The co-founder of Bradt Travel Guides has hitchhiked all her life. Now in her eighties, she has no intention of stopping. She talks of her love of hitchhiking and some of the most interesting people she has met.

Death of a Hiker: Leyton Cassidy was on a trip around Europe with her then-partner. While her partner was at a wedding, she decided to go hiking alone for a few days. An inexperienced backpacker, she booked a lodge-to-lodge trip in Slovenia.

She did not know she was trekking in an area of the country known as the Bohinj Triangle. Over the last 30 years, six hikers have gone missing here.

On her first day, she wandered off the trail and became lost during a vicious lightning storm. Frozen to the core and terrified, all she could think of were the hikers who disappeared.

Best wild rivers for swimming in California

California Dreaming: Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon spent six months traveling around California in a motor home. They were seeking the best spots for wild swimming. Here, they list their top five river swims in the state.

I Saved a Bear’s Life by Smoking a Spliff: One of Jason Marks’ pleasures is his once-a-year solo camping trip. This year, he went to the North Cascades. He started during a busy weekend, amid many rumors about the presence of bears.

On his third night, he was sitting on a log by his campsite, spliff in hand, when a bear passed through the nearby woods. He decided to make some noise by singing a folk song he used to sing to his daughter. The music and smell of cannabis worked, and the bear disappeared. A few minutes later, a hunter came looking for it, rifle in hand.

R.I.P. Denis Trento

Denis Trento Perishes in Italian Alps: On May 3, Denis Trento died on the north face of Testa del Paramount in the Italian Alps. The mountain guide won many ski mountaineering competitions in the early 2000s.

Even after retiring from competition, he devoted his life to the high mountains, both as a guide and as director of the Italian ski mountaineering federation.

Stories from Darjeeling’s High-Altitude Climbing Community: A new book, Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling, tells the stories of the Sherpas and Bhutanese communities of the Himalaya.

Authors Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balswar spent years interviewing current sherpas and the children and friends of legendary ones from decades ago. This excerpt from the book profiles three of them.

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