Category archives for Climbing
Posted by 
Celebrating 35 years of inspiration, the 2013 Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colorado, will run another exciting program of movies and speakers over Memorial Day weekend. The impressive lineup includes leading adventure athletes, environmental activists, and documentary filmmakers. Beginning with the Moving Mountains Symposium on Friday, the festival revolves around the theme of climate solutions. Here festival…
Expedition Denali Short from Distill Productions, LLC on Vimeo. I’ve been told it shouldn’t matter. But as one in a handful of black professionals in the outdoor recreation industry, I can’t help being wildly excited. In June the first team of African-American climbers will attempt to reach the summit of Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the tallest…
Posted by 
The other weekend, I climbed my first couloir. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what a couloir was. I knew it was a mountain feature—but I figured it was somewhere in the realm of too extreme for me. I’ve always been intimated by technical mountaineering. So how did I find myself in the backcountry…
Top prize winners at the 2013 5Point Film Festival set the tone for an exciting spring season of adventure. The long journey of solo explorer Kyle Dempster in the movie The Road From Karakol took the Best of the Fest award. The compelling feature showed viewers the importance of vulnerability in the face of adversity,…
Video: 50 Years on Everest – Climbers’ Candid Thoughts on the State of the World’s Tallest Peak
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on May 1, 2013 On this day 50 years ago, May 1, 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to stand atop Everest, a feat which made him a national hero. A few weeks later, May 22, Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld made the daring first ascent of the West Ridge and the first traverse of the peak, electrifying…
Posted by 
“I forgot to pack my underwear, but I brought a headlamp!” said Winnie. By now we had known each other five days. We were in a remote, Costa Rican jungle and I couldn’t help but laugh at my new Swedish friend and expedition mate. Her parents named her after the loveable children’s character and bear,…
Antarctica: Exploring the Frozen Frontier
Posted by Freddie Wilkinson on April 18, 2013 
Pick up the September 2013 edition of National Geographic to read writer Freddie Wilkinson’s feature story about this expedition. Queen Maud Land—the adventure starts in sun-soaked South Africa in late spring. On the evening of November 11, 2012, a little after dinner hours, a group of men steadily forms in the back corner of the departures terminal…
It’s that time of year—the eve of summer, when the earth starts to awaken from her long slumber and I get itchy for adventure. After all, it’s what feeds me. Sure, my weekends are packed with fun outdoor forays all year long. But nothing compares to setting your sights on a somewhat scary goal and…
The 5Point Film Festival running April 25 to 28 in Carbondale, Colorado, kicks off the adventure film festival season and sets the stage for the rest of the year. By presenting a wide range of movies that push the definition of adventure, the film festival aims to inspire the community—young and old, and of all…
Posted by 
Jim Harris is currently on a National Geographic Expeditions Council assignment with Gregg Treinish to look for wolverine DNA evidence in Mongolia. Read updates on the expedition here. Windmilling his kayak paddle into the pushy breeze, Luc Mehl, 34, pulls onto the sandbar at the mouth of Mexico’s Rio Antigua and squints at the novelty…
Video: Everest-Bound Speed Climber Ueli Steck Learns to Fly for an Alps Triple Link-Up
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on March 28, 2013 Ueli Steck is hard to please. The man, known as “the Swiss Machine,” seems insatiable in his quest to push the limits of speed climbing. His latest vision led him to learn to paraglide in his home country of Switzerland. The goal was to climb three peaks—the Alps’ iconic Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau—in one day,…
Conrad Anker on How War Veterans and Climbers Share Similar Values
Posted by Chris Kassar on March 15, 2013 
I thought I was in solid shape until I tried to keep up with Conrad Anker, one of the best climbers in the world, on a short hike through the snowy trails of Hyalite Canyon, a beautiful gorge located just outside of Bozeman, Montana. Conrad floats over the ground, while I merely stumble. He can…
“You shouldn’t have to convince people to go to paradise, but if I could go to paradise without dying and see all that is there, sign me up.” –Shelton Johnson, Yosemite park ranger, in The Way Home Sign me up, too! It sounds like an adventure. Paradise waits for us when we explore the unknown,…
Veterans Take on Hyalite Canyon and Life After War
Posted by Chris Kassar on March 4, 2013 
Murky fog envelops the valley floor. Snowflake after snowflake plummets to Earth with a purpose and persistence only the mountains can muster. Overhead, Mike Kirby, an Army Ranger who served one tour in Afghanistan and three in Iraq, gracefully places axes and kicks steps as he ascends a skinny chunk of frozen water. From below,…
Artist-Climber Jeremy Collins on His Film “The Equation”: Be the Beauty You Wish to Share in the World
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on January 31, 2013 
The Equation from ARC’TERYX on Vimeo. Missouri-based artist-climber-filmmaker Jeremy Collins is expressive, artistic, and intuitive—and his new film The Equation is all of those things. In the end, it’s an allegory about how to pursue a life well lived. In the process, it’s a piece of art mimicking the thoughts and ideals of another time.…
Posted by 
We often use the New Year to reflect on the year before and instill a new resolve for the year to come. For 2013, this year marks 50 years since Americans first stood atop our world’s highest peak. The climbs on Mount Everest in 1963 stand alone in climbing history and continue to inform our…
Cascada Film Preview: World-Class Kayakers and Climbers Take on Mexico
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on January 7, 2013 
CASCADA – THE TEASER from NRS Films on Vimeo. For their upcoming film Cascada, extreme kayakers Erik Boomer, Tyler Bradt, and Galen Volckhausen teamed up with climbers/filmmakers Tim Kemple, Anson Fogel, Blake Hendrix, and Skip Armstrong to hunt the remote Mexican jungle for the perfect waterfall … and the perfect shot. It’s pretty sweet when…
Today we are asking you to be part of a social media experiment and to tweet #adventure4good so we can collectively reach 100,000 tweets in 24 hours. Your tweet will help bring the first climbing wall to the slums of Rio. National Geographic Young Explorer Asa Firestone wants to inspire kids through climbing. Though not…
Valhalla Film Preview: Ski Filmmaker Nick Waggoner on Finding Freedom
Posted by Mary Anne Potts on December 12, 2012 
Sweetgrass Productions director Nick Waggoner was named one of our 2012 Adventurers of the Year for Solitaire, a film that artfully depicts a two-year, human-powered ski odyssey around South America. Since getting to know the Sweetgrass team—which also includes Ben Sturgulewski, Michael Brown, and Zak Ramras—we are confident these guys will continue to capture and redefine…
Listen up, people: I need you to act on this by Dec. 14. The outdoor industry is looking for nominees for Outdoor Inspiration Awards, and we want to hear from you. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that if you’re reading this, you’re the outdoorsy type. You like to get outside…
Risky Business: Life Insurance for Climbers
Posted by Steve Graepel on December 4, 2012 
With contributions from Doug Colwell Nothing shouts middle age quite like shopping for life insurance. But there I was, answering questions about my height, weight, smoking … and then came the dreaded question: “Have you climbed in the last three years…?” I quickly try to run the numbers. “In the last three years…?” Stalling, I…
Return to Sender: Pete Mortimer and the Genius of Sender’s Climbing Films
Posted by David Roberts on November 28, 2012 
There’s a moment in Sender Films’s new documentary Honnold 3.0 that is utterly terrifying to watch. At age 27, Alex Honnold has emerged as the world’s premier free-solo rock climber. In the film, he’s in the first leg of his “Yosemite Triple”—an attempt to climb the three biggest faces in the Valley, Mount Watkins, El…
Wild Love #4 Sara Close: Love, Loss, and the Resiliency of the Human Heart
Posted by Emily Nuchols on November 21, 2012 
Wild Love with Sara Close from Jenny Nichols on Vimeo. “Never once have I felt like I live in a snapshot of a moment. We’re meant to move, we’re meant to dance, and we’re meant to fall over. Humans have some amazing resiliency.” This is the story of one young woman’s experience with the…
Can you imagine coming back from fighting on the front lines only to feel like a stranger in your own country? Perhaps you’ve been wounded, are disfigured, or can’t walk. Or, maybe worse, you have such severe post-traumatic stress disorder that you can’t function normally even though you have no visible injury. Could you tackle…
Posted by 
My life moves from one trip to the next, typically a solo adventure documenting the last wild animals that we share this planet with. It’s a dream come true for me, without a doubt, and I feel very lucky to do what I do. However, the more time I spend alone, the more I realize…
