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To anyone who’s been logging on and wondering where I’ve been. I’ve been a busy Ben for past 6-7 months and something had to give.
Alas it was the blog.
Anyway obviously I have a little more time on my hands now if I’m writing this post. Look forward to more updates soon!
Mountaineer Andrew Lock has been honored by the Australian Geographic Society as the 2009 Australian Adventurer of the Year.
On Friday 2 October 2009 Lock stood on the summit of Tibet’s Mt Shishapangma making him just the 18th person in the world to climb all the Earth’s 8000+ meter peaks and the first Australian to ever join this exclusive group of mountaineering’s super elite. It puts Lock in a group almost as exclusive as the 12 men to ever stand on the surface of the moon. Yet this awesome moment of Australian achievement has so far been at risk of passing practically unnoticed by mainstream media and, as a result, the public at large.
Amongst daily news of socially troubled footballers being traded left right and centre and Lindsay Lohan’s latest indiscretion it’s a wonder why this genuinely hard won achievement could rate such little public attention. Even our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who apparently has enough time on his hands to twitter and flickr his eating of a biscuit hasn’t yet taken a moment to publicly congratulate this true Australian achiever. We can only wait in hope. In my opinion the Australian Geographic Society’s award couldn’t come at a better time and hopefully it goes some way towards promoting Lock’s hard work.
Andrew Lock is, at this moment, making final preparations to summit Tibet’s Shishapangma. It’s the 14th and final step of his quest to become the first Australian to climb all 14 of the worlds 8000 meter plus peaks - also know to climbers as ‘Eight Thousanders’. (more…)
A nasty foot fungus spreads through boots in Caroline Hut
How I brought my boots back from the brink
Most mountaineers follow the same practice when drying their boots. You remove the insoles, stuff them with newspaper and leave them somewhere warm overnight. It’s nice and simple and it works. Unfortunately at Caroline Hut the practice also involved saving and randomly reusing the old bits of rolled up newspaper the next day. This inevitably led to cross contamination which in turn caused the spread of some kind of mega fungus from one person’s boots to everyone else’s.
By the time I reached Australian Customs on the way home the smell from my boots was enough to alert a customs officer even though they were buried deep in my bag. They were truly putrid.
A year later my boots had not yet recovered so I purchased a new pair for a very hansom sum indeed. So you can imagine how horrified I was when a pair of socks managed to transfer the mega fungus from the old boots to the new ones within the first week. That’s when I decided to go head to head and do battle with the fungus. I wasn’t about to buy a third pair of boots! Thus I stumbled across the solution and I’m glad to share it with you all.
Here’s how to fix your smelly boots instantly - and for good! (more…)
I head off for some telemark skiing on Mt Stirling. View the gallery or even better check out the slide show.
I experienced some very icy conditions on the summit and, on the same weekend, Minister Tim Holding slid off Mt Feathertop only to be rescued some time later after an extensive search. I can see how it happened. Up there on Stirling trying to walk around without crampons I took a few little slips myself but was lucky. Plus I had the right gear and knew what to do in case of a fall.
Tim Holding really should have been better equipped for the icy conditions he was in and made sure he was familiar with the “Self Arrest“. See me demonstrate the self arrest on Mt Cook (Aoraki) New Zealand.
As a mountaineer half your life in the mountains is spent taking measures designed to prevent a fall. But on those occasions when one happens the “self arrest” can quickly become your last line of defence. Here are some excerpts from a gallery post where I demonstrate the self arrest maneuver near Caroline Hut in New Zealand.
My name’s Ben Wolf and this is RemoteAdventurer.com. Welcome to my first post.
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time in some demanding, risky and remote environments - most of it on my own. One of the most important things I’ve learnt is that when you find youself in these demanding situations your personal decisions can quickly become very important - at times life or death. That’s why you need to be able to make good ones.
But good decision making doesn’t happen in isolation. That’s why there is also no replacement for knowledge and preparedness and that’s actually what a lot of this blog will be dealing with. I’ll be going back over a lot of the photos and records I’ve collected over the years and sharing what I think might be helpful. In addition I’ll be updating this site with new material as it happens. My aim is to share a little practical information, relate some entertaining stories (as much as I can) and generally just add my bit to the wealth of online information already available to remote operators the world over. Hopefully it’s helpful to someone.
Please feel free to leave a comment comment on anything I publish or contact me directly.
