Adventure Ramblings #9
Blind trad climbing, paleontological wonder, outdoor hypocrisy, a dawn-chorus livestream, ski jazz, and a new urban trail.
Happy spring, everybody!
I for one feel like I’ve been reborn. As do many others, judging by the upswell in outdoor happenings of late. For that reason, Ramblings 9 and 10 will form something of a double-header. Expect a second outing in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, enjoy.
As ever, this is curated by
. If you’ve spotted something worth sharing, I’d love to hear about it at sam@adventureuncovered.com.And if you enjoy these wanderings, perhaps consider recommending them to others who might too?
Alright, let’s ramble!
📂 AU archives
The female snowsports company demanding a better outdoor culture
Jen Gurecki is the co-founder and CEO of Coalition Snow, one of the world’s only female founded and owned snowsports companies. Drawn to how Jen and Coalition Snow use their bold, irreverent voices to move beyond representation and broaden outdoor conversation, I reached out for this wide-ranging chat for Edition 5.
💬 Words
Surfers against surfing in crap
In November 2023, Surfers Against Sewage released their annual Water Quality Report. As an ongoing issue, an excellent demonstration of citizen science, and a fine example of an outdoor community mobilising a thoughtful campaign alongside other environmental organisations, it’s well worth highlighting a few months later – especially in an election year. There are many drivers of rampant UK water pollution, but suffice to say politicians and water companies bear considerable responsibility. Let’s demand better.
The terrifying frontier of blind climbing
This week I had the pleasure of bum squeaking through Climbing Blind on a big screen here in Vancouver. The BBC documentary follows blind climber Jesse Dufton’s attempt to trad lead Orkney’s Old Man of Hoy (5 pitches, E1 5b), supported by his wife and climbing partner Molly. Having climbed trad and climbed blindfolded (at different times), this achievement even making it to the base of the climb feels incomprehensible. Sadly the film isn’t currently on iPlayer, but Soraya Abdel-Hadi’s piece for Huck captures some of the deep trust and finely tuned communication required for such an undertaking.
(Climbing Blind also reminded me of our interview with visually impaired freeskier Mac Marcoux, and his guide Tristan Rodgers, for Edition 11. See them in action below.)
A place of paleontological wonder
The Bay of Fundy, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, has the world’s highest tides – up to 53 feet. This creates severe coastal erosion, and a unique cycle of fleeting fossil exposure, as the tide recedes, followed by mass fossil loss, as it returns. This Hidden Compass piece by Robin Catalano captures the deep-time wonder and hope of scientific discovery driving the region’s citizen-paleontology scene.
Paddling a concrete river in an artisanal canoe
Outside Magazine pieces written by Hollywood actors aren’t exactly AU’s bread and butter. But I thoroughly enjoyed Nick Offerman’s humorous account of taking his beloved cedar-strip canoe, Huckleberry – homemade and freshly varnished – to get scraped up along the LA River. The irony of this being written by a screen actor notwithstanding, it contains a nice message about prioritising oddball experience over perfect appearance.
How deep can humans go?
This piece by Samantha Schuyler in the MIT Tech Review (also a podcast) profiles a group of divers experimenting with hydrogen to increase the answer to this question. Though their efforts exhibit some of the biggest/furthest/best mindset, they are also bravely and obsessively rooted in the kind of enquiry that can aid scientific research and specialist rescue (some of the divers profiled supported the Thai cave rescue of 2018).
🎥 Films
Should we care about individual hypocrisy?
In The Hypocrite, a new film from Teton Gravity Research, pro skier Amie Engerbretson grapples with her hypocrisy as a climate advocate who also uses sleds and helicopters for fun (and work, to be fair to her). Is it right, she asks, to focus on individual hypocrisy? Or does this distract from, and divide opposition to, the big corporate polluters?
It’s bound to spark debate. My take is that many things can be, and usually are, awkwardly true at once. Sleds probably do receive disproportionate criticism. Sleds are bad for the environment. Identifying personal hypocrisy and trying to be better is important. Uniting to demand systems change is even more important.
Ski jazz
Another snow film to celebrate the last throes of the season – this one a fresh take on the joy and experience of sliding down snow. The Blackcountry Journal, written by and starring Mallory Duncan, weaves music, poetry, sketch, skiing, and black culture together in a way I’ve not seen before. Great tunes, fun scenes, high stoke.
🔉 Sounds
A 24-hour dawn-chorus livestream
Sunday 5th May is Dawn Chorus Day. Stick it in your diary, and celebrate on the day by tuning into the 11th Reveil broadcast: a collaborative sound project that follows the dawn chorus around Earth while recording audio streams, creating a 24+1 hour loop. The last broadcast featured 145 streams, including many from ‘soundcamp’ gatherings in places of particular ecological and acoustic interest.
The real sands of Dune’s Arrakis
True Dune heads may know that the spice-rich sands of Arrakis, the desert planet at the heart of Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi series, were inspired by sand dunes in Oregon. If you don’t know the history, this Outside In podcast (also an article) tells the story – including the local community’s current efforts to preserve the dunes.
📸 Photography
A lesson from Rocket Girl
This collection by Australian photographer Andrew Rovenko is a delight. It charts the daring adventures of Rocket Girl: a space ranger exploring a strange planet (and also Rovenko’s space-obsessed daughter). This Guardian interview offers more context. Rocket Girl offers us a wonderful lesson about the joys and possibilities of creating new characters and worlds to see this world afresh. A friend also alerted me to Space to Roam, a similar project by Andrew Studer.
💡 Opportunities
London’s new walking trail
In London this spring? Explore by walking the new Green Link Walk: a 16-mile Greenway trail winding from the edge of Epping Forest in the northeast to Peckham in the south. It links low-traffic neighbourhoods, green streets, parks, waterways, and marshes. You can learn more at the link above. Full signage and mapping is still in development, but getting lost is part of the fun, right?