Monday, September 27, 2010

2010 Park City Ski Trip with Ole Miss Outdoors



During his senior year at Ole Miss, my boyfriend Riley Kurtts was a trip leader for Ole Miss Outdoors. In the early weeks of December 2009 he led a small group of Ole Miss students, including myself, across the country for an awesome ski adventure in Park City, Utah. With his flipcam in hand the majority of the time, he was able to capture some pretty sweet footage. Once home, he put together this homemade video. Pretty good, if I do say so myself! Check it out.

Friday, September 24, 2010

ohh how i would love to do this is the next couple of years...














"WWOOF New Zealand provides experiences in sustainable living from large organic farms to family gardens, organic orchards and vineyards, biodynamics, permaculture, urban organics, alternative building/energy etc. WWOOF also provides an intercultural eco-experience that promotes understanding and tolerance."


Check out the website here.


Thursday, September 23, 2010

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

In his 2004 autobiography, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, adventurer Aron Ralston details the story of his 2003 canyoneering trip to Blue John Canyon, during which time he amputated his right arm after being trapped by a 200-pound chockstone boulder for five days without food and water. This memoir recounts his 28 years of outdoors and life experiences that led him to his now-famous decision to cut off his own arm to save his life.

Ralston compiled his life story into a collection of mini-stories that he presents through a series of flash-blacks while he is pinned in the canyon. An extreme mountain-biker, mountaineer, canyoneer, rock and ice climber, Ralston quit his job as a mechanical engineer for Intel in 2002 so he could channel all of his time and energy into a new, remarkable feat: attempting to be the first person to solo-climb all fifty-nine of Colorado’s fourteeners. From reading this book, one quickly realizes that a recurring theme exists within all of Ralston’s voyages. He has spent the majority of his life seeking out the most outrageous adventures, and in doing so he has had several close brushes with death—this canyoneering trip being the closest brush yet.

Accustomed to embarking on adventurous, and relatively dangerous, trips alone, this trip was no exception for Ralston. He had a few days off from his sales job at the Ute Mountaineer in Aspen, Colorado, so he hastily packed up his car with all of his go-to gear: mountain bike, skis, climbing equipment, etc. On a whim, Ralston decided to travel to Moab, Utah for some canyoneering. For such an experienced climber, this trip should have proven relatively simple. Therefore, Ralston did not bother with leaving an itinerary with anyone—which made his impending search all the more difficult.

His excursion was going perfectly. The canyoneering was technical, but reasonably easy and enjoyable. During a descent, Ralston used a wedged boulder as support to lower himself. However, his weight shifted the boulder and it came crashing down, pinning him against the canyon wall.

During the third morning of his entrapment, Ralston seemed to come to terms with his fateful death as he powered on his video camera to record goodbyes to friends and family. As he tearfully reminisced over his most memorable moments spent with friends and family, Ralston had an ironic self-realization.

“Laughing a laugh of utter exhaustion, I recall the irony of the memories that involved a close brush with death. I’ve listed several times when I almost died as some of my favorite memories, times when I had fun via the intensity of the experience. Regardless of the psychological implications, I find a certain comedic relief for my current situation, wondering if I’ll ever feel the same way if I survive my entrapment in Blue John.”

This passage is important because it raises one of the ethical questions intertwined in adventure journalism: Where does one draw the line? Adventure journalism can be dangerous, even deadly. Still, many extremists risk their lives to attain an experience that is “worth” retelling to others. Ralston seemed to push the envelope even farther by embarking on these trips alone. At times it seemed as if he chose to partake in solo instead of group trips so that he would be the only one with the bragging rights.

Ralston’s career choice put a huge burden on his friends and family, as they were the ones who were called upon to save him when things took a deadly turn. One can only imagine how physically and mentally draining his rescue efforts must have been, and this makes adventure journalism seem somewhat selfish. In the hospital shortly after his rescue, his mother said, “Sue and I were joking that if it wasn’t a broken leg that had kept you from coming home, you were going to have two broken ones by the time we got done with you.”

Ralston’s story immediately generated much media attention. CNN boasted a headline that read, “Colorado climber who amputated own arm in critical care.” Print and broadcast journalists swarmed the hospital grounds in the hopes of catching a glimpse of this extreme climber. Ralston’s mother expected this massive media response, as she had this request for Ranger Steve Swanke, “You’ll probably have to file a report or talk to the media about Aron. Please don’t be judgmental.” Even Aron’s mother was award of the ethical questions and concerns that would be raised concerning his situation.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Dead Lucky--Part Dos


In his autobiography Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest, Australian mountaineer and journalist Lincoln Hall recounts the journey that led him to, and got him down, a near-fatal trek to Mount Everest’s summit in May of 2006. In this heart-wrenching tale, Hall carries the reader step-by-step through his emotionally and physically draining expedition. In the end, Hall survives by choosing family over death. Hall states in his author’s notes that Dead Lucky was the most difficult book he’s ever written, not because of the traumatizing memories he had to recall, but because of eight severely frostbitten fingers. But like any good journalist, Hall found a way to tell his story.

In 2006, Hall and his family had just returned from a three-year stint living in Singapore and were back in the Blue Mountain area of Australia. Hall reclaimed his editing job at Outdoor Australia magazine in Sydney, and was busy in the throws of work, family, and book writing. Then came the call from Michael Dillon, an adventure cameraman who had been on Everest with Hall in 1984 when he was forced to retreat just shy of the summit due to frostbite. Dillon was putting together a team to accompany Christopher Harris, a 14-year-old Australian climber who was attempting to be the youngest person to summit Everest. Dillon asked Hall to come along and film the journey.

After talking it over with his wife and family, Hall accepted the invitation. The fact that he never reached the summit some 22 years ago still haunted him. If he failed to reach the summit this time, he would humbly accept defeat. Hall also assured himself that his intentions were pure. He had a job to do. “As a cameraman, my role was to record our climb of Everest, a far safer motivation that an obsession with the summit. My own dreams of summiting remained a shadow in the wings, but if Christopher Harris succeeded in his attempt to be the youngest person to climb to the peak, I hoped to be beside him, filming history.”

The group soon set out to make history, and Hall’s dream of summiting this harrowing mountain did not remain a shadow in the wings for long. This is where one of the major themes in the book breaks through the surface: What limits do you set on personal ambitions when you are on the job? After weeks of acclimatization and hiking from Base Camp to Intermediate Camp to Advance Base Camp, they were ready to set out for the North Col, which lies at 23,200 ft. But fate dealt an unfortunate hand that morning, as Christopher suffered a “collapse,” or severe drop in blood pressure, and was forced to retreat. Richard and Mike chose to stay back with Christopher, but encouraged Hall to keep trekking.

After debating his decision, and literally writing out the pros and cons of continuing to the summit, Hall decided to move forward, claiming he owed it to Barbara, himself, and his boys. His job as Christopher’s cameraman was over, but his personal need to reach the summit was unrelenting. Another theme emerges with this decision: How far will adventure journalists go to get their story? Where do you draw the line? Hall was knowingly risking his life. But to him, there was no other choice.

Hall reached the summit around 9 a.m. on May 25, 2006. He remembers, “The weather was perfect, with only a few harmless clouds in the around the lower peaks and some more solid cover to the west. Everything was good. Everything was going according to plan.” Hall and four accompanying Sherpas began to descend Everest. Hall quickly began to unravel. The extreme lack of Oxygen at such a high altitude began to take a toll on his mind and body. He began to exhibit symptoms of cerebral edema, a potentially fatal fluid accumulation in the brain. The Sherpas tried to help him down, but his hallucinations got the best of him, and he refused their help. With only a few hours of sunlight left, the Sherpas were ordered to leave Hall, as they would likely die if they spent a night on the summit. Hall was pronounced dead that night.

The next morning a few climbers stumbled upon Hall sitting on the edge of the summit. He had done the absolute impossible. He survived a night alone on the summit. His vivid hallucinations began to subside, and he was able to make it down the mountain with the assistance of various climbers and Sherpas.

Hall’s story reveals a common theme among many adventure journalists. They are so passionate about their adventure, that living to tell their story is not their first priority. They risk their lives to reach the unreachable, defeat the undefeatable. His story immediately drew multitudes of media attention from all over the globe. As a journalist, he knew what to expect: media outlets portraying the best story, not necessarily the true story. So Hall decided that he—frostbitten and all—would tell the story himself.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Lincoln Hall is Dead Lucky

"I was tired but content and wasted no mental energy on anything superfluous. I was doing what I needed to do at each particular moment, until I reached the point where there were no moments, only the continuum of my passage along the rubble-strewn trail. I made no attempts to put myself in this state; I just found myself there. It felt like the landscape was including me--as if the barrier between the living and the nonliving, between life and death, had dissolved. My enjoyment was no longer of the magnificent day or of the mountains but of an altered sense of reality, a disconnection from the flow of thoughts that normally had me planning, thinking, analyzing. I had stepped into a simpler state of being."

In this passage from Lincoln Hall's 2007 book, Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest, Hall describes the sense of peace that can come along with mountaineering, one of the aspects of this dangerous sport that won his heart over 30 years ago.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

A New Class...A New Journey

A new semester is upon us, and with this new semester comes new classes and new learning experiences.  I am enrolled in one of Dr. Wickham's graduate journalism classes, which is basically like a big ole book club.  Each student will choose a journalism topic to study throughout the semester.  I am extremely passionate about two things:  journalism and travel.  So what better topic to study than travel journalism?  I will be delving into the works of some of the most famous travel writers known to man.  From Richard Halliburton, a renown adventurer who explored some of Mother Nature's most exciting offerings, to Hunter S. Thompson, who explored a not-s0-natural world of drugs and alcohol.  Stay tuned to see where my travels through these books take me.  It should be an interesting journey!