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Field Journal
Adventure News – A Week In Review
Mountaineer Wang Jing is the first to summit Everest following this year’s tragic climbing season. The 41-year old reached the summit on May 23rd, however her climb has been mired in some controversy. She used a helicopter to bypass the section that killed the sixteen mountaineers in April this year, but a group of Sherpas had wished the season to end as a sign of respect to those who were lost. This expedition was a...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
Tom Allen is in the midst of an experiment to rid the armchair adventurers of their main excuse: lack of money. Last year he compiled a cycle touring kit totalling £25.17. Now for part two, he will put his money where his mouth is and, over the course of twenty days, will cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groat’s using no money. At all. He will swap labour for food, in his quest to answer...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
Unfortunate news has reached us from the Arctic. Another participant in the push to the North Pole has been forced to finish early. Solo skier Yasu Ogita’s expedition has come to an end, due to dwindling supplies. That leaves just one team remaining, that of Ryan Waters and Eric Larsen. A distance of over 200km remains between them and their goal. Meanwhile, Bernice Notenboom, Eric Philips and Martin Hartley – the Expedition Hope team –...
Ocean Valour – An Interview with Thomas Rainey
In just over a year’s time, Tom Rainey and Sam Coombs will spend up to three months rowing across the treacherous North Atlantic Ocean. Their aim is to break the 55 day two-man speed record, first laid down by the Norwegians George Harbo and Frank Samuelson in 1896, and still standing to this day. Considered one of the pinnacles of ocean rowing, the North Atlantic crossing has been attempted by 60 crews, completed by only...
The Adventure Fund: 2014 Winners Announced
The judging process of this year’s The Adventure Fund has been one of the most uplifting and inspiring processes I’ve ever had the good fortune to be part of, writes Sidetracked’s joint-editor Jamie Bunchuk. We’ve had some of the most fundamentally amazing expeditions proposed to us, taking place all around the world, featuring every type of transport conceivable, from every age-range imaginable and everyone of them with the same thing at their core – the...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
This month, four adventurers are off to snow-kite across Vatnajökull in Iceland. They will take on Europe’s largest icecap, to raise awareness for the charity Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. A specially designed rig has been created to allow team member Sean Rose – who has a spinal cord injury – to take part in the Icelandic expedition. Another adventure that recently got underway is the Shifting Ice and Changing Tides expedition which...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
One week in, and the North Pole expeditions of 2014 aren’t off to the best start. The Irish team of Mike O’Shea and Clare O’Leary have abandoned after been injured by a shifting block of ice. O’Shea’s back was injured and O’Leary’s knee but both are ok and safely back in Resolute Bay, ready to head home. The Norwegian team have also been evacuated. Lars Flesland and Kristoffer Glestad suffered from frostbite on Sunday and...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
At 18-years-old Alex Staniforth wants to become the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest via its south-east ridge. This Spring, the Chester youth will embark on a 70-day expedition to climb the 8,848m peak. Seasonal climber Tim Mosedale will lead the expedition, which will set off on March 29, 2014. It seems age is no longer a factor in the world of adventures, as 71-year-old Andre Boyer is also in pursuit of a record. Boyer...
A Print Update
Plans for the first Sidetracked printed journal have been progressing well. Research, and content curation has been underway for some time. We’ve been finding the best independent journeys and expeditions to tell you about, working on new stories and meticulously editing. We’re currently looking at various international distribution options in addition to online ordering and working on ways of getting the first edition out to as wide an audience as possible. Entering into the independent...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
What a week for adventure and exploration! At 1.15am GMT on Friday 7th February Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere officially completed their world-record breaking return journey to the South Pole & back following in footsteps of Captain Scott. This is the first time Scott’s route has ever been completed; and marks the end of the longest polar journey on foot in history. Ben Saunders said, “It is almost impossible to comprehend what we have achieved....
Exploration Offline – The Explorers Museum
Most of the accounts you have read recently – of daring adventures and jaw-dropping journeys right across the furthest reaches of the globe – exist only in an online and, let’s face it, somewhat fleeting form. It’s a slightly sad fact about the world we’ve come to inhabit today that the most gruelling tales or most fantastical physical accomplishments are only flicked through briefly on the web browser; one eye on the photography, the other...
Adventure News | A Week In Review
The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge is drawing to a close. The challenge consists of a 3,000-nautical-mile unsupported race from the Canary Islands to Antigua. The two man team called Locura Rows the Atlantic are the winners, the Atlantic Polo Team came in second, followed by the Row 2 Recovery team. Sixteen teams from around the world embarked from the Canary Islands on the 4th of December to take on each other and the ocean. The...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
A new year and the adventurous are thinking big. Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpenière are in the latter stages of their return journey from the South Pole. Their next depot, at the top of the Beardmore is around four days away. After using up most of their rations, Ben recently made the difficult decision to call for a resupply, which changes the status of their expedition. Ben Saunders explains the situation in this remarkable update....
Last Chance to Paddle
Emil Carlsson talks about the deadly threat facing South America’s ‘Grand Canyon’ As a Swede living in Scotland working as a firefighter for NHS Highland, it’s fair to say Emil Carlsson already lives a pretty interesting existence. But this Inverness-based expatriate also happens to be a very proficient and thoroughly tough white water paddler too, having worked on turbulent rivers all around the world including his native Sweden, Costa Rica, Scotland, Nepal, Morocco, Uganda and...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
The adventurous continue to walk out of their front doors and set off on expeditions, even with Christmas just around the corner. After almost two months on the ice, on their journey to the South Pole, Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere from the Scott Expedition are nearing the half way mark. The Willis Resilience Expedition are also well on their way, with just under 100 miles to go. The expedition sees nineteen year old Parker...
Adventure News – A Week in Review
Winter has crept in and whilst some regular adventurers are using the colder months to recover, fatten up, perhaps write some books and start planning their summer explorations, a few of the most hardcore are ploughing on with their expeditions as the snow begins to fall. Alex Hibbert commences The Dark Ice Project in just a few days. We caught up with him to ask him about the expedition, which aims to make an unsupported...
Plan Your Adventure At The Adventure Travel Show
A bit of help will be on hand at the upcoming Adventure Travel Show for aspirant adventurers looking to plot out their first big trip. The Adventure Travel Show is packed with inspirational travel advice, travel photography and travel writing seminars, and a whole host of FREE talks from experts, explorers, TV adventurers, tour leaders and guide book writers who will help you uncover your perfect adventure. Plus, the best specialist travel operators will be...
Adventure News: A Week In Review
The Pole of Cold Expedition is a 30,000km adventure in a Land Rover. The team, led by Felicity Aston, will set off from London this November and drive across Europe, to the northeast of Siberia through the winter months. Their target destination is the Pole of Cold, the coldest place in the world outside of Antarctica. The team will collect information about the reality of life in the extremes of climate. Russian adventurer Fedor Konyukhov’s...
Adventure News – A Week In Review
Sidetracked Editor Jamie Bunchuk and contributor Matthew Traver have recently touched-down in England after a five-month-long expedition across Central Asia. The project – dubbed One Steppe Ahead – saw them complete a 63 day crossing of Eastern Kazakhstan by horse, live and work with hunters on the Tajik/Afghan border, and Jamie also ran 100 miles across the Red Sands Desert in Uzbekistan. They’re now into post-expedition mode, with Matthew producing three documentary films of the...
Alpkit’s Big Shakeout
When I was twelve, I wrote an essay in primary school. It was called, “A perfect summers day’. Today, the scribbles of my childhood climbed from my copybook and materialised before my eyes. It was all there. The backdrop of sun, tents, tepees, a temporary bmx track, smiling people pushing bikes, climbing walls, kids on their fathers shoulders laughing like lunatics. I walk amongst them on my own, a huge red backpack hugging my shoulders....
Adventure News – A Week In Review
Polar explorer Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere depart the UK today for Antarctica to begin their 1,800 mile unsupported journey from the Antarctica coast to the South Pole and back. The Scott Expedition, a tribute to the legendary Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, will see the pair walk nine and a half hours a day for over 110 days in temperatures as low as -50°C. Good luck from all of us here at Sidetracked for...
The Post Roads Expedition
The three horses we purchased in Ust-Kamengorsk were by no means unsuitable for expedition travel, but they were not perfect. Their ages were 5, 8 and 9, one with a big, but scabbed girthband wound (our girthband rested in a different place so it seemed an acceptable inconvenience) and one that was blind in one eye, although I never had any indication that this affected him in a negative manner; indeed he was the best...
Adventure News: A Week In Review
Tom Denniss has successfully completed the fastest circumnavigation of the world on foot, when he pranced into Sydney over the weekend after almost two years on the road. Previously featured expedition Polar Bears and Paddleboards have finished the Greenland Expedition – an attempt to Stand Up Paddleboard 100km across the Sermilik Fjord towards the Helheim Glacier proving to all the doubters the accessibility of the growing sport. Tomorrow Philippe and Anna Gatta set out to...
Adventure News: A Week In Review
The big success story of the week is endurance swimmer Diana Nyad with her hugely impressive completion of the 110-mile passage from Cuba to Florida. After four attempts over 35 years, this, the fifth attempt saw Nyad exit the shark and jelly fish infested water with a smile on her face. The 64-year-old spent 53 hours in the ocean in the two-day, two-night epic swim, becoming the first person to do so unaided by the...
Field Journal
A weekly window on the world of adventure
One email per week featuring the best of Sidetracked and what we’ve discovered on our virtual travels.