Notes 2023
Keep scrolling down to view older notes, this is a continuous page with chronological entries.
April 23rd 2023 - Postcard from Mars
Some folks reckon Mars looks boring, but here's a panorama from NASA's Perseverance rover from yesterday (Sol 772). I stitched 3 images from the rovers Right Mastcam-Z & lightly edited them. The red planet looks stunning & eerily like the Atacama Desert.
Download to see the full scale image.
March 13th 2023 - The Glowing Orbs
Yesterday, thanks to an old article in the Financial Times, I came across the Memory Palace podcast and a great short episode on John Glenn, the fifth person to fly in space.
All I can say is Wow, this really is a beautiful and powerful short podcast episode (6 mins). It focuses on the mystery of the thousands of glowing lights that surrounded astronaut John Glenn's capsule as he orbited earth in 1962.
What were those extra-terrestrial fireflies that Glenn marvelled at? The answer I think you’ll find is quite surprising and a little amusing.
The Memory Palace podcast looks pretty intriguing, and the narration and production is really nicely done. Another fascinating episode I skimmed through covers the discovery of the jet stream by a Japanese meteorologist. Looks like lots more to delve into as the series started way back in 2008.
March 9th 2023 - The 16 Sunsets Podcast
If you're a space fan or exploration nerd, it's worth checking out the new multi-season podcast 16 Sunsets, which focuses on humankind's exploration of space - past, present and future. The series is led by Kevin Fong, Rami Tzabar and Andrew Luck Baker, the team that created the brilliant multi-award winning, and multi-million download generating podcast, 13 Minutes to the Moon. This new podcast is kicking off with a series on the Shuttle, and will need support via Kickstarter to get it up and running. I really hope the team reach their funding target as 13 Minutes to the Moon was superb.
February 27th 2023 - Meeting a Record breaker on Lake Baikal
"You two look like a right pair of fu****s" our new acquaintance quipped.
Five years today Philip Sturgeon and I met up with Robbie Britton and his wife Natalie (also an amazing runner) on Lake Baikal as Robbie was preparing for a possible run record on the lake. So it was a great pleasure to read that yesterday Robbie broke the British 24 hour running record with a whopping 277km in Torino. Chapeau Robbie, incredible!
Here’s a great short video that really sums up Robbie’s character and humour.
February 25th 2023 - Affordable Satellite Texting for Smartphones
Interesting news for all who travel off of the beaten track. Bullitt Group have unveiled the Motorola Defy Satellite Link, a Bluetooth device that provides satellite connectivity to any iOS or Android smartphone. The link allows two-way messaging via satellite, as well as location sharing and SOS assistance. It’s lined up to retail for just $99/€119/ £99 (not including data), which is a hell of a lot cheaper than any SPOT or inReach devices.
I’ve previously been gifted two outdoor phones from Bullitt for testing on cold trips - the Land Rover Explore and the Motorola Defy 2021. So I reached out to their comms team yesterday to find out more on the satellite network the Link uses, as some devices have limited coverage if they rely on networks like Globalstar. This was their response: “We use geo satellites so higher up but a more stable connection. We use Inmarsat and Echostar at launch but will be adding more.”
All sounds promising, and I’m looking forward to receiving a review copy in a few weeks time. In the meantime you can read about the specs in this short piece from ExplorersWeb.
February 24th 2023 — Poronkusema
Last night I attended an interesting online talk with long-distance hikers and authors Andrew Terrill, Chris Townsend and Alex Roddie. At some point the topic turned to the measurement of distance during long treks, and how some folks, and some cultures are less inclined to conceptualise a walk in terms of distance.
One interesting tidbit came up during this discussion, which according to Wikipedia is an old Sami measurement of distance.
Poronkusema: Compound of poron (“reindeer's”) + kusema (“peed by”); the distance a reindeer could travel without stopping to urinate.
February 21st 2023 - New York Times Article
A couple of days ago the New York Times published a profile of Norwegian mountain athlete Kristin Harila. It was a reasonable piece from a mainstream journalist, but I felt there were some minor issues worth pointing out, so I left a comment which was published beneath the piece. I think it was generally well received given the number of ‘recommendations’.
It's good to see Kristin Harila highlighted in a major international publication, but there are a few minor issues that I think are worth pointing out for the less informed reader. First neither Harila or Purja are explorers - the 8000'ers have all been climbed and mapped.
Second, I think it's disingenuous to use the term 'elite climber' here. Harila is an exceptional mountain athlete, but has been guided on well-travelled routes by strong Sherpa support (let's not forget the role Sherpas play for most who visit the 8000'ers).
For current elite climbers, who just so happen to be female, perhaps take a look at German alpinist Ines Papert, or Spaniard Silvia Vidal, a prolific solo big-wall specialist and 2021 Piolets d’Or (Oscars of Mountaineering, for want of a better phrase) Special honoree. There are many others.
This of course shouldn't detract from Harila's achievements and it would be great to see her summit the world’s highest peaks in less than 6 months.
February 20th - Antarctic Row
Despite highlighting an apparent 8 'world records' in this article on a recent row in the Southern Ocean, BBC News glossed over the main story, that the team aborted their objective, for which there is of course no shame. We highlighted this in a recent ExplorersWeb article, to which skipper Fiann Paul didn’t take too kindly. Some adventurers just don’t like the curtain being pulled down on their carefully crafted and misleading PR.
"Southernmost start of a rowing expedition" -- seems a somewhat tenuous record to me…
February 18th 2023 - TGO Article
The April issue of The Great Outdoors Magazine is now out and it features some of my photography. In the feature article ‘Winter In The Arctic’, mountaineer, round-the-world cyclist, and ex-tipi-dweller Jilly Sherlock recounts a challenging ski tour in the depths of Swedish Arctic winter. I supplemented Jilly’s article with some of the images I shot during a ski tour to Swedish Lapland in March 2022, including this header shot above.
