Ben Saunders

Pole Position

From the letters page of today's Independent:

Sir: According to your article "British explorers recount 'agony' of Pole trek" (23 January), "the Pole of Inaccessibility lies some 870km north-east of the South Pole". Surely, in common with every other point on the Earth, the Pole of Inaccesibility lies directly north of the South Pole.

(Well spotted Andy!)

— Filed under Miscellany

Overstriving

I was emailed this recently. It's from The Handbook of Sports Psychology.

Covington (1992) has noted, however that some individuals who appear to show all the qualities of adaptive achievement striving also appear to be riddled with self-doubt when faced with immediate challenge. He has classified these individuals as 'overstrivers' and their continual striving can be seen as having maladaptive consequences. In essence, overstrivers appear to have an intense desire to achieve success and avoid failure. They are often driven to pursue greater and greater accomplishments, and eventually these challenges become an intolerable burden (Covington 1992). Intrinsic satisfaction from such achievement endeavours is rarely experienced and working to reach the next, even more demanding goal can become psychologically debilitating for overstrivers (Burns, 1980). The term used by clinical and counselling psychologists to describe this excessive achievement striving is 'perfectionism' (Blatt, 1995, Burns, 1980).

More food for thought: an amazing photo of Børge Ousland, swimming across a lead with his sledge, in the dark, part-way through his and Mike Horn's winter North Pole expedition last year.

I'm speaking at the Royal Geographical Society for Ice Edge tomorrow morning, then I'm off to New York at the weekend to present part of the Explorers Club Documentary Film Festival. I'm taking my running shoes; if anyone in Manhattan is up for a long run on Saturday and/or Sunday morning, drop me an email.

— Filed under Miscellany

"If you have time on one axis, and the adventures you have taken on the other, with a mediocre amount of adventures, you will get an album full of pictures, while a lesser amount only gives you a heart full of regret."

— Filed under Aside

Living with the Kombai

A friend of mine, Oliver Steeds, is giving a talk at the Royal Geographical Society (in London) on Wednesday evening about a recent expedition to West Papua where he lived with one of the last remaining tribes to practice cannibalism(!) I'll be there with a few friends and if you're in London, it sounds like a fascinating evening.

The traditional hunter-gatherer way of life of the Kombai has changed little for thousands of years – tools are made from stone, families live in tree houses, men wear penis gourds and women grass skirts. Tribal conflict is on-going. Spirits infuse the world of the Kombai. When sorcery and witchcraft were suspected, the accused would be killed, then eaten. Members of the Kombai family involved took part in such revenge killings. It is just 25 years since a Dutch Missionary made first contact, and today only 4000 Kombai survive. But for how long? Their traditional way of life is severely threatened.

There's more info and a link to buy tickets online (£12) at the iNomad website. I've been assured you can also pay on the door. The talk starts at 7pm.

— Filed under Other expeditions

Steve House's climbing gear

A nice video guide to the equipment Steve House and his climbing partner Vince Anderson used on their alpine-style first ascent of the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat in September 2005. Interesting to see some of the modifications he's made. Hat tip to Andy for the link.

[googlevideo]6682751795170095622[/googlevideo]

— Filed under Other expeditions

Ice Edge

A bit of a list-minute heads up (now the hotel wifi is working) but if you're in the UK, you can catch me on the BBC Breakfast News this morning, talking about the launch of the Ice Edge competition for UK schools. I'll be on at 0720, 0820, 0920 and then throughout the day on BBC News24.

I'm on in 20 minutes, so I need to go and practice my lines… I'll write more about Ice Edge later today.

— Filed under Schools/Education

Captain Scott's last letters go on display.

— Filed under Aside

With a bang

Apologies for the hiatus; 2007 has rather taken me by surprise. I sneaked off to WhitePod for a bit of mountain air over the New Year and ended up guest blogging for the Lazy Environmentalist, using snowshoes for the first time in my life, bumping into the wonderful Jeremy Smith of The Ecologist (who made me feel at the same time both deeply ignorant of world affairs and deeply ashamed of jumping on a bargain basement Easyjet flight to Geneva), eating far too much cheese, coming dead last in a sledge race and reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Huge plans afoot. More soon.

— Filed under Miscellany