Archive for the ‘Traveling’ Category
02/05/2009
1st May 2009
Is it safe to travel?
WHO is not recommending travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the influenza A(H1N1) virus. Today, international travel moves rapidly, with large numbers of individuals visiting various parts the world. Limiting travel and imposing travel restrictions would have very little effect on stopping the virus from spreading, but would be highly disruptive to the global community.
Influenza A(H1N1) has already been confirmed in many parts of the world. The focus now is on minimizing the impact of the virus through the rapid identification of cases and providing patients with appropriate medical care, rather than on stopping its spread internationally. Furthermore, although identifying the signs and symptoms of influenza in travellers can be an effective monitoring technique, it is not effective in reducing the spread of influenza as the virus can be transmitted from person to person before the onset of symptoms. Scientific research based on mathematical modelling indicates that restricting travel will be of limited or no benefit in stopping the spread of disease.
Historical records of previous influenza pandemics, as well as experience with SARS, have validated this point.
Travellers can protect themselves and others by following simple recommendations related to travel aimed at preventing the spread of infection. Individuals who are ill should delay travel plans and returning travellers who fall ill should seek appropriate medical care. These recommendations are prudent measures which can limit the spread of many communicable diseases and not only Influenza A(H1N1).
Tags:Influenza, Influenza A(H1N1), Mountain Spirit, Peru, SARS, Scientific research, Travel, World Health Organization Travel Advice
Posted in Health, Traveling | 2 Comments »
23/04/2009
MSI's New Webpage on Sunapee's OB Program
The MSI/Sunapee High School/Outward Bound Scholarship Program, now in it’s fourth year gets a new webpage. There is a host of information: past recipients, donors, an overview and goals of the the program and where to find out more. The program is gaining some traction both with students, the community and with Outward Bound’s scholarship department. Thanks to former Recruiter and Scholarship coordinator Charlie Reade who helped MSI’s Executive Director R. Richards set up the program, a number of students have had a trip of a life time.
Image: Brian Baily-Mountain Yoga
On the webpage are pics from Brian Baily’s Rock/Backpacking course in Colorado, and Hanna Baade’s sea kayaking program on the coast of Maine. Baade was the first recipient of the scholarship which was first supported by Sugar River Bank. More recently, Rotary International (New London, NH) and other organizations are aiding the effort.
The program is one of MSI’s first “service projects”, aimed at giving back to the community in which MSI is incorporated, and the director’s hometown. In all aspects of MSI, we incorporate a service component, whether it be a board meeting, a program to Peru or at the administration level. Again this inspiration comes from Outward Bound and Kurt Hahn in the first place.
On Rappel: North Cascades, WA, USA
You can check out the web page, and who knows, you may even be inclined to jump on the bandwagon and donate!
Donations can be sent to MSI’s office at:
Mountain Spirit Institute
POB 626
Sunapee, NH 03782
USA
Tags:Brian Baily, Dexter Richards, donate, Experiential Education, Hanna Baade, Mountain Spirit Insititute, Outward Bound, Scholarships, service projects, Sunapee High School, Washington State
Posted in Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Experiential Education, MSI News, Service, Supporting MSI, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
18/04/2009
Governor's Bay, Picton, NZ
Early Bird Catches the Shot
We were to catch the ferry from New Zealand’s South Island to the North island. The Ferry first weaves its way from Picton Harbor, through a long sound, before opening out into the open water between north and south islands. The passage is seen in the image at right. The crossing takes about 3.5 hours, which departed at 8am. We encamped on the Queen Charlotte Drive just west of Picton, and this early morning sunrise of the sound started our day.
Tags:adventure travel, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, Governor's Bay, Holistic Living, Meditation, Mountain Spirit, mtnspirit.co.nz, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, New Zealand, Peru, Picton, Randy Richards, Solo, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability, USA, Utah, wilderness yoga
Posted in New Zealand, Power of Place, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
08/04/2009
Guillermo Seminario
We have one or two more spots for our July 12th trip to Peru.
MSI starting running programs to Peru in 1998 and R. Richards had been high altitude guiding for some years prior to that on Aconcogua and Huascaran and Ecuador’s volcanoes for Alpine Ascents International. Although there are some mountaineering and glacier experience programs on the books, (keep an eye out for New Zealand and Peru), this trip will be a cultural exploration and connection with the local people and areas of Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Nazca.
Family Cari - Amantani
We will be staying with Richard Cari and his folks on the Island of Amantani at the Kantuta Lodge. Guillermo Seminario will be our host for most of the trip. This will be our tenth year in Peru, and are grateful of all the wonderful friends and family we now have in this soulful country. Says R. Richards, “I’m also looking forward to getting back to Huaraz to visit with my godchild and his family at Restaurant Salud Y Vida.
Tags:Aconcagua, adventure travel, Alpine Ascents International, Amantani, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Ecuador, Experiential Education, Guillermo Seminario, Holistic Living, Huascaran, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, mtnspirit.org, Peru, Richard Cari, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability
Posted in Experiential Education, Mountain People, Peru, Spiritual, Traveling | 1 Comment »
24/03/2009
The Earth's Mantle, The Crash Site! Cool
What you’re looking, at the image on the right, is not just a rock in Newfoundland. It tells quite a story. Uplifting of an ancient sea bed some 470 million years ago unveiled the underlying mantle of the earth. As one of the only places in the world where it’s possible to see the earth’s mantle, Newfoundland is of interest to scientists and geologists like.
Although I took this picture on a mountain, it’s a snapshot of an ancient Atlantic sea bed, that was flipped up, way up, as it smashed into the North American plate. Ykes. And here I was standing at the scene of the crime, the collision of two continents!
Newfoundland is one of those out-of-the-way places.
Glenburnie-Birchy Head Shoal area, Newfoundland
You have to want to get there. You have to make a special effort. It’s not part of the eastern megalopolis- small towns, quite roads, out there. It’s like New Hampshire used to be in the ‘50’s-safe, trusting and amicable. Not wired. I was there a few years ago, on a whim. I’d just finished an Outward Bound Professional staff training in Northern Maine and decided to take a trip. I made the decision at 5PM and started driving at 5:15, headed from Old Town, Maine for New Brunswick. I had my sleeping bag, but no stove, no tent, but a toothbrush. My friend and I had a van, but no mosquito netting, which proved problematic. We picked up on old reliable Coleman stove at a second hand store, and were in business.
When Plates Collide
Newfoundland has been the scene of a geological flashpoint. There’s a roadside pullout, with a beautiful half hour walk. At the pullout are some informational plaques explaining that the location was a meeting point where the Atlantic and North American plates met millions of years ago. As I stared at the surface of the inlay, I imagined it as soft muck on the ocean floor. I felt like a geological time explorer.
(more…)
Posted in Environment, Power of Place, Traveling | 2 Comments »
18/03/2009
The View from French Ridge Hut
I recently had the opportunity to volunteer at French Ridge Hut last week. We had an unusual clear spell of almost cloudless blue skies, day after day. More times than not, the wind can howl on this ridge, making it difficult to make the journey to the privy, perched on the ridge, (so helicopters can more easily pick up the poop canisters).
Near Mt. Avalanche-Gloomy Gorge
I recently heard of one fellow who was sent to his death when the hut he was in, was blown off the mountain. I’m sure some of the readers have been on a fire lookout tower in high winds, having complete trust in the structure. Hmmm. Makes one think. Be sure to inquire or check to see if the hut you’re in has tie-down cables. French Ridge does not. I trust the architect, up to a point. It depends on how strong are the gale force winds. This is a bit tongue in cheek, or ice axe in ground.
Waterfall Rainbow, Gloomy Gorge
French Ridge and the environs is a magical place. It’s getting a lot of traffic from hikers as well as climbers. I was there later in the season, (just last week), when traffic to and from the Collin Todd Hut, and Mt. Aspiring had been halted due to the Quarterdeck section of glacier coming down from the Bonar Glacier was breaking up too badly to allow passage.
Monkeying around on the "Quarter Deck"
We decided to monkey around on the lower ramparts of the Quarterdeck anyway, for a day of walking, crevasse rescue and rope team travel practice, and a little bit of climbing in some dramatic scenery. While we were rather restricted in where we could actually go, we still had fun. The dry glacier provided some great ice climbing practice. I love glacier ice, which is a far cry from New
More playing around on some "safe" broken up bits.
Hampshire’s Frankenstein Cliff’s. I’ve just read a piece on climbing on the Fox Glacier that has me interested in doing some glacial ice there.
Kea in Flight
At the hut and just above, Keas, which are amazing Alpine parrots, seemed our constant companions. I figuring out when they would take off, and got some snaps of them in flight. One, at the hut, the other with Mt. Avalanche in the background just above the hut. They are very personable and curious creatures, if not troublesome. When we arrived at the hut on Day 1, the door to the was open, and the keas had made themselves at home, leaving the place a mess.
Kea, Amanda, Mt Avalanche
Just across from the Hut, on the ramparts of Rob Roy, is an impressive waterfall. It’s interesting and beautiful because the water comes piling down and hits a flat plateau, shooting the water out into space, like a jet stream. Then when the sun is hitting the wall just right, a rainbow is formed.
Tags:adventure travel, Alpine Parrot, Brenda Dowst, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, French Ridge, Glacier Travel, Gloomy Gorge, Holistic Living, Ice Climbing, Kea, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, Mt. Aspiring, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, New Zealand, Quarter Deck, Randy Richards, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability
Posted in Climb/Ski/Mntneering, Environment, Glaciology, MSI News, New Zealand, Power of Place, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
07/03/2009
Wet Socks in the Backcountry
The adventurers from Singapore, Shaun Lee and Karan Puri, (see earlier post) took me up on my offer in joining me in New Zealand’s backcountry. I don’t think the two would have ventured out in this territory on their own, in fact they mentioned the whole concept of “backcountry” didn’t exist in their country. Singapore is compact. Their eyes were wide when they first came up on the Rob Roy Glacier after a few miles up a steep trail, after a small swinging bridge. They then made the two hour trek to the Aspiring Hut with me. Their shoes were a bit wet after the hike, but after a warm meal they were feeling great. The following morning, they were on their way back to the trailhead, as they had reservations on the mountain shuttle. They were a bit nervous, heading out in the rain, but I assured them they would make it. I assume they did! I’ve not heard from them.
Tags:adventure travel, Aspiring Hut, Bob Stremba, Brenda Dowst, Cindy Heath, Craig Cimmons, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, Holistic Living, Karan Puri, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, Mt. Aspiring National Park, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, Peru, Randy Richards, Shaun Lee, Singapore, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability
Posted in Health, New Zealand, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
07/03/2009
Three cups of Tea
A Mountain Spirit Board member, plus a few others, have been telling me I need to read “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It’s a great story about persevering a dream of building a school for the children of Korphe, Pakistan. One passage, quoted below, reminds me of how gravitating back to sustainable cultures can make our lives saner. If you’ve not read Three Cups of Tea, I suggest you pick up a copy.
An excerpt from the book that caught my eye:
“A book he’d read , Ancient Futures, by Helena Norberg-Hodge, was much on Mortenson’s mind. Norberg-Hodge has spend seventeen years living just south of these mountains in Ladakh, a region much like Baltistan, but cut off from Pakistan by the arbitrary borders colonial powers drew across the Himalaya. After almost two decades studying Ladakhi culture, Norberg Hodge has come to believe that preserving a traditional way of life in Ladakh-extended families living in harmony with the land- would bring about more happiness than “improving” Ladakhis’ standard of living with unchecked development.
Ancient Futures
“I used to assume that the direction of ‘progress was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned,” she writes. “I passively accepted a new road through the middle of the park, a steel-and-glass bank where a 200-year-old church had stood…and the fact that life seemed to get harder and faster with each day. I do not anymore. In Ladakh I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life- a pattern of existence based on the co-evolution between human beings and the earth.”
Norberg-Hodge continues to argue not only that Western development workers should not blindly impose modern “improvements” on ancient cultures, but that industrialized countries had lessons to learn from people like Ladakhis about building sustainable societies. “I have seen,” she writes, “that community and close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible.”
Norberg-Hodge admiringly quotes the king of another Himalayan country, Bhutan, who say the true measure of a nations success is not gross national product, but ‘gross national happiness.”
Tags:adventure travel, Ancient Futures, Bob Stremba, Brenda Dowst, Cindy Heath, Craig Cimmons, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, Greg Mortenson, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Holistic Living, Ladakh, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, Peru, Randy Richards, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability, Three Cups of Tea
Posted in Books, Mountain People, Sustainable Living/Communities, Traveling | 2 Comments »
07/03/2009
The Bagers in their "mountain classroom"
The Danish family of five had headlamps but had decided they didn’t need them. The moonlight illuminated their way. They left the trailhead around dark and rode their mountain bikes on the single, sometimes double track up the valley, being sure to keep the Matuktuki River on their right. Dennis, the father, aside from briefly looking at the map, was going on memory. He had been in this place some 15 or twenty years prior, but that time he was high above this place, and almost slid off Cascade Pass on snow covered wet grass, losing his fingernails while self arresting with hands and nose. This return trip had a different sense of adventure. He was returning with his wife Birgette and his three children Manus 10, Rasmus, and their little sister Frederikke, 7. And this trip was part of a bigger adventure. He and Birgette were about a third of their way through a two year round-the-world educational odyssey with their kids. They pedaled into Aspiring Hut around 11pm, tip toeing into the hut with their gear, careful not to disturb sleeping climbers and hikers. I had heard they had just arrived , and what’s more that they had shipped their 1990 VW oversized camper complete with school books and bikes from Denmark through Asia, Australia, and were headed to South America after a good long stint in New Zealand I had to find out more. The next morning I asked if I could interview them. Dennis jokingly said no but later agreed and even said I could get more info off their website.
MSI: Do you mind if I ask? How are you able to afford to take two years off with your whole family?
Dennis Bager: In Denmark there has been a law that allows either a man or a woman to take a family leave before their child is nine years old. This law has existed for two reasons. (more…)
Tags:adventure travel, Alternative Learning, Bager Family, Bob Stremba, Brenda Dowst, Cindy Heath, Craig Cimmons, Dennis Bager, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, Holistic Living, Home Schooling, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, New Zealand, Peru, Randy Richards, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability
Posted in Health, Holistic Living, Inspirational People, New Zealand, Peru, South America, Sustainable Living/Communities, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
26/02/2009
Karan Puri & Shaun Lee, Adventurers from Singapore
Karan Puri, 18 of Katong Province and Shaun Lee, 19 of Bedok province, Singapore, are not only really nice guys, they’re also inspiring. I’ve run into them here at the the Wanaka Hostel. Right now there currently out biking around town somewhere. I found their motivation to travel New Zealand so inspiring I thought I’d share it with you. I interviewed them last night over a beer, out here on the porch from where I write this piece.
Both Karan and Shawn have just finished high school and have about three months off, before they report for the mandatory 2-year military stint that all young men are required to do in Singapore. When Karan first walked into the hostel I noticed he had a sense of inquiry and interest, not to mention compassion and friendliness. Later, upon meeting Shawn it I got the same sense of adventure and excitement. They are now on day 6 of their adventure. So here’s some insight as to what brought them to Wanaka, New Zealand.
MSI: So what motivated you two to come to New Zealand?
Karan: To do something before the military. This is the first time on vacation without my parents, and I had been here in Wanaka when I was a child. Something about the place stuck with me. So I wanted to come back.
You see, one never really gets a break to travel if you’ve been brought up in Singapore. (more…)
Tags:adventure travel, Bob Stremba, Brenda Dowst, Cindy Heath, Craig Cimmons, Dexter R. Richards, ecospiritual psychology, Experiential Education, Holistic Living, Karan Puri, Mountain Spirit, Mountaineering, mtnspirit.org, New Hampshire, New Zealand, Peru, Randy Richards, Shaun Lee, Singapore, Spiritual, Sunapee, Sustainability, Wanaka, Youth Hostel
Posted in Health, Holistic Living, Inner Work, Inspirational People, Leadership, Mountain People, New Zealand, Traveling | Leave a Comment »
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