The Savior and the Storm on K2 [Heroism]

On newsstands and online tomorrow, November 20th, I have a new cover story for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ADVENTURE: the Best of Adventure Annual (December/January double issue). It tells the tale of the unsung hero of August’s disaster on K2, the worst climbing accident in over a decade and one that generated front page and primetime news around the world for days on end. But this is the first time Pemba Gyalje Sherpa himself has gotten his due for his extraordinary selflessness. Below, a teaser.

In the same issue I also profile Olympic Silver Medal-winning snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler as well as French Crazypants “Speed Flyer” Francois Bon, who parachutes off of Death Zone summits wearing skis—on purpose. The 12 pp package also features the tales of teenage Brit explorers who trekked from magnetic pole to magnetic pole; daring Amazon river scientists tracking pollution; a journalist tracking the human slave trade; and a profile of Emma Stokes, a field biologist who discovered 125,000 previously unknown lowland gorillas in the Congo, among others. Please pick up a copy!

PEMBA GYALJE SHERPA On August 1, 2008, at just about 8 p.m., a massive serac cleaved from a glacier near the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, and barreled down a section of the Cesen climbing route called the Bottleneck. In an instant, one climber was dead, key safety lines were swept away, and 17 climbers were trapped above 27,000 feet with little chance of escape…

RELATED COVERAGE:

Katie Couric segment

AP video

A1 NYT

The Lede (NYT)

A Toast To Thirst

This week’s New Yorker features an unexpected treat by staff writer Burkhard Bilger. Call it the Barack Obama of beer articles: a ten-page analysis of the craft beer industry—and one of its provocateurs, Sam Calagione, of Dogfish Head—that sucker punches conventional wisdom. There’s much to savor here, with passages such as the following:

“Calagione strapped on a pair of safety glasses and peered into the oak and hickory embers. “If there are no second-degree burns, I’ll call this a success,” he said. Then he heaved in a rock, sending up a shower of sparks. “Let me know if they start to explode,” he told one of the cooks.”

Bilger’s descriptions of Calagione’s unorthodox brewing methods, including the use of Palo Santo (a rare, aromatic Uruguayan wood three times harder than oak) to ferment a burly stout are riveting—and brings back a lot of fond journalistic memories. My oft-beer-writing-partner-in-crime Seth Fletcher and I wrote about Calagione’s use of Palo Santo back in the October issue of Men’s Journal in which we named the resulting beer one of the best in America, only after tasting it with Calagione while huddled at the tiny copper-topped bar of Dieu De Ciel, a brewpub in Montreal’s Plateau district. We’d ventured up for the Mondiale Du La Biere Festival, and arranged to meet Calagione, well armed with samples—including the Palo Santo-aged beer. Another interesting passage for me was Bilger’s on-site interview with Brasserie D’Orval brewmaster Jean Marie Rock, who I met, too, in 1997 while on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship doing research that would become the basis of my first published article, from the (now defunct) Brewing Techniques magazine (and an award-winner). A toast to Burkhard, Sam, and beer drinkers everywhere who’ve been calling for full respect of the good stuff for a long time. I’ve got to sign off now, or I’ll be late for a tasting at Gramercy Tavern. On the menu? Beer, of course.

Better Than Lipstick on a Pitbull

A recent little item of mine in the Times that opened my eyes to an industry I didn’t know much about: pooch couture. It’s not as bad as it sounds…!

Click on this little fella for the multimedia presentation from Thursday Styles.