SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - If you’ve got BBC2 TV channel there’s some can’t miss TV on tonight…Across the Andes: Beyond Boundaries - Fri 9 May, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm. A friend’s sister, Julie who I’ve been in email contact with, is a star of the show! All of them are physically disabled, but they are determined to overcome the hurdles they face, to prove something to themselves and the world, and to go Beyond Boundaries.

Ten teenagers attempt the journey of a lifetime. Starting in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, they try to cross the 300 kilometres separating them from the Pacific Ocean, climbing the mighty Andes Mountains in the process.

With the exception of Expedition Leader Ken Hames, none of the group have been to Ecuador before, and as they fly to their rainforest start-point their first sight of the Andes is when the enormity of the expedition sinks in.

Whether dealing with snakes and spiders, struggling to get the wheelchairs through the rainforest, or just pitching camp and cooking dinner, the challenges come thick and fast.

-Robin

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Spotted on GO Blog, here’s a movie I will be queuing up to see. Blindsight the documentary/movie follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers on their journey to climb a mountain in the shadow of Everest.

Lhakpa-Ri peak, the goal of the expedition, is 23,000 feet high. The expedition leader is blind climber Erik Weihenmayer. On May 25, 2001, Erik became the first blind man in history to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak.

In 2002 I shared a pint with Erik’s climbing sherpa from that expedition in Kandersteg, Switzerland. He was on a hut exchange where he ran a swiss alpine hut for a summer while a swiss guide helped out in a Nepalese one. I can’t remember his name, but I swooned in awe when I saw his Everest Summiteers Association membership card. Not only had he helped Erik place his hands & feet up the Hillary step, but he had also carried the IMAX camera to the summit on his back during ‘Everest’ movie (and was wearing the cap to prove it in the bar!).

Watch the Blindsight trailer:

There’s a nice line in there by an American:

The difference between westerners and easterners, we want to stand on top… it’s just ingrained in our make up.

Eastern response:

Get one person to the summit and everyone succeeds.

Very true of the east from my experiences.

Nice… see you there with the popcorn.

www.blindsightthemovie.com

-Robin.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Deadliest Scoop! A furious account of life on and off the Bering sea. Listen to the interview here.

For those of who unfamiliar with Deadliest Catch, it is a show about one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The series follows eight to ten crab fishing boats and their crews throughout two of the dangerous crab fishing seasons, the October king crab season and the January opilio crab.

Battling two storey waves, callous wind, battering ice-cold rain and the merciless and stubborn Bering Sea, the crews featured in Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” test the limits of human endurance on the short but deadly crabbing seasons out of Alaska’s Dutch Harbour and have created a cult show out of what appears at first hand to merely be a documentary about fishing but in truth is testimony to man’s determination to dominate and conquer nature, despite its formidable opposition…….so who in their sane mind would decided to do it? The answer is the Hillstrand brothers.

Johnathan and Andy are co-owners of the vessel the Time Bandit. Johnathan captains during the King crab season and Andy skippers during the opilio season. Although these two are brothers there is a stark difference between the them. Johnathan is a captain with a love for life on the edge and a passion to speak his mind and will to do the impossible. When not battling with the Bering sea his hobbies include riding his Harley which has been souped up 120mph (193km/hr) at the touch of a button. Andy Hillstrand is the skipper during opilio crab season and heads up the business side of the family’s fishing venture. During the off-season, Andy lives on a ranch in Indiana where he engages in his other passion which is training horses. He’s happily married and light heartedly says that himself and his loving wife have learned that they have both learned to adjust to his marriage to her and his marriage to the sea.

So how did these two men get into crab fishing in the first place? Going back to their father who was also a fisherman, the Hillstrands became involved in the family business at a relatively early age. Andy not content working in a doughnut shop at a young age, yearned for something more (No doubt casting an envious eye at the bait shop across the road). Along with their father, they help in designing the Time Bandit for fishing crab. What many fans find hard to believe is that their designs included staterooms, a 4 person sauna and queen size beds. Not what you expect on a crabbing vessel. That is not to say that they have life easy!

Explaining that all they wear on deck can amount to a few layers of clothing then covered by waterproof overalls. There is no easy way to endure 30shorts in rolling seas and tempestuous waves. This all adds to the danger of the job whereby the injury rate is believed to be 100%. Andy goes on to say that many of the injuries that they have include broken bones and cases of frostbite. If you get wet during the opilio season you can be in trouble as the water will freeze on skin it’s just that cold. Also a topic of popular concern is that of the cameramen. Do they have difficulties? do they have the same guys every year? The Brothers explain that they have to look out for the cameramen and that they have helped save their lives on more than one occasion. Crab pots weighing up 900lb can easily kill if they fall on an unsuspecting person. They never have the same cameramen from one season to the next so there are always a few problems to work out, so say the Hillstrands. Though the people always change the brother captains say that it can be good especially in the wheelhouse, when normally you are alone for hours, you have someone to talk to.

Thankfully they have never lost a man but were especially reminded of the risks when in the last season they were lucky enough to be near another vessel when a man was swept overboard and managed to pull him from the water quickly. As most fishermen know, the life expectancy in the Bering sea is mere minutes without survival gear. Risks are part of the game they explain, last year Johnathan braved a moving ice pack and freezing harbour to offload $10,000 worth of crab causing hull damage and risking the vessel sinking. Now with his son Scott joining the crew season 4, when asked would he take the same risks with him on board the answer was an undoubted ‘yes’. This job is their livelihood and with risk it seems, comes great reward.

Fans will be looking forward to season 4 say the captains. Back with more insane pranks and some life threatening situations for the crew of the Timebandit, The hillstrand brothers are back this April 15th on the Discovery channel in the US and also have more to be revealed in their upcoming book ‘Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World’s Deadliest Jobs’.

So what now for the delicious Hillstand brothers of the Time Bandit? They look set to continue fishing for crab on the unforgiving Bering sea and also to travelling to promote their book. More information can be found on the Discovery website and their own re-vamped website http://www.timebandit.tv/.

-John Carroll (Furious J)-

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EDITOR: Many thanks to John for stepping in to do this Guest Post for Team Geared Up! We’re very grateful - and next time we’ll try have someone in the right timezone! It was great to see our cyber buddies Backcountry Blog: The Goat on the call to! Thanks to the screengrabs from Deadliest Reports. Thanks to readers who asked questions - Ken, your music one was answered at 19mins!

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Team Geared Up will be interviewing the TV stars of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch tomorrow. Brothers and co-captains of the ship Time Bandit, Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand will answer our TGU readers questions along with other bloggers on this exclusive call.

Ever seen Deadliest Catch? You may remember their dramatic rescue, last season, of a man who fell into the Bering Sea near where they were fishing. If not - tune in… crab fishing in the freezing conditions is more interesting and daring than you can imagine.

If you were on the phone to them, what would you ask? We’ll ask it for you!

So far via Twitter…

Ken Asks:
“When they’re not tackling the high seas, what type (or who) of music would they listen to to relax?”

Petie Asks:
“There really only is one question thouugh, are they insane???”

I’m asking:
“You built the boat yourselves, has the Time Bandit been modified for living in freezing conditions or travelling through ice?”
“What is the best food to eat fast during 24hr shifts?”
“Your ‘No pot left behind’ is admirable! - what about people, what was your nearest miss?”

TGU Neal Asks:
“do they like water or is it just work?”
“funniest moment?”
“Would they recommend the work to others?”

Leave your questions in the comments. We’ll make an MP3 download of the interview available afterwards.

-Robin-

This feature-length documentary follows the explorer Bear Grylls and his friend Gilo Cardozo as they prepare to fly over the summit of Mount Everest. They will be strapped onto flimsy paraglide chutes powered by backpack motors, or paramotors as they are know to aficionados.

I have my long run done for the week and will be tv bound for the day! Bring on the armchair adventure!

-Aisling-

Image from Channel 4 gallery.

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - It’s not often we get good expeditionary TV in the UK or Ireland. So when we do TGU make and effort to try and feature it. This was spotted in the climbing.ie forums…

BBC2 - Wed 30 Jan, 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm 60mins

A Tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary: The Race for Everest.

The story of Hillary’s most famous achievement, the British expedition which climbed the world’s highest mountain in 1953. This exhaustive documentary features much previously unseen archive material and dramatic eye-witness testimony from members of both the British and Swiss teams to tell the inside story of this epic adventure and throw new light on the bitter controversies which followed.

Sir Ed, the first to summit Everest passed away in Janurary this year (2008). Neither of the summit pair are now alive.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - It’s a bit of a Top Gear day today, isn’t it! Here’s the video of Jeremy Clarkson in a Land Rover racing Rock Climber Paul McCartney up the indoor climbing wall at the MPH 07 show. We let you know this was happening last weekend. Sarunas (DCURCC) sent us the videos today! Cheers!

Looks like the climber fell off every hour!

-Robin-

The stunning true story of the fateful voyage of an amateur yachtsman who in 1968 enters the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

I’ve read about this story in Chris Bonnington’s ‘The Quest For Adventure’, a fantastic book I reviewed back in 2005.

It recounts the true, tragic story of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur sailor drawn dangerously out of his depth when he signed up for a sailing competition for the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the globe. Not able to take the strain, Donald lies about his position in his logbooks and circles off the coast of South America for several months with the plan to re-join the race when the rest came back up the Atlantic and claim he’d also completed the trip. It’s a strategy that drives him slowly mad before he commits suicide by jumping overboard, by memory, leaving the boat on course for the finish.

Compassionate, tragic, troubling; this extraordinary documentary recounts one of the sailing community’s legendary stories.

Right now I’m currently watching “The Gadget Show” on ‘Five’ (UK) which is reviewing rugged camera, testing them in helicopters in Iceland over steamy volcanoes for vibration, easy of use in gloves, screen brightness & temperature capabilities.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Front Cover of “Quest for Adventure” Book by the Author)

Best of Luck to anyone running New York! Only 2 days to the big event. As we said before, heavy weight elite field heading there! Irishman Ronan Hartnett who ran Dublin in 2:45 is running again on Sunday along with brother Fergal, both fellow Clonliffe Harriers. Best of luck to them both, they’re great runners and all round great blokes! That’s Ronan above who I photographed at the finish area of Dublin last Monday!

And for your viewing next week: Deep Water;

The stunning true story of the fateful voyage of an amateur yachtsman who in 1968 enters the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

That’s Channel 4 this Monday at 9pm.

As for me this Sunday sees the running of the Dublin Senior Cross Country Championships. I’m not a fan of cross country so I find it hard to get motivated but hey there’s worse things in life……..

Have a good weekend!

-Aisling-

Considering it was Channel 4 who funded Touching the Void when that was made into a movie and it was excellent, here’s hoping they do just as good a job with this one!
It’s on Channel 4 in the UK and Ireland (I’m sure satellite also) at 9pm on Monday, October 22nd.
Courtesy of The Sunday Times (Oct 14th).

- Neal :) -