Be First Recipient Stand Up Paddleboards Coastline of the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada

Be First recipient Norm Hann traveled 385 kilometers by stand up paddleboard along the coastal waters of Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest to help bring awareness to the consequences a proposed oil pipeline and tanker traffic could have on its native people and wildlife.

By Norm Hann

A voyage of this magnitude had never been attempted on a stand up paddleboard in Canada before.  The Great Bear Rainforest stretches from Vancouver Island north to southeast Alaska. It is one of the largest remaining tracts of unspoiled temperate rainforest in the world and is one of the most prolific areas for marine and terrestrial wildlife anywhere in the world. It is also the traditional home of coastal First Nations who have used the bounty of the ocean and forest to sustain themselves for millennia.

The purpose of my expedition, which I called “Standup4GreatBear,” was to bring attention to the traditional food harvesting areas of the First Nations, the amazing ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest and the proposed development that could threaten them. The journey became much more than that. Read More…

Be First Recipient Takes Aim at First ‘Summit2Sea’ Expedition from McKinley Summit to Gulf of Alaska

Be First recipient Jesse Shimrock has set out to be the first person to climb the highest mountain in North America (Mt. McKinley) and kayak the rivers that the mountain births, from its highest navigable source, all the way to the ocean, in one continuous push.

By Jesse Shimrock

After months of social preoccupation and impassioned planning, I am elated to say the journey into the Yukon has officially begun! Just weeks ago I was still searching for possible channels to acquire the necessary funding and resources needed for an expedition of this magnitude. Read More…

Be First Recipients Fight Dangerous Conditions During Training on Mt. McKinley

Confined to a snow cave for 12 days by a blizzard during her last attempt, Be First recipient Christine Feret is making another push to become the first woman to summit Denali in the winter, alongside partner Artur Testov. Picking up from her previous post, Christine and Artur face tough conditions that threaten their ability to reach the next stages of their training climb.

By Christine Feret

After taking a day off at McGonagal Pass, we crossed the Muldrow moraine in the rain and were starting to worry about the snow conditions we would encounter on the glacier. We were at around 6,500 feet and far from freezing temperatures. The North Side has almost constant direct sunlight in the summer, and colder temperatures are a key to manageable snow conditions.

Having made camp at the end of the moraine, we woke up at 2 a.m. and the outside of our tent was wet. When we woke up again at 4 a.m. it was frozen. We took a first look at the Lower Icefall hoping to bring cache at the top. We slowly navigated through the riddles of crevasses as the bridges looked soft and questionable. Read More…

Be First Recipient Trains to be the First Woman to Summit Mt. McKinley in Winter

Confined to a snow cave for 12 days by a blizzard during her last attempt, Be First recipient Christine Feret is making another push to become the first woman to summit Denali in the winter, alongside partner Artur Testov. Check back here for updates on her adventure.

By Christine Feret

We have just come back from McKinley’s Pioneer Ridge from the North Side. We were worked, humbled and reminded of the mountaineering basics.

This was our first serious training session for our attempt to climb McKinley in February. We decided that the best training for us would be what I like to call, “Free Mountaineering.” No communications, no rescue, no other teams to rely on. McKinley is wild, capricious and a true test of a mountaineer’s fortitude and endurance. This “Free Mountaineering” training route was intended to give us a mental taste of what winter will be like: long, painful and heavy, very heavy. Read More…

Be First Recipients Cycle the Americas

Be First recipients the Vogel family – Dad, John; Mom, Nancy; and 12-year-old twins Davy and Daryl – are on the road and attempting to pedal the entire length of the longest road in the world – the Pan American Highway– from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina at the southern tip of South America. Check back here for updates on their adventure.

By Nancy Vogel

There has been a debate raging lately: are the parents of children accomplishing big feats such as climbing Mt. Everest or sailing solo around the world selfish, self-absorbed parents forcing their own dreams upon their children or simply parents encouraging and helping their children to dream big?

As the parent of 12-year-old brothers currently attempting to break the world record as the youngest people to cycle the length of the Americas, I am uniquely qualified to answer that question.  We left in June 2008 when the boys were ten and expect to reach our goal somewhere around their thirteenth birthday. Read More…

Announcing Be First Sponsorship Recipients: Round 2

First Ascent’s Be First program is an opportunity to pursue your passion for adventure, to go for your summit—whatever that might be—and get sponsored to do it. The second round of applications to the Be First program is complete and many of our adventurers are either on their journeys or will head out soon. Read on for information and follow their journeys here on the Born Out There blog throughout the coming months. Read More…

Announcing Our Be First Sponsorship Recipients!

First Ascent’s Be First program is an opportunity to pursue your passion for adventure, to go for your summit—whatever that might be—and get sponsored to do it. The first round of applications to the Be First program is complete and many of our adventurers are either on their journeys or will head out soon. We couldn’t be more excited! Read on for information about our round-one recipients. Then follow their journeys right here on the Born Out There blog throughout the coming months Read More…

Be First Launches Today. Apply Now.

If you’ve got an untamable spirit of adventure, BE FIRST is for you. The program is an opportunity to be partially or fully sponsored when you go for the summit or otherwise test your limits. We know the value of adventure. We’ve been there, many times. So if you’ve got a passion for pushing the envelope, send us your proposal. We can help make it happen.

Last Day Brings Perfectly Tubing Point Break

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a series of five posts by Yassine Ouhilal chronicling the month-long Arctic Surf Expedition that he and four other surfers began on April 5, 2009.]

May 1. Morning comes with fanfare and a parade. May 1 is a national holiday in Russia, leading up to Victory Day on May 9. That’s when Russia celebrate the defeat of the Nazis during World War II. We discover that all official activities are closed for the week. Without any chance of going through official channels to obtain permits, we have to get creative Read More…

Team Crosses into Russia to Surf Barents Sea

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of five posts by Yassine Ouhilal chronicling the month-long Arctic Surf Expedition that he and four other surfers began on April 5, 2009.]

April 28. We’ve spent the last week surfing up and down the coast. We went back to “Broken Hearts,” and managed to score some fun surf at several different breaks. But now it’s time to go even farther north. We’ll spend a few days exploring Norway’s extreme north coastline. Then we’re heading into Russia, in hopes of being the first to surf in the Barents Sea Read More…