“I can see the Ellsworth Mountains looming ahead of us and as we approach them, the southern end of the blue ice airstrip comes into view. It’s mostly kept clear of snow by the terrific force of the katabatic winds that thunder down the mountains. While these winds are fabulous for keeping snow off the airstrip, they are dreadful when you need still conditions in which to land…. It is time to sit down, strap in and hold on”.

So begins Jason Kimberley’s book “Antarctica: A Different Adventure”.

In fact that’s crap, it doesn’t start like that at all. It starts with young Jason who was the first person born on the Russian space station Mir (possibly true but unconfirmed) dreaming in his cot of the invigorating bite of Antarctic cold driving him on to become the greatest ever polar explorer in human history.

Actually that’s crap too. The real truth is that as a real Australian male, his natural environment is lying in a banana lounger and drinking beer.

But he ended up on a sled hauling trip to Antarctica.

How did things go so wrong????

Here he is below, completely shagged and thinking exactly the same thing.

While eating a barbequed pig on an Indo beach, Phil, Richard and Marcio reckoned they’d start a website that acts as the link between photographers and action sports enthusiasts, so the person in the thick of things can later buy the pic of themselves and then be better able to utter the immortal words:

“No shit, there I was” ………

Which of course they’d then add further subsequent embellishment to (known also as lies) like:

“When I free-soloed speed climbed past Dean Potter on El Cap, his jaw dropped …..”

or

“Then I said “My wave Laird Hamilton, you douche-bag”  ……..

Since those initial babblings from the guys on the sand with the pig, www.wotashot.com was born!

You’re skeptical still or just got Altziemers and forgotten how this can work for you?

Boiled down, here it is: You take photos, stick ‘em on the site, some dude buys them, you get to eat that week. That’ll do, click here

You’ve got it in one, this pic sums it up, so see more images and vids of Mal Haskins at work in NZ here

The thinking was: “Build the ramp and the paddlers will come”. A scene below from the pre-dawn ceremony to praise The Ramp. Check Antz’s report out here

This otherwise rational looking individual harbours an icy secret held in his frozen heart; namely he is mad on all things polar and cold so ask yourself what do North Pole Explorer, North Pole Adventurer, North Pole Deluxe, North Pole Experience, North Pole Direct, South Pole extreme ski, South Pole and Vinson climb and South Pole Discovery all have in common?

They’re all trips that he runs commercially as part of his polar guiding business, IceTrek.

Check out his site at www.icetrek.com and he has pretty near every polar permutation imaginable a cold weather masochist could ever want. And by way of evidence of his love of this ice-madness, his Patagonia Ice Cap traverse with kites and kayaks is here

Even to an accomplished climber, to stand for the first time at the base of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley in California is to experience something genuinely awesome and breathtaking.

Over a kilometre high, it is an unimaginable testament to nature and glacial forces but to be a human being part of this vertical dimension is where any amount of hyperbole almost runs outta steam.

While it has dozens of routes on it and has been climbed thousands of times over more than 50 years, any climber’s eye is drawn to the quintessential route up it …. The Nose.

A bit more here on Dean Potter here; think of it as just a little prelude to the video.

And if you're ready for the ultimate in "real deal", sit down, chalk up and brace yourself for this .... vid 14.