Outdoor News Update: Second Step, Solo Kayak, and Crossing of the Bering Strait

Filed in archive Outdoor News on June 19, 2007

Here's the best of the outdoor news I missed:

Throwback Expedition Summits Everest (although it is not without a little controversy)

American Conrad Anker and British Leo Houlding reached the top of Everest at 10:45 am this morning, three hours after reportedly free-climbing the Second Step in partly cloudy conditions. The team confirmed Gerry Moffat and Kevin Thaw topping-out as well. Achieved on June 14, these are the latest summits ever registered on a pre-monsoon Everest ascent.

Kayaker Records New Solo Route

Satoru Yahata, a sea kayak instructor based in Okinawa, arrived in the eastern Taiwan port city of Hualian on June 18, after rowing 700 kilometers in a solo kayak trip from the northern Philippines. He is the first solo kayaker to successfully complete the trip. Yahata, 32, says it took him 16 days to make the voyage with his 5.5-meter boat, at an average speed of 6 km per hour. Last June, he paddled his kayak across almost 300 km of sea from Hualien to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa.

First Modern-Day Crossing of the Bering Strait

Although no one has been able to do so in recorded history, Karl and his travel buddy Dimitri Kieffer gave it their best shot and emerged wet, cold and successful on the Russian side--where both were promptly arrested for not properly processing their paperwork upon entering the country (obviously there is no customs/border station on the shores of the Bering Strait).

Thanks to Outdoornewswire!