Into The Wild

Two weeks before I was due to fly to the Himalayas, I found myself sat in the Royal Free hospital in North London with 1st and 2nd degree burns on 7 of my fingers, stinking of smoke and burnt plastic, with my hands in a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. My mind began flitting between thoughts of pain, and guilt, and constantly back to anxiety as to how I’d somehow managed to get into this insane situation, and whether my mountain adventure was now over, a fortnight before it was due to start. My laptop charger overheated and set fire to various parts of my bedroom, fortunately I was upstairs at the time and eventually the aforementioned gross burning smell attracted my attention. I managed to stop the fire before burning down the whole house. Unfortunately my hands got burnt in the process.

I thought the trip would be off.

Well I could've done without this...

Fortunately all of the doctors and nurses I saw were incredibly helpful, I avoided anything likely to give me an infection and, I managed make enough of a recovery, just about in time.

So I made it to the plane, and into another series of unknowns. The highest altitude I’d done before was probably somewhere near Watford. The trip had been kind of last minute and the fire had reduced any ‘worry time’ as I had to deal with the array of overwhelming logistics involved in filming in a dusty, hot, freezing, dark, bright, electricity-starved environment. Basically buying tons of equipment, and consulting Dr Google for advice.

I was headed out to document a research project called Xtreme Everest 2. A study taking healthy volunteers on a trek up to Everest Base Camp, testing them all along the way, and seeing how they reacted to the differing altitude and the ever-decreasing availability of oxygen.

The mountains

The mountains are useful for research because the low oxygen levels that are normal up here mimic a problem faced by thousands of people in intensive care back down at sea level. If the house fire had gone on for 15 more minutes the smoke inhalation could have seen me hitting dangerously low levels of oxygen myself.

The plane ride into the terrifyingly tiny landing strip at the foot of the mountains was probably when I started to realise just how alien this was going to be. As I filmed on the tiny, shaky, Yeti airline plane I wasn’t really paying too much attention to the outside world. Normally this diversion from the present is my least favourite thing about filming, but this time I was grateful for the distraction. I’m not a delighted flyer. Despite having a Masters in Science [however tenuous] I still don’t really trust that aeroplanes can actually work, it doesn’t seem right does it?

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We hit the tiny runway and didn’t crash into the mountain at the end of it, no more motorized movement for a month.

As I went to bounce excitedly up the steps outside Lukla airport I was suddenly hit by how tiny my lungs seemed to have become. It wasn’t like I was feeling particularly tired, I just was conscious of every step I made. Walking was suddenly a ‘thing’.

A friend who has Rheumatoid arthritis mentioned how she feels like she has ‘tokens’ of energy that she can use each day. If she wants to cook a big meal, then that’s her

token used up so she can’t go out that night, or go swimming as she’ll be using tomorrow’s token, leaving her unable to get out of bed in the morning. It kind of hit home to me, how dependent I was on my physiology. I still had to go 3000m higher and I was feeling it already.

My favourite photo from the whole trip

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The second night in, I began to notice it affecting my brain too. Words don’t come to you so easily. Even having conversations with people becomes difficult as thinking guzzles your precious oxygen. My chat usually gets me in and out of most problems each day, but it was in short supply.

I guess I was acclimatising because eventually this stopped being quite so noticeable. I think I understood what I was capable of, how many tokens I had,and just scaled down my ambitions to suit that. You literally can’t do what you would at sea level. I’m used to working a full day with coffee and inhaled pollution for sustenance when a difficult shoot is at stake. But up there it’s impossible. The difficulty of lugging heavy camera gear around, constantly thinking, and concentrating on filming in a bastard awkward environment takes a big toll. But once you’ve adapted to what your abilities are, as long as you live within those and take it slow, you cope.

Filming was hard. It’s a ridiculously difficult environment, but I’ll probably write a whole post about that another time….

We stayed in tea houses which are basically wooden hut type things, they are very basic, but pretty comfortable and way better than sleeping in a tent. My ridiculously huge sleeping bag kept me warm and I found I slept really well on the mountain.

One hut in Dingboche was covered in flies which doesn’t fill you with confidence, and pretty soon sickness came to our group. But it did mean I could take this cool photo of a fly attacking a mountain, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

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I went up to Loboche Pass which is the memorial for all those who have died attempting to summit Everest. It was a spooky place, hundreds of piles of stones and prayer flags commemorating the dead. It becomes clear that the higher and higher up the mountain you go the better the view gets. I’d never understood why you’d want to climb Everest, but looking up at these incredible peaks, I could comprehend it marginally more. The desire to stand at the top of the world is pretty powerful once it gets in your head. Despite this, the whole trip, I never once felt like I would ever want to try and summit Everest. Crazy people.

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I got to climb one mountain called Kala Patthar. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. There was a realistic chance I could have died, clambering to the summit over a tangled web of decaying prayer flags, with absolute certain death on my left if I tripped or got caught by a gust of wind. It was incredible. Here is a photo of me on the summit and my eyes are half closed and I look stoned.

Thom_KalaPattar

It’s something like being on drugs [I would guess] it’s not reality, your body is firing at your mind, grasping, and failing, to deal with where you are and how you should feel about it. I made a quick film whilst on top…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2c4xFwPfc&w=640&h=360]

I felt changed as I walked down. Then I realised I’d left a glove somewhere half way down on a rock and it struck me that I probably hadn’t changed too much.

This is a photo of me after walking for two hours and discovering my room key from the previous night’s lodge. Fortunately my Sherpa Passang just handed it to the next guy coming down who laughed at me, and took it down the mountain with him. This probably sums up my entire experience with the Nepalese people. Fun, cheeky, friendly, and so keen to help.

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As we reached Everest Base Camp I was feeling really strong, I was in good shape, still hadn’t taken as much as a paracetemol in the preceding 20 days. Having said that I drank a lot of Tang, which is a kind of fruity sugar powder, and I think contains all the drugs, and is highly illegal in most continents.

Sleeping on ice is strange,

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This looks pretty uncomfortable but when you’re exhausted you tend to sleep pretty well. The guys at Base Camp have an incredible set up. There are no solid structures up there, only tents, fancy tents, I’ll give them that, but it’s such hard work being up there. They are there doing research in this environment for up to 3 months at a time.

One Sherpa carried an exercise bike up the mountain on his back. That made me feel less proud of my achievement of making it there. It reminded me of the time I got overtaken by a man dressed as bee in the Swindon half marathon.

The people I got to hang out with on the trip were so ace. It was great to get to know my two working buddies really well, we didn't argue [much], and I learned a lot from them. Spending a month with people, and within a culture, makes it impossible for you not be to be influenced by both. All the volunteers on the trip were there because they really cared about the science. You speak to one person, they are part time doctor/part time mountain rescuer, doing this in there holiday time. You had nurses, doctors, scientists, and ambitious students. They were a fun bunch of people. It made me want to get involved in these things more often. I’m pretty outdoorsy, but considering I’ve lived in the UK forever, and not climbed Snowdon or Ben Nevis, been to the highlands, or the New Forest is borderline criminal, if the people who do it are as cool as the guys I met on Everest, then it’s a no brainer. Think how fun we would all be with 50% extra oxygen to play with. Eventually we would find out when we got back to Kathmandu after a month in the mountains, it was pretty nuts. They were even nicer and more fun, we all smelled better when we got back to bricks, mortar, cars, and rum.

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I felt like I needed more acclimatisation going from the sparse mountains to insanity of Kathmandu than I did going up to Base Camp. Everything was fast, polluted, and noisy. I still found the locals to be super friendly, not the kind of hassle I expected before I got there.

I would love to go back to Nepal, it was my first proper travel trip and I need to do it more. My rucksack that was with me every day for a month looks empty, and depressed in the attic, but we will ride again.

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I’m really grateful for Greg Foot taking a gamble of bringing me out with him. I think we’ve made some great content. Below is a film I edited from the footage shot up the mountain. I hope you like it.

For more on the science and the insanity of working at Base Camp check out our film on the Guardian and Ri Channel:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=tovsOiSvZ_c&w=560&h=315] Watch the full video with photos here: http://www.richannel.org/xtreme-everest

I should probably shave my moustache and terrible beard off now.

Not quite yet though. But maybe soon.

I tried to read ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller’ by Italo Calvino on the mountain, but it was so mind melting that I literally couldn’t cope [This also happened when I tried to watch Looper on the flight on the way home]

I read it on the way home and it changed me; probably almost as much as going up that mountain, read it. It’s cheaper than a month expedition to Everest.

Let’s go on an ADVENTURE again soon yeah?

Some good links:

Greg Foot's Website [including links to a schools science show tour based on the adventure]:

Jenna Wiley's Blog - Detailing one of the volunteers adventures in travelling and science

Some badass Tweeter's from the trip

Greg - @GregFoot

Emily - @ejghio

Nick - @NickInsley22

Jenna - @wilesjm

and me too if you like @thomhoffman

share_Anne

Dunwich Dynamo XX 2012

Cycle 120 miles from London to Suffolk overnight.

At first it sounded like an awesome idea, then, once I’d agreed and thought about it some more, it sounded faintly ridiculous and almost impossible.

I guess I found it pretty hard to form an opinion on taking on challenge like this, considering that I’d never even cycled half this distance, and I can’t recall ever having stayed up all night. Let alone combining both activities into one ride, with no support to come and pick you up, should your bike, or your body, decide to give up on you.

In the end our bikes gave up on us before we’d even started but this didn’t seem to hamper our progress too much.

A Bad Start

The Dunwich Dynamo is in its 20th year. Legend has it the ride was inaugurated by a group of bike couriers who wanted to see the sea. Abandoning their empty pint glasses in Hackney, they pedalled until Suffolk.

The ride has grown year on year, and there were some estimations flying round of over 2000 cyclists taking part this time round.

You get a kind of route map, but we couldn’t really be bothered to look at it, and just followed other people, we would evaluate if they looked more pro than us – inevitably yes. [Exhibit A: I was cycling in my swimming trunks...] And then head in that direction.

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My bike had been giving me a bit of trouble for the first 60 miles, Hills felt like belligerent mountains, punishing me for some kind of horrible crime my knees committed when I was a child. Fortunately when we hit Sudbury there was an amazing free cycle repair stand. Their mechanic spied my wheel grinding against my frame, acting like a permanent giant metal brake. He fixed it - my new hero. I wanted to pop him in the mange tout crate balanced on the back of my bike and take him with me, but he had other bikes to fix! I must give a massive shout out to Torque Bikes of Sudbury. If you are in the Sudbury area you should go there! http://www.torquebikes.co.uk/

The next 60 miles seemed like a breeze compared to the first 60 miles; there’s probably some sort of metaphor about life there, but I’m not quite sure what. I would definitely recommend bringing a fully working bicycle if you do want to try this event; it makes it more fun.

Broing Out

There's something cool about experiencing all of the different light conditions in one go. Starting in sunny evening London, through the dusky blue light of nightfall. The Twinkling stars, under a watchful Moon guiding you through deep dark countryside, followed by rich breaking sunrise, and glorious blue skies of the perfect, all too rare, summer morning.

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I’d say it was doable for anyone who cycles to work regularly and has a sense of adventure. It was a broad church. Mario and Luigi on a tandem. A bike crew who looked on their way to the Olympics [Team Dulwich] a bike crew who seemed to be most concerned with stopping in every pub [Team Barnes]. The main uniting feature was the love of adventure, and doing something different.

I took some random photos along the way with my new GoPro camera, I’ve been obsessed with their amazing marketing video. Honestly watch it, you will not be disappointed.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUEZCxBcM78&w=640&h=360]

I now constantly have this soundtrack in my head. Throughout the whole cycle it was there humming around my brain, making my every move seem epic, I unwrap my second Walnut Bread and Jarlsberg sandwich, Boom I’m a legend, it’s business time.

There were lots of nice people, the weather was amazing and jumping in the sea with beaming sunshine was wicked. Maybe if the weather wasn’t so good then it could be kind of annoying, but I know I’ll be doing this again. I'd honestly say it's one of the best things I've ever done*.

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Other things I learned

My Cycle Bro Jess and I realised we knew lots of Eminem lyrics from the second album.

Props to everyone who opened up their front gardens to make coffee – you are heroes, The coffee I had at 50 miles was almost as good as the bike repair at 60.

If you know of any other cool or crazy rides, let me know as this has definitely given me the taste!

*some other things I've done include - Nigel Winterburn's Soccer School, seen Sisqo live, failed a job interview at a McDonald's**

** it was much better than all of these things

DCIM100GOPRO

Cycling the Grand Union Canal

I recently went on a cycle that was so nice, I thought I'd blog it. My family live in Zone 9, it's similar to cloud 9, although in almost no ways. I now live in zone 2, so thought it'd be fun to cycle the intermittent zones one day. I had a quick google, and found a route along the canal that goes from Mile End to Berkhamsted, this would near enough cover my route. I know there are canals, I've walked and cycled along them a bit, mostly from Regent's Park to Camden, but I genuinely didn't know the canal was still linked up that well, and certainly didn't think it'd be possible to cycle the whole way along the canal. It's easy to forget this incredible forgotten artery that flows through England.

Zone 2 to Zone 9

Well it is possible, and it's a really stunning route. I have a reasonably impractical old 70's racing bike, and it was kind of muddy, and subsequently kind of scary, but I didn't fall into the canal. Three of the four of us got punctures, so I would recommend a repair kit and a pump, but more importantly I would recommend doing it. You can cycle all the way to Rickmansworth then hop off and get the train back; if you don't fancy doubling back on yourself.

We stopped once to have some Birthday Cake, even though I'm pretty sure it was no-one's birthday.

Cake

*I just went and checked and it was Spider Loc, American rapper, member of G-Unit's Birthday that day, so happy birthday to you Spider Loc.

We also stopped at the Coy Carp pub in Harefield, it was very nice, they had several real ales, and also 3 courses for a bargainous £10 - it was clear then that we'd gotten a fair way out of London.

it rained a little bit, but just meant we stayed cool, and got to see this.

Rainbow, somewhere near Wembley

If you don't have a bike, you should get one, I reckon you could even do it on a Boris Bike. Having said that,  my calculations suggest it would cost you around £35. And it would be hard to remove from the canal if you fell in.

I think there is a canal festival, at some point which is supposed to be good, but I will definitely be doing this route again, during the spring, it's a beaut.

Goodbye Young Person's Railcard

This blog is about ageing  which is a tricky topic for a 26 year old to write about, especially one who can still dismiss a charity mugger with a, disturbingly believable, claim to be 16. Anyway, next week is a significant event. My young person's railcard expires, I got it extended during my dip back into studentdom in 2008. Whilst not exactly the end of a free ride, 1/3 off journeys are over for me and a world of borderline reasonable train fares becomes a world of depressingly inflation-hit limitations. So yeah, it feels like a good time to take stock. A lot of stuff is changing, my first two girlfriends are now married, my best friend growing up is engaged, and me, well my young person's railcard has expired.

When I was growing up, I thought my life would be sorted by the age of 25. At the age of 21 I rapidly readjusted this figure, changing it from a number to more of an abstract concept.

The way I judge age is how it sounds in your mind to hear your Dad saying the following sentence: 'Thom [or insert your own name here] you're 26 now...[insert your own age here]' before calling you up on some mistake you just made. I'm nearly 27 and

'Thom your 27 now, you can't spend a month writing a tv pilot about a detective duo called 'Health and Safety''.

That's just hard to argue with

I went to Bestival, after receiving a free ticket in exchange for driving a van. Three of my favourite things there were as follows

a) Mr Motivator (58 years old, birthday on 14/11, happy birthday for then Mr Motivator) - it was incredible b) David 'RamJam' Rodigan - (60 and absolutely SMASHED his ragga-tipped dubstep set) c) The Women's Institute Tea and Cake tent (impolite to ask age, but what an awesome bunch of ladies!)

David Rodigan particularly is an example of the importance of mindset. And Motivator is a the exception that proves the rule about men and spandex.

I recently heard the word 'screenager' once I had stopped vomiting all over everything, I composed myself and thought about what sort of difference a few years can make. I probably don't count as a screenager, because google wasn't around when I was growing up. Some people had mobile phones but not many, and they didn't do much.

I'm pretty sure that Facebook would have made an impact on my life if it had been around, but I didn't join until I was 21. If I'd been on it from the age of 16 it would have been full of me writing complete crap [I know it is anyway, but even more so]. My diary is testament to that. Here is a verbatim quote from the old diary when I was about 16

'when I look back at life I want to say, I lived the bitch'

What in the name of sweet crimities was I thinking?

I would probably have looked after my appearance a bit more, as reams of tagged photographs poured in, and my ability to construct my persona became a more tangible project.

With regard to homework, something like google translate, quora, and wikipedia would have been everything I'd dreamed about, and a desire to mendaciously benefit from various sources would have been pretty strong, I wonder how I would have adapted.

I recently explained defriending to my nan, she said I should get off Facebook, I said she should stop reading the Daily Mail, we are probably both right.

So yeah no more young person's railcard, if I want to avoid having to spend like £100 to get to Swindon then I need to organize myself. I'll now need to book in advance, and hence plan. These are two of my least favourite activities. (this does not apply to work stuff though, I'm totes a professional OBVS)

That's probably not worthy of a blog post, but I raise a glass to the people who have multiple babies and husbands/wives and are younger than me, and the 60 year olds dropping heavy dubstep beats of a Saturday evening, and everyone in between. No excuses, whatever the digits are let's push things forward.

x

Advice from my Dad

1) 'Never wear a hat that's cooler than you are', as you may remember from a previous blog post about radio baseball caps - I ignored this advice 2) 'Buy the best mattress you can afford - If I ever do buy my own mattress I will certainly think about heeding this advice'

Things I didn't enjoy about Bestival 1) Driving a van, I'm not a van driver, as described above I look a bit like Michael Cera's younger brother, I did not earn the respect of the white van community'