Diversity

#BlackLivesMatter, Climbing, Diversity, Everest, Full Circle Everest, National Geographic, Podcast / 30.05.2022

On May12, 2022, history was made as the first team of Black American climbers successfully ascended to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. Known as the Full Circle Everest Expedition, this group of six men and one woman, all of African descent, made it safely to the top of the mountain and back to Everest Base Camp. The team included an array of climbers from across the United States and one native of Kenya. They ranged in age from 26 to 62. And...

Black Lives Matter, Diversity, Everest, Full Circle Everest / 25.05.2022

Early this month the Joy Trip Project Reported that seven members of the Full Circle Everest Team successfully summited the highest mountain in the world. On Thursday, May 12, the group including Manoah Ainuu, Eddie Taylor, Rosemary Saal, Demond “Dom” Mullins, Thomas Moore, James “KG” Kagambi, and Evan Green made it to the top of Mount Everest and in doing so their achievement stands to redefine the cultural landscape of outdoor recreation and the environmental conservation movement of decades to come. The team, led by outdoor educator Philip...

#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Black Lives Matter, Climbing, Destinations, Diversity, Essays, Everest, Expedition News, Full Circle Everest, Outdoors For All / 11.04.2022

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” ~ Mark TwainThe walk from Phadking to Namche is a six-mile climb up a narrow trail of steep stone steps along a dusty path. Much of my training at 920 feet of above sea level in Wisconsin over the past year had done little to prepare...

#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Diversity, Environmental Journalism / 04.04.2022

Almost 60 years after the first successful American ascent of Mount Everest, a team of U.S. climbers aims to make history once again on the world’s highest peak. Led by Philip Henderson, a former instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School and a veteran Himalayan mountaineer, this group, made up of athletes from across the country, aspires to be the first all-Black American expedition to reach the summit. This new project, called the Full Circle Everest Expedition, was announced at the Outdoor Retailer Summer show this August in Denver. Set to begin...

#BlackLivesMatter, Black In National Parks Week, Black Lives Matter, Diversity, National Geographic, National Parks, Podcast, Public Land, Unhidden / 09.03.2022

A few weeks before his 80th birthday, I had the rare pleasure to speak by phone to the 15th director of the National Park Service Robert Stanton. From his home in Maryland, Mr. Stanton shared with me a personal history of his career as a leading figure in the preservation of public land as well as the enduring legacy of our heritage as a nation. Born in 1940, as Black American Stanton was subjected to the racially focused prohibitions of the Jim Crow era that denied him access...

Books, Diversity, Nelson Institute, The Joy Trip Reading Project, Ultra Running / 25.02.2022

On February 24th viewer gathered over Zoom for the Joy Trip Reading Project Book Discussion with our guest J.Robert Harris, author of “Way Out There ~ Adventures of a Wilderness Trekker”. Harris has been exploring and backpacking long distance for more than 60 years in some of the most remote and inhospitable wilderness areas in the world, unsupported and mostly alone. He has written numerous articles about his experiences, as well as the book we discussed in this lively online forum. Harris is a frequent speaker at schools, universities, and...