Adventure Quickies: Eco-Challenge Final Standings, the Passing of a Legendary Sherpa, and more

Each Friday, I share a rundown of some stories that I didn’t have the time or space to post elsewhere. Typically, these “adventure quickies” focus on travel, environmental, and gear related topics that you may find interesting but may have also flown beneath your radar.

As usual, many things are happening, and not enough time to cover them all, but hopefully, these brief tidbits will link you to other websites where you can learn more about a topic.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things you might have missed this week.

  • Eco-Challenge Final Standings: So, you’ve watched Eco-Challenge Fiji on Amazon Prime Video, enjoyed the race start to finish, and know who won. But if you’re looking to find out where the entire field ended up placing, along with their final times, GearJunkie has you covered.
    Just be warned, this will constitute spoilers if you haven’t already watched the entire series. The rundown also includes a list of teams that did not finish as well. Find out more about the 2021 Eco-Challenge here.
  • Expedition Teams Travel to Greenland: True adventure expeditions may be in short supply at the moment, but a few socially-distancing explorers are venturing out to remote corners of the globe.
    One destination drawn in a handful of teams is Greenland, where crossing the country on skis and foot remains a daunting undertaking. Earlier this week, ExWeb posted a rundown of the teams currently attempting to do just that.
  • Greenland Sees “Unprecedented” Ice Loss: Speaking of Greenland, it was revealed this week that warming temperatures last summer resulted in “unprecedented” ice loss. After analyzing the data, it seems the icecaps there were as much as 15% below previous record lows, with data dating back as far as 1948.
  • Chhiji Nurbu Sherpa Has Passed Away: One of the more accomplished Nepali climbing Sherpas has passed away. Earlier in the week, Highlight Expeditions announced that Chhiji Hurbu Sherpa had died at 40.
    He had managed to summit 13 of the 14 8000-meter peaks throughout his career and was considered a strong and experienced guide.
  • Norway is Paying Foreigners to Leave Svalbard: The coronavirus continues to be a major cause for concern in Norway’s Arctic island of Svalbard. A few days back, it was announced that the country would actually pay foreigners from the EU who live on the island and have lost their jobs to go home.
    More than 3 million Norwegian kroner (about $332,000) has been earmarked to assist with airfare and other travel expenses.
  • Nat Geo Proves There is Always a Bigger Fish: Researchers have discovered a unique—and terrifying—fossil that features a 13-foot (4 meters) long dolphin-like creature that is inside the stomach of another, even larger, “mega predator.”
    This discovery is proof that it definitely wasn’t safe to go into the water some 240 million years ago. Read more here.
  • Chinese Trail Race Draws 6000 Runners: While most of the world continues to struggle with the coronavirus, China has slowly been getting back to normal. In fact, a trail running event there recently drew thousands of racers with no worries about social distancing or COVID-19 insight. Perhaps we can get through this after all.

That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend.

Kraig Becker