Less than 20 women in the world have climbed Earth’s seven highest peaks. Lei Wang is an American citizen now living in Boston but born in China who is currently training for a 2010 expedition to Mt. Everest. If she successfully summits Everest, she’ll become the first Asian-American woman who has until now climbed six of the seven summits (Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid, Vinson and Everest) and skied to both North Pole and South Pole. Once Lei has climbed Everest, she’ll be one of only 10 people to have completed what’s referred to as the “7 + 2” (Seven Summits and the Two Poles). She hopes that her example will especially inspire Chinese People, American immigrants and women around the world to challenge themselves to do something they once considered impossible.Tvi - Tvi - Good - Luck - Lei.

PS: Support Lei, Inspire Others

Some weeks ago I saw that Kraig on The Adventure Blog posted a link to a really great website with many maps of history’s greatest journeys. Great to have in case Gorida one day decide to do something similar to what Ibn Battuta or James Cook did. Different stories of explorers and travelers have always been the big inspiration in my life, so I was really happy to see specially the map of the greatest explorer ever, namely Marco Polo.  I was even happier when Goran told me about Denis Belliveau and Francis O’Donnell and their wild idea, namely to retrace Marco Polo’s entire 25.000 miles land-and-sea route from Venice to China and back. You can watch the result on their website.

PS: Mike Yamashitas presentation of the similar issue is well worth watching.   

We went to Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival - VIMFF two days ago to see two documentaries and to hear journalist and historian Ed Jocelyn speak about his five years on foot and 8000 miles while retracing the Red Army’s footsteps through rural China. He was a fantastic speaker:

Ed Jocelyn holds a Ph.D in history from the University of Bradford in the UK. In 2002 Jocelyn launched the New Long March project with Andrew McEwen. Together, they set out to retrace the Long March of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, on foot. In the following five years, Jocelyn trekked 8000 miles through remote parts of China. The story is told in The Long March. He runs the Red Rock Trek and Expedition Company with fellow adventurer Yang Xiao.

The second documentary we saw this night portraied two Komi families from Siberia who raise reindeer. This film documented  their long four month journey  with family’s 5000 reindeer. To feed themselves and their reindeer, every autumn they cross the Urals into Asia, and return by the same route in the spring. Just amazing and really tough people.