Previous Outdoor Action Special Activities
“The Politics of Sustainable Eating”
Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA
Tuesday, March 24th @ 4:30pm, McCosh 50
The country-wide National Teach-In on Climate Change, which will be at Princeton on February 11th, features professors from multiple disciplines--including economics, media, and development--as part of the nation-wide effort to push Obama to make the most of his first 100 days as president.
OA Celebrates Earth month
Vertical Ethiopia: Majka Burhardt '99
Possibility, Environment, and Adventure in the Horn of Africa
Thursday, April 24, 8 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
Robertson Hall Bowl 2
What if the very country that claims the Cradle of Humanity is also the new Mecca for adventure?
Majka Burhardt '99 takes you on a journey to Northern Ethiopia where she climbed desert sandstone towers in an effort to get to know another side of this complex country with an international reputation largely limited to drought, famine, and communism.
Her stories and experiences are chronicled in her new book: Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Towards Possibility in the Horn of Africa.
Her presentation examines the interaction between the Ethiopia of the past and the potential of today, with a specific focus on the intersections between history and opportunity, adventure and culture, and environment and growth.
Cosponsored by Outdoor Action, Princeton in Africa, and the Women's Center.
NOLS’ “Creating a Climate for Change” bus tour comes to campus for Earth Week
Monday, April 14, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.
Dillon Gym parking lot
The "Creating a Climate for Change” tour is a vegetable oil and solar powered educational road show featuring high quality teaching from the nonprofit National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Sponsored by corporate partner Stonyfield Farm andtraveling from city to city nationwide, the bus and its staff of young NOLS graduates offer lessons on leadership, backcountry skills and environmental ethics.
In three years the bus has traveled more than 110,000 miles across the lower 48 states, and visited over 300 colleges, school, retailers and festivals, all powered by recycled vegetable oil collected by the crew at restaurants and dining halls along the way. Recycled vegetable oil is a cleaner, renewable alternative to petroleum and it is grown right here in the USA by American farmers. _xl.jpg)
The bus also sports a rooftop solar array that keeps the bus off the grid while powering televisions, computers, stereo and refrigerators for yogurt treats that are available at every stop.
"Creating a Climate for Change” visitors learn about alternative energy, practice their climbing skills on its bouldering wall, learn about NOLS courses, perfect their fly fishing cast, and gain understanding about Leave No Trace outdoor ethics. To learn more about the NOLS bus, please visit www.nols.edu/bus.
Special Event: Lecture by Amory Lovins
Monday, April 7, McCosh 50, 6:00 p.m.
PAUL DuCHAILLU AND THE “DISCOVERY” OF THE GORILLA or THE SCIENCE BEHIND “KING KONG”
Thursday, October 19 2007 at 5:00 p.m.
East Pyne 010
An Illustrated Lecture by Robert McCracken Peck,
Senior Fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
In 1859, the very year Charles Darwin first published On The Origin of Species, a young French-American explorer named Paul Du Chaillu emerged from the jungles of Gabon, West Africa with breath-taking accounts of large and ferocious primates. While the Gorilla had been described scientifically in 1847, Du Chaillu provided the Western World with the first descriptions of living Gorillas in the wild.
Du Chaillu’s sensational “discovery” catapulted him into instant celebrity and gave him a platform from which to regale large audiences with his first-hand accounts of African adventure. When he published a gripping memoir of his expedition in 1861,the public reacted to his Gorilla stories with the same excitement, curiosity and skepticism they might show today if someone reported encountering (and collecting specimens of) “Bigfoot” or the “Loch Ness Monster.” The scientific debates that ensued were popularly dubbed the “Gorilla Wars” by both the American and the British press.
In a fully illustrated lecture, naturalist and historian Robert McCracken Peck will tell the fascinating story of Du Chaillu’s “discovery” of the Gorilla and trace its enormous social impact from the nineteenth century to the present day. In addition to discussing the flamboyant an enigmatic Du Chaillu and the evolutionary firestorm his “discovery” ignited, Peck will examine the explorer’s influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan), the propaganda campaigns of the First World War, and the making of “King Kong” (in 1933 and after).
For further information contact Mr. Peck at
Telephone: 215 299-1138
Address: The Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Ivan Greene Bouldering Clinic
Date: Tuesday, April 5 2005, 8:00 p.m.
Location: McDonnell Hall, Room A01.
Ivan Greene is one of the world’s premier rock climbers. Greene has established more than 500 first ascents, pioneering new areas in North America, Europe, and Asia. He helped to ignite the bouldering movement, about which he’s written two definitive books, and he runs the United States’ most popular indoor climbing raining center. He’s willing, he says, to climb “absolutely anything.” Ivan will talk about bouldering, provide a video presentation of some of the hardest and most dangerous boulders in the northeast, and discuss the sport and what it means to him. The video presentation includes unreleased footage shot by Big Up Productions noted director and cinematographer Josh Lowell. Following the video, Ivan will give a workshop on bouldering and the essence of tapping into climbing’s maximum power at the OA Climbing Wall in the Armory. Sponsored by Outdoor Action and Red Bull. Sign up at the OA TripStore. Free.
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Friday, April 21, 2006 |
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an international competition featuring the world's best films and videos on mountain subjects. It is held annually on the first weekend in November in Banff, Alberta. The festival began in 1976. 2005 is the festival's 30th anniversary. The film festival takes place each fall in November.
In 2004, over 300 films from 38 countries were entered in the film festival competition. The films range from productions created by high school students to professional crews working with companies like the BBC and National Geographic. A pre-screening committee selects approximately 40 finalists to be show during festival. An international film festival jury chooses the best films and awards prizes in eight categories: Grand Prize, Climbing, Mountain Sports, Mountain Environment, Mountain Culture, Short Mountain Film and Feature-Length Mountain Fiction. Audience members decide the winner of the People's Choice Award.
Every year, the best films from the festival go on tour immediately following the festival. The host organization in each tour location chooses a program from the films on tour that reflects the interests of their community. Each community creates a unique celebration of local adventure and adventurers.
Fifty-five per cent of the festival screenings on the North American tour benefit an outdoor program, community cause, or a not-for-profit organization. Some of the causes that are supported by the tour are bursaries for outdoor pursuits, adventure programs for disadvantaged children, search and rescue operations, youth ski programs, park and trail maintenance and operation, etc. The Festival showing at Princeton University is sponsored by the Outdoor Action Program and Blue Ridge Mountain Sports at the Princeton Shopping Center. Open to the public. For detailed information about the Films see our Banff Film Festival page.
Scaling the Seven Summits
Saturday, April 23 2005, 8:00 - 10 p.m.
Location: McCosh 10.
In May 2004, Britton Keeshan, a double major in molecular biology and religion at Middlebury, VT, reached the top of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak. He thus became the youngest person at age 22 to attain the Seven Summits—the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. Only 90 people have accomplished this feat since 1985, when American Dick Bass first conceived and completed the Seven Summits challenge. Outdoor Action welcomes Britton Keeshan to the Princeton campus for a slide show and discussion of his climbing adventures to the seven continents. This promises to be a unique look at one of the great mountaineering adventures of our time. Free & open to the public.
Cities in the Wilderness - Bruce Babbitt Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior
The 2005 Taplin Environmental Lecture
Tuesday, November 15, 8:00 PM 104 Computer Science Building
The restoration of the Florida Everglades. The return of the wolf to Yellowstone and the condor to the wild. The Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument. Dismantling obsolete dams. Each was a landmark of environmental progress in the 1990s, and each was realized under the guidance of then Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt. Now he draws on these experiences to develop a surprising message: Such episodic conservation victories, however important, will not be sufficient either to protect our disappearing open spaces or to contain the blight of urban sprawl.
In Cities in the Wilderness, Babbitt makes the case for a new national land use policy. Throughout our history, from George Washington’s day to the present, federal policies have encouraged and subsidized destructive resource exploitation and out-of-control development that threaten the American landscape. From Babbitt’s incisive analysis come a vision and a program for how it should be done: a federal leadership role in land use planning, a new way of thinking about open space that retains local control while acknowledging national interests. Babbitt’s writing celebrates key accomplishments in the environmental field while planning for greater ones—and he is an inspirational guide along that path.
Erik Weihenmayer, the first Blind Climber to Summit Mt. Everest and the 'Seven Summits' to Speak at Princeton Campus on November 16
Erik Weihenmayer, who overcame the loss of his sight early in life to become one of the foremost mountain climbers in the world, will speak on the Princeton University campus Wednesday, Nov. 16, as part of the Princeton Varsity Club Jake McCandless Speaker Series.
Weihenmayer's talk, beginning at 8 p.m., will be in Richardson Auditorium.
Weihenmayer became the first blind person to climb the world's highest mountain when he reached the summit of Mt. Everest on May 25, 2001. He has also reached the peaks of the "Seven Summits," making him one of approximately 100 people who have ever climbed the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.
Born with retinoschesis, which gradually causes the retina to deteriorate, Weihenmayer had partial sight through his childhood before losing his vision completely at age 13. Now 37, Weihenmayer has spent the time since losing his sight compiling an extraordinary record of achievement.
He has been a successful wrestler, a wrestling coach and a teacher. He works for the American Foundation for the Blind on its national literacy campaign. He has hiked the Inca Trail, a 60-mile path through the Andes in Peru.
In addition, he has published a book about his life's experiences entitled "Touch the Top of the World" and has produced a documentary entitled "Farther Than the Eye Can See" about his trip to the Everest summit. Since his Everest summit, Weihenmayer has also taught climbing skills to blind Tibetan teenagers and led a group of six of them to a 21,000-foot peak on a glacier on the north side of Everest.
He has been featured on numerous television news and talk shows and serves as a motivational speaker. The list of his awards and honors is nearly endless, including an appearance on the June 18, 2001, cover of Time magazine.
He is also a marathon runner, skydiver, long-distance cyclist, rock-climber, ice climber and skier.
He and his father Ed, a 1962 Princeton graduate and a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, biked from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with 75 others, most of whom were veterans of the war.
Weihenmayer has also competed in and completed the Primal Quest, a grueling challenge in which teams of four compete on a 360-mile course through forests and rivers and over mountains to reach a series of checkpoints in order. The teams compete night and day, often averaging as little as two hours of sleep per night, to run, hike, swim, paddle and climb their way through the course. Teammates must stay with 100 yards of each other during the entire event, in which Weihenmayer's team was one of 44 of the 80 entrants to finish. You can read more about Erik at his Web site: www.touchthetop.com
The series was endowed in the name of Jake McCandless, who coached Princeton to the 1969 Ivy League football championship. Ed Weihenmayer, the captain of the 1961 Princeton football team, played freshman football for McCandless in 1958.
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Friday, April 21, 2006 |
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an international competition featuring the world's best films and videos on mountain subjects. It is held annually on the first weekend in November in Banff, Alberta. The festival began in 1976. 2005 is the festival's 30th anniversary. The film festival takes place each fall in November.
In 2004, over 300 films from 38 countries were entered in the film festival competition. The films range from productions created by high school students to professional crews working with companies like the BBC and National Geographic. A pre-screening committee selects approximately 40 finalists to be show during festival. An international film festival jury chooses the best films and awards prizes in eight categories: Grand Prize, Climbing, Mountain Sports, Mountain Environment, Mountain Culture, Short Mountain Film and Feature-Length Mountain Fiction. Audience members decide the winner of the People's Choice Award.
Every year, the best films from the festival go on tour immediately following the festival. The host organization in each tour location chooses a program from the films on tour that reflects the interests of their community. Each community creates a unique celebration of local adventure and adventurers.
Fifty-five per cent of the festival screenings on the North American tour benefit an outdoor program, community cause, or a not-for-profit organization. Some of the causes that are supported by the tour are bursaries for outdoor pursuits, adventure programs for disadvantaged children, search and rescue operations, youth ski programs, park and trail maintenance and operation, etc. The Festival showing at Princeton University is sponsored by the Outdoor Action Program and Blue Ridge Mountain Sports at the Princeton Shopping Center. Open to the public. For detailed information about the Films see our Banff Film Festival page.