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Rick Ridgeway

@rickridgeway

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Earlier this week I posted a reel about an expedition in 1980 to a mountain in Eastern Tibet called Minya Konka, where I was caught in an avalanche with three friends including Yvon Chouinard and Jonathan Wright. We were all injured, but none as badly as Jonathan, and I tried to keep him alive, but he died in my arms. We buried him on the mountain and went home. Jonathan had a baby daughter named Asia, after his favorite place in the world, and Yvon and I kept in touch as she grew up. When she was 20 she asked me to take her to Minya Konka to find her father’s grave. This is the third reel about my pilgrimage with Asia Wright, and it is also the last reel of the series I’ve posted every week or for the last year. Hope you’ve enjoyed them. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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a month ago

I posted this reel eight months ago, and I’m reposting because later this week, I’ll be sharing a follow-up reel. This one describes an expedition in 1980 to attempt a 25,000-foot peak in eastern Tibet called Minya Konka. Things were going OK until one day with my climbing partners Kim Schmitz, Yvon Chouinard and Jonathan Wright, we were caught in an avalanche and swept down the mountain 1500 vertical feet. We were all injured but none as badly as Jonathan, and I had him in my arms when he died. We buried him on the mountainside and went home. He left behind a 13-month-old daughter, and twenty years later, I took her back to that remote mountain, to find the grave of the father she never knew. That’ll be the subject of my next reel, which will also be the last post in my series of past adventures— it’s been about one reel a week for about a full year. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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a month ago

This is the 9th reel from an expedition I made to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1979. We were one of the first privately funded expeditions to the frozen continent, but “privately funded” is maybe not the best descriptor: we were maybe the first dirtbag expedition to Antarctica. We talked our way into a free passage on a tour ship in trade for putting the ship in the movie we intended to make. In Antarctica we got off the ship with two Avon rafts and outboards we brought and spent two months exploring the coastline, skiing inland and climbing a couple of peaks. At the end, we boated to an Argentine base, they radioed their supply ship, and the ship agreed to take us to Buenos Aires. We had two days before the ship arrived, so what better way to kill time than to climb an iceberg. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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2 months ago

This is the 7th reel from an on-foot, self-supported 275-mile crossing of the most remote and uninhabited corner of Tibet that I made in 2002. Our goal was to follow the migration of the endangered chiru antelope, to discover their calving grounds, to protect it before poachers discovered it. I was with my adventure buddies @conrad_anker and @jimmychin and the late Galen Rowell. Jimmy was only 29 at the time—the youngest guy on the trip—and Galen was his role model and hero. But Galen was already our photographer, so I put Jimmy in charge of shooting our video camera. Jimmy said, “I never shot video!” and I quoted my own mentor Doug Tompkins: “Commit and then figure it out.” Jimmy came through, and this scene of how he captured Conrad’s unscripted reaction to a thunderstorm captures Jimmy’s instinct for visual storytelling. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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2 months ago

I’m 77 years old today, and I decided to spend some of the day with the turtles and tortoises where I live on the compound of the #turtleconservancy in Ojai CA. What better way to celebrate a lucky number. Lived Lived Wild #PatagoniaBooks. taken in Ojai, California by @rickridgeway

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2 months ago

49 years ago, with three companions we made the first American ascent of K2. It was also the first ascent without oxygen, and only third time the mountain had been climbed. There was a reporter from the Seattle Times waiting for us in base camp, and one of my team mates recording the interview with me with our 8mm camera. At that point we had been above 18000 feet for 68 days. I’ve got this and other stories in my memoir Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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2 months ago

This is the 8th reel from an expedition I made to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1979. We were one of the first privately funded expeditions to the frozen continent, but “privately funded” is maybe not the best descriptor: we were maybe the first dirtbag expedition to Antarctica. We talked our way into a free passage on a tour ship in trade for putting the ship in the movie we intended to make. In Antarctica we got off the ship with two Avon rafts and outboards we brought and spent two months exploring the coastline, skiing inland and climbing a couple of peaks. At the end, we boated to an Argentine base, they radioed their supply ship, and the ship agreed to take us to Buenos Aires. We had two days before the ship arrived, so what better way to kill time than also be the first expedition to water ski in Antarctica. I’ve got other stories in my memoir Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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3 months ago

I live on the grounds of @turtleconservancy in Ojai CA, and I’m on the board. We have a large live animal facility with about 45 different species, many extinct in the wild, and we’re expert at caring for and breeding endangered freshwater turtles and tortoises. We’re also a partner with US Fish & Wildlife to receive interceptions from illegal wildlife traffickers, and this week we received over 300 Three-toed box turtles on their way to China. They were tightly wrapped in plastic and stuffed in socks and packed in a box that was intercepted at LAX. It breaks your heart, but the good news is we’ve been working all day to get blood samples of each turtle, for genetic testing that will allow us to identify their native watersheds in the south-central part of the US. We also have a protocol with US Fish & Wildlife to return them home, but that involves a lengthy quarantine. Still, these turtles live as long as humans, so fingers crossed they get to spend many of those years back home. by @rickridgeway

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3 months ago

Here’s Clip 5 from my trip in 1983 crossing Borneo at the widest point of the third largest island in the world. I was with Yosemite climbing legends John Long and Jim Bridwell, and the river running pioneer Jim Slade, and we were in the jungle for two months. But about 6 weeks in I woke up feeling sick from what turned out to be a virulent strain of typhoid fever. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks. by @rickridgeway

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3 months ago

This is the seventh reel from a dirtbag expedition I made to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1979 with three climbing buddies, Mike Hoover, Mike Graber and the late Beverly Johnson. We paid for the trip making a half-hour TV movie, but the advance from the network was so miserly we couldn’t bring a film crew, so we filmed ourselves, including a storm scene when we were trapped in our tent for almost a week. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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3 months ago

Last week I joined four pals and climbed Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne Meadows. So great to be back on the stone with close friends @jib.ellison , @loralohara and @timmyoneill and Earl Alderson, with Timmy and Earl rope-gunning for the old dog. It was Loral’s first multi-pitch climb. I met Loral when she reached out after reading my book Life Lived Wild and wanted to connect. Not that easy as she’s an astronaut and was reading the book from the International Space Station. NASA made it happen, and we had a great hour-long Zoom while she literally floated around showing me the ISS. Photos by Timmy, Loral and Earl. by @rickridgeway

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3 months ago

This is the 6th reel from a trip I made in 2002, crossing a remote and uninhabited corner of Tibet. Our goal was to follow the migration of the endangered chiru antelope, to discover their calving grounds, to protect the animal before poachers discovered it. I was with my adventure buddies @conrad_anker and @jimmychin and the late Galen Rowell. We were on foot and self-supported, meaning each of us had to carry 250 pounds of supplies. That was impossible in backpacks, so we made aluminum rickshaws with mountain bike wheels and disk brakes. But then we got into this canyon that became so narrow we had to lift the carts over the larger rocks, then finally portage everything. And if the carts broke…. well, better not to dwell on that, and just keep moving forward. Life Lived Wild. @patagoniabooks by @rickridgeway

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4 months ago