Which is a shame, cos that story is a brilliant example of how to make genuinely impressive feats like that accessible to a mainstream audience www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/u...

I’m off to cover the Piolet d’Or awards next week, and all three of the teams receiving awards (Japanese, US and Swiss) would definitely qualify. But aside from John Branch’s piece about the Americans on Jannu in the NYT I didn’t see any major news outlet coverage of any of them. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, you're right! And it's great that visiting the poles (or indeed, climbing the Himalayas) is more accessible to more people (obvious caveats about the dangers of mass tourism aside). But the way it's covered risks cheapening the achievements of those who are genuinely breaking new ground.

A little like climbing the 8,000ers then?! As long as you can claim a record of some sort, it still sounds impressive, regardless of what was *actually* involved...

Increasingly it feels that way! 🤣

That makes sense, yep. Remembering now, I spoke to several fascinating MR volunteers (not all of who made the final story, because of space concerns) who said that this would work best as a complement to other “weapons” at their disposal (like dogs)

Ah fascinating! Who found you first, drone or 🐕 ? (Or was it not really a race…)

Hahaha very good!

Yeh, around the time we visited they opened up the marathon to foreign runners. Things have definitely gone backwards since then. But whatever horrors I read about the regime, I always try and remember the country is home to 24 million ordinary people, most of whom just want to lead an ordinary life

Thanks Garry! Really appreciate it 🙏🏼