The hand of fate brought a very inspiring person into my life last year in Patagonia...
LEO DICKINSON, underappreciated ADVENTURE DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER.
Leo, an 18 year old Brit captured in a 65 year olds body, has organized and documented incredible adventures in mountaineering, cave diving, ballooning, sky diving, naked sky diving, base jumping, and so forth.
He has always been about 30 years ahead of the curve of culture... killing it, so to speak... and documenting it in film decades before the YOUTUBE generation.
He climbed mountains all over the world. Big, tough fucking mountains.
He base jumped with PEREGRINE FALCONS in the name of SCIENCE (but mostly FUN).
He orchestrated and filmed the world record all female naked skydive.
He took a hot air balloon over the top of EVEREST. Why the hell not?!
He taught Richard Branson, the Virgin billionaire, how to skydive... found him a marginal student.
And, though noone knows it, LEO PIONEERED SNOWKITING...
BACKCOUNTRY SNOWKITING...
EXPEDITION SNOWKITING.
To my knowledge, ALL of KITING.
Here's how.
In the early 1970's Leo organized and led a trip to the South Patagonia Ice Cap. Taking a break between attempts to scale Cerro Torre, Leo set his sights on LAUTARO, a monsterous volcano jutting from a SEA of GLACIER.
Given the lengthy approach (50 miles of almost virgin forest, rock, and glacier), unpredictable weather, and weight of gear at the time, LEO decided being airdropped onto the Ice Cap made the most sense.
With the help of sponsors LEO organized, they shipped dozens of surplus parachutes to Patagonia and made an agreement with the Chilean military to be airdropped near the base of LAUTARO.
The military chickened out, so LEO and his two companions humped well over 1000 pounds of gear (including two enormous SLEDGES and a fabricated metal BOX TENT) up onto the icecap.
And one, seemingly useless, PARACHUTE. Leo insisted.
It took them three weeks.
They spent another 50 days on the ICE battling cold, wind, and snow. Known for its horrible and unpredictable weather, most of the time they huddled in their tent, waiting out whiteout conditions.
I've been there. When the sun comes out, it's heaven.
See! That's why I'm sailing back.
80-90% of the time it is a frozen HELL. You need ski goggles, all your clothes, and a line back to the tent just to drop the kids off at the pool...
...well, icerink. Windy fucking endless icerink.
They had no chance of rescue. No GPS for a zero viz sneak between crevasses and down mountainsides. If things went wrong... the tent gets ripped asunder by the wind... someone breaks a leg... they were all alone. Total isolation.
Who'd rescue them? The Chilean military?!
When the weather allowed they pulled their heavy sledges North and succeeded in their climb of Lautaro.
Getting home proved a much easier undertaking thanks to Leo's insistence they bring a parachute.
Harnessing the prevailing winds Leo rode atop the sledges like some Dirtbag Santa. His gift? A portal into of the future. A glimpse of the amazing potential for snow, wind, and kites.
See, Leo sat atop the sledge and directed his two buddies as they "steered" the kite. They each had on skis and managed lines to direct the whole conflagration left or right as needed.
They did five days worth of trudging in one carefree morning.
Leo's still at it. Check him out at Adventure Archive.
LEO means LION. RESPECT!
Max