It runs in the family, as they say.

John Batdorff II is the son of two avid photographers, and it was only natural that he was "infected by" the same passion. Based in Chicago and in Ennis (Montana), John developed his craft early on by photographing for his family's newspaper, and enhanced it by specializing in landscape and travel photography.

His work has been exhibited in museums and featured in various publications.

While John's galleries include one of India, I'm bucking my own trend this time and featuring his work of Peru.

It's Wednesday! Which means we're half-way through the week, Lost is on tonight, and of course we get a new episode of The Rest of Everest which has returned to regular shows again following the brief hiatus while Jon went back to Tibet.

This episode is entitled Episode 43: 20,000 Leagues Above The Sea. Jon spends much of the episode in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines camp and we get to see what life is like for other teams on Everest. As a military expedition, the team is well funded and equipped, not to mention well fed if the dinner scenes are to be believed. :)

However, their "military spec" computers failed at high altitude so Jon, and his trusty Mac Powerbook had to come to there rescue. Yeah, Apple stuff is just that good! I'm enjoying the return of the regular episodes and it's fun to continue to see what life is like in BC. Of course, we all want to get on to the maincourse, which is the climb, but we see those aspects of Everest all the time. I like seeing the teams interact in the down time, and watching what life is like on a day to day basis as well.

Never fear though, the climb is coming. Jon remarks in the video that we'll start to see more climbing in the coming weeks but for now, it's all about life at Base Camp. After all, this is an "Unabridged Expedition Experience".

We've got a new Himalaya Wrap-up today over at MountEverest.net. With teams in BC on Everest, and high winds forcast for the next several days, it's time to check in on how the teams are doing on other mountains.

Iñaki Ochoa has left Dhaulagiri, after topping out on the mountain, and is now headed to Annapurna. But before he left Dhaula, he wanted to be sure that we were aware of some other summits and pointed out that Gian Paolo Casarotto and Cristina Castagna both reached the top climbing independently, while Joelle Brupbacher, Richard Brill of Germany, and Russian Dmitry Sinev summitted with Kazakhs Samoilov, Sharipova and Shutov. Ochoa is also proposing that Miss Hawley add Sergio Dalla Longa,as well as his wife Rosa, to the list of summitteers on the mountain in tribute to the climber. Sergio slipped and fell to his death less than 150 meters from the summit while Rosa looked on.

Meanwhile, Andrew Lock is already on Annapurna after knocking off Shisha Pangma. He says his plan now is to climb up to Camp 3 in the next few days and help open the route to Camp 4 with a summit bid coming on the weekend, if everything goes as planned.

Annapurna, the most deadly of all the 8000m peaks, has claimed it's first life of the season, as Dr. Uddhav Prasad Khanal, the Liaison Officer for the Spanish team climbing there, has gone missing. After spending some time in BC with the team, he decided to return to Kathmandu alone, despite being warned about the dangers of traveling the rugged area by himself. He never made it to town and is now considered another victim of the mountain.

Finally, over on Manaslu, the teams have set up C2 and are proceeding to C3, despite bad weather. The plan is to establish C3, and if the weather clears, perhaps make a summit bid in the next few days.

I haven't had one of these in a while. Next time I need to choose a better sausage though; I should have gotten the thick pork one rather than this cheese filled one.

Perhaps more interesting was the new Orchard Gateway mall was next to 313@Orchard. It was so small that we walked maybe only 30 yards before we suddenly ended up at Orchard Central. At least it's finally connected now.

I'm still not sure if this is the same chain as the one in Taipei or if it's just a knockoff, but somehow the thought of some salty Taiwanese soybean milk and a youtiao sounded good tonight. So we came down to Geylang, learning the hard way that these guys have since moved up the street near Lorong 27A (517 Geylang Road, 6745-5682). It did the job, but I wish that they had some red chili oil at each table.

I'm a big fan of adventure racing. Especially the longer, expedition length races. I first watched the sport years ago on Discovery Channel when they first started showing Eco-Challenge. Later I would follow The Raid, Primal Quest, and others online, and watch them on TV when ever possible. I've even particpated in a few shorter, sprint races. One of the websites that was most useful in helping to track these races online was, and remains, Checkpoint Zero.

Yak, the site administrator, is clearly a huge fan of the sport. His site has been on the cutting edge in introducing new technology for following adventure racing and helping us to get to know the racers better for a number of years now. And now, after a lot of planning and preparation, he's about to see a dream come true, as tomorrow marks the first ever CheckPoint Zero Adventure Race gets underway.

63 teams will take part in the inaugural race, with a wide range of experience between them. You can follow the race online at CheckPointTracker.com and it should be a fun, exciting race. I wish all the competitors luck and hope everyone races hard and safe. But most of all, I'd like to congratulate Yak for going out and pursuing his dream, and now finally seeing it come to fruition. I hope the race is a smashing success for you and that there will be many more to come!

Last week, National Geographic announced their 2014 Adventurers of the Year, revealing a cast of 13 amazing men and women who have pushed the boundaries of exploration in the past 12 months. A few days ago, they also released this awesome and inspiring video with Fitz Cahall, an adventurer who turned his passion for storytelling and the outdoors into a job as a filmmaker. Fitz's story is a good one and his drive to succeed can be applied to many facets of our lives. His message it to pursue the things you love and don't be afraid to take some risks along the way. The rewards will be worth it.

This video is further proof that anything someone can do on a two wheels, someone else will try it on just one. Extreme unicyclists Lutz Eichholz and Stephanie Dietze head into the Alps to take on the 3400 meter (11,154 ft) Mettlehorn on their single-wheeled bikes. They're both braver than I am, that much is certain.

Tip of the hat to Outside Online for sharing this.

Clearly I fly with these guys too much if I realize that they changed their headphones to the single-pronged ones that they usually give out in economy class rather than the usual noise-canceling ones. Frankly this is a bit better though, since those dual-pronged ones usually had some issues staying properly secured in the jack.

And how nice it was to have in-flight Wi-Fi on the long haul across the Pacific today. It was slow and spotty (and sites like Instagram and Flickr were blocked), but nonetheless, it allowed me to get most of my work done. Interesting to see the new promotional video of them wanting to improve their technology experiences too.

Epilogue: when I flew back on Friday out of Narita, they were using the usual two pronged headsets again. Maybe they just ran out on the outbound leg or something.