A few photographs from the 2016 WildMedix Kilimanjaro Mountain Medicine Expedition, courtesy of our expedition photographer, Chanel Rossouw (@chanel_r). More to follow!
Emergency dentistry at 4715m (Photo with permission)
Ross demonstrating the PAC at 4700m on Kilimanjaro
WildMedix Kilimanjaro Mountain Expedition 2016 on the summit
Mawenzi at sunset from Kibo Camp (4700m)
On the 4500m saddle between Mawenzi (in background) and Kibo, Kilimanjaro
Returning from the summit of Kilimanjaro, with the Rebmann Glacier visible below
Ultrasound training at Snow Cap Lodge, Kilimanjaro
I’ve been tweaking the aesthetics of the blog to improve the user interface and make things, well, prettier. Have a look and tell me what you think! It is now integrated to include more images, including my Instagram feed. I am finding Instagram a very handy way of expressing photographic creativity:
A small group of hikers is dwarfed by the magnitude of the ice as they descend towards the edge of the Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentine Patagonia.
A quiet moment on call has me trying to make inroads into the photographs from our Patagonian explorations last October. Here’s an image that was immediately emotive: A group of hikers on a guided exploration of a small part of the Perito Moreno Glacier as dwarfed by the immense magnitude of the ice. I love the mystery and majesty of glaciers; the idea of such harsh hardness being in constant flux, constantly flowing between accumulation and ablation while appearing immobile. You can explore a glacier for an entire day, convinced of its permanence, and then return the next to find the landscape changed, fresh and beaconing with new discoveries. The mute whiteness from afar disguises endless shades of blue, and the stark purity of the ice unfolds to reveal the pebbles and dirt it has collected along it’s course, like a child of the wilderness who can’t return from an adventure unsoiled.
…at Red Cross Children’s this beautiful evening. Forgive me these gratuitous shots, but Cape Town truly delivered the most beautiful autumn evenings. Having floor-to-ceiling windows in the theatre certainly helps. Now, back to work…
Sun City may be great, but nothing beats the Mother City on a beautiful day. This is the synonymous mountain across a peaceful Table Bay, taken from 1000ft while out getting some fresh air.
Yip, the blog has been somewhat silent the last few months. Life, in contrast and by way of explanation, has been very full. I hope to post some more content soon, but rest assured that I am working on it in the meantime. Here’s a random snippet: Fran in Torres del Paine, Patagonia, looking epic (and relieved) in her First Ascent gear, descending from the (closed for winter) Garner Pass.
Sometimes a spectacular scene just smacks straight into your cerebral cortex. Stepping out of a cabin in a nature reserve, the first direct rays of the morning sun backlit… well, everything.
Stumbled across this while doing other things and couldn’t help wanting to share. Watch in HD if you can. Folks from Cape Town and surrounds will particularly enjoy the new visions of familiar scenery…
The Cat’s Claw, Hyobanche sanguinea, photographed in the Witteberg Private Nature Reserve
Although I was mostly taking laid-back ‘holiday photos’ during our trip to the Witteberg Private Nature Reserve this past long weekend, the chance to photograph these two specimens of the fascinating “Cat’s Claw”/”Katnaels” plant Hyobanche sanguinea was too good to ignore. The small bright red plants are easy to spot along the routes through the Karoo scrub, and their soft ‘furry’ texture really does remind one of a cat’s soft feet. The lack of anything resembling a normal leaf puzzled me, and I was therefore interested to learn that H. sanguinea is in fact a holoparasitic plant, extending an underground stem which extends dendrites that tap into the vasculature of host plant roots, allowing the parasite to extract water, minerals and substrate. A single Cat’s Claw can grow to 15cm (most we saw were less than 5cm) and can tap into many different host plants. More info on the plant and related species here. Like so much in nature, beauty hides the savage truth…
