I’m happy to announce that Mountain Designs have agreed to continue their on going sponsorship for up and coming expeditions.  Mountain Designs have supported me since my first expedition 4 years ago and I have worn and used their gear in both Antarctica and at the North Pole and found it incredibly reliable for the Polar regions.

I want to thank everyone at Mountain Designs for all their help and support.

A young climber named Rick White had a dream and in 1975 he launched a company named Mountain Designs.

His goal was to provide quality goods for adventurers like himself and started distributing out of a small house in Brisbane. Mountain Designs was created in response to Australians increasing interest in the international mountaineering and rock climbing scene. It is this “Heritage born of the Mountains” philosophy which has been a consistent image for over 30 years.

Our unique heritage is the soul of Mountain Designs and our label the spirit. A product bearing a Mountain Designs label will continue to represent quality and function suitable for the worlds adventure playground – the outdoors!

I arrived home from my brief yet exciting visit to New Zealand’s South Island last week after 10 days of jumping off bridges, flying helicopters, whitewater rafting and hiking amazing glaciers. It was easily one of the most beautiful places I have visited and I really can’t wait to get back over there next winter for some snowboarding.

I ducked up to the Hunter Valley to speak at an MBF conference on Friday morning which was my last presentation for the year and I am now fully focused on my up coming polar expedition in March 2008, there is always so much to do in preparing for an expedition and at times I often feel overwealmed but I really do enjoy watching these things come to life and it makes me realise just how lucky I am to do this for living.

I will officially announce my plans next week so you will have to wait a little longer for the finer details but I can say that I will be back up in the high Arctic!!

Training is now the priority and even over the Xmas period I plan to be working hard. I have a photo shoot on Coogee beach on Tuesday morning and I have been told they want to see me dragging my sled across the soft sand. I always get some strange looks when training like this but it’s as close as I can get to simulating dragging my sled across the ice so I can put up with the stares. I will post some photo’s next week