Ep. 747: Climbing in North Korea, Nepal & Siberia - Revisited - George Kourounis
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2021
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Originally aired May 10, 2018
One of our favorite recurring guests, George Kourounis, is back on the show today. George recently returned from Nepal where he visited Everest Base Camp in the Himalayas to film a TV show. They decided to try visiting the base camp with no acclimatization. So they took a helicopter up with no time to adjust. George immediately experienced the effects of hypoxia during this trip. George was also fortunate enough to meet Kancha Sherpa on this helicopter ride. Kancha Sherpa is the last surviving member of Sir Edmond Hillary's 1953 expedition to be the first people to reach the summit of Everest.
On our last show with George, he was preparing to head to North Korea for a rare opportunity to mountain trek, climb and camp. He was approved by the government and was able to travel there in May of 2017. He fills us in on what it was like to be a western-world guest in this secretive country during tumultuous political times. His experience is an interesting one that most of us never get to hear much less experience. Listen in to hear about what the mountains and surroundings are like over there.
George tells about his continued trips to volcanoes including 11,384 ft Mt Nyiragongo which is an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He explains that the lake nearby, Lake Kivu, which is susceptible to exploding due to the vast amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide at the bottom. The volcano holds the world's largest boiling lake of lava.
He traveled down the Road of Bones to visit a village in the middle of Siberia, Oymyakon, which is known as the coldest place on earth. He tells us a story about visiting a preserved woolly mammoth frozen in the permafrost and when no one was looking, George snapped off a little mammoth to have a taste. Listen in to hear what that experience was like for him.
Then we discussed the difficulty of ice climbing on icebergs to place satellite tracking devices on them for tracking the path of the icebergs as they float through the ocean.
It's never a dull hour when our friend George Kourounis joins us on the show.
www.youtube.com/user/gkourounis
www.twitter.com/georgekourounis
www.facebook.com/explorergeorgekourounis
Is the price of gear holding you back from going on your next adventure or have extra gear you don’t need? Rerouted.co is offering a sustainable option to purchase and sell high-quality used gear to save it from the landfill, and save your wallet. Check it out at www.rerouted.co
Support Adventure Sports Podcast monthly by going to Patreon.com/AdventureSportsPodcast or make a one-time donation to the show here.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Behind the metal door, they had the fully intact frozen head of a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth. |
| 0:06.8 | The tusks, the hair, the flesh, the whole head was intact and frozen, and has been there for thousands of years. |
| 0:14.1 | And it was amazing. |
| 0:15.2 | And when no one was looking, I broke a little piece off and I had to try it because I wanted to taste it. |
| 0:55.3 | Hey folks. Hope you're having a good week. This is the Adventure Sports podcast. I'm your host, Mason. I'm not going to waste too much time, but George Coronis is this episode. It's a revisited episode from a few years ago. Kurt Linville was the host back then, so that's who you're going to be hearing, conducting the interview. But George has been on the show before, and he's just a wild, he's like an |
| 1:01.5 | adventurer for hire, as Kurt says. And that's so true. He's got all this experience, |
| 1:06.0 | all these amazing experiences that he's had in a crazy just amount of skills and makes them make some pretty |
| 1:13.5 | unique for different very very unique projects all around the world so it's pretty fantastic |
| 1:19.2 | the people and the things he's been able to see and interact with and things he's been able to |
| 1:23.6 | do it's it's very inspiring and I'm hoping it's going to inspire you. But before we jump into the |
| 1:29.1 | episode, I wanted to tell you about our sponsor rerouted. You've heard me talk about rerouted before. |
| 1:35.1 | And I just want to say I'm a huge fan of what they're doing because it's a place to buy and sell |
| 1:40.4 | used adventure gear online. You know, if you've got something in your closet that you don't |
| 1:46.3 | feel like you need anymore, put it on there. Help some young adventure that maybe doesn't have |
| 1:50.7 | the funds to buy something brand new or doesn't want to buy something brand new. Help |
| 1:53.8 | them make their next adventure happen. Or if you're looking for something for yourself, |
| 1:58.5 | anything from jackets to pants to shoes, |
| 2:01.9 | all kinds of footwear, climbing, snow sports, water sports, cycling, kids sizes, camping, hiking, |
| 2:08.5 | all that stuff is on there, all used gear. |
| 2:11.6 | And it is, I'll just put it this way, way, way better deals than you're going to find for brand |
| 2:16.8 | new stuff in stores. I love used things just because it keeps it out of landfills. It feels cool to have something that's, you know, pretty unique. Chances are if you get something used, it's like getting, you know, a flannel or something from Goodwill. You're probably the only one that's going to have that. And you get to save a lot of money. So whatever side of the coin you're on, whether you're looking for gear or you're looking to sell gear, go to rerouted.co, r-e-r-o-r-o-r-o-u-t-t-ed-d-c-o. And if you got any questions at all there, Chap and the gang over there are just great people. |
| 2:52.2 | They'll be able to help you, no problem. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Curt Linville, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Curt Linville and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.