Meet Sir Nils Olav. He was recently promoted to Brigadier by Norwegian King’s Guard.
On Monday morning, 22 August, His Majesty the King of Norway’s Guard paid a very special visit to RZSS Edinburgh Zoo to bestow a unique honour upon our resident king penguin Sir Nils Olav. Already a knight, the most famous king penguin in the world was given the new title of “Brigadier Sir Nils Olav”.
Jumping the Goat’s Horns Pillars in Svolværgeita Norway.
Enjoy!
Up until a century ago, the Svolværgeita or Goat’s Horns rock tower had never been conquered, but these days not only has it become one of the most popular climbing pinnacles in Norway, but thrill-seeking mountaineers defy death by jumping between its granite horns.
Goat’s Horns peak was first climbed in 1910 by Carl Rubenson, Alf B. Bryn, and Ferdinand Schjelderup, a fantastic trio who managed to conquer two other virgin summits (Trakta and Stetind) on the very same trip. Climbers can go up Svolværgeita on the original route of its first climbers, just to see how good these three pioneers were in their time. There are several routes up the Goat’s Horns, but once at the top, many members of the mountaineering community follow the decades-old traditions of jumping from Storhorn (big horn) to the Lillehorn (little horn), over a 1.5 meter gap. It’s considered the perfect mountain climbing stunt, because it’s possible to pull off, but hard enough to get your heart pumping. Jumping 1.5 meters across may not seem like a very difficult task, but one wrong move and you’ll have to rely on the safety harnesses to save you from a 150-meter fall to the foot of Goat’s Horns pillar.
Enjoy!
Reindeer racing, in which competitors on skis are pulled by reindeer galloping down the snow-covered trail, is a popular sport in Norway, Finland, and Russia. The indigenous Sami people are reindeer herders, and know which are the fastest for the sport. Reindeer that run the fastest are highly prized for breeding purposes, and sometimes reindeer are the actual prize for winning a race!
Variations on the sport include reindeer pulling sleds, and reindeer teams of two or more. In Anchorage, Alaska, people actually race against reindeer, which ends up looking like the running of the bulls in Pamplona.