Darren Jordon: the mountaineering news anchor

Chester Francis-Jackson, Gleaner Writer

Darren Jordon first came to national attention in the early 1980s when he became one of three men to parachute on to the Blue Mountain peak. This feat, performed in 1984, was done only once and has never been repeated as it is considered very dangerous.

The former Jamaica Defence Force captain served from 1979-1986, and took part in Operation Urgent Fury - the invasion of Grenada in 1983.

Upon his retirement, Jordon moved to South Africa, where he worked as a broadcaster in the 1990s as a sports presenter with SuperSport - South Africa's premier sports channel. He went on to the BBC in 1998 as a sports presenter before switching to news, full-time, in 2000 as one of the station's main news presenters for eight years.

Currently based in Doha, Qatar, with al Jazeera as a senior news presenter, Jordon's on-air credits include prestigious interviews with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Iran's controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Other recent stints

In more recent times, however, he has covered the ongoing Arab Spring in the Middle East, the global financial crisis, and the recent raid on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan, while also hosting al Jazeera's in-depth analytical interview programme called 'Inside Story' - a magazine style programme that adds depth and context to news items of the day.

His mountain-climbing skills have come into full bloom in recent times, beginning with an Alpine mountaineering course in New Zealand in February of this year.

Having signed up with Alpine Guides for their Mountain Experience Course - which instructs one how to operate safely in an Alpine environment, improve snow and rope skills and live in freezing conditions comfortably - the very tough course was executed in the Sealy Mountain range under the shadow of Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain. It teaches everything from walking in crampons on the snow to ice and rock climbing, as rock climbing is considered a great way to gain experience to climb higher mountains in Europe and Nepal.

The training on the freezing Annette Plateau saw him learning how to move across glaciers. He spent many freezing nights under the stars in sleeping bags, while it poured with freezing rain and sleet. "That's when you know all the expensive gear - like your sleeping bag - actually works!" Jordon said.

Speaking from Doha, Qatar, he declared: "Probably the most important thing we learnt is self-arrest. If you trip and fall on a steep icy slope, you pick up speed very quickly and can tumble to your death. Self-arrest teaches you how to drive your ice axe into the snow to stop you from sliding - and it does save your life!

"We also operated on the Ball Glacier at the foot of Mount Cook, learning how to rope down ice faces, and move on crampons strapped to our boots," he said.

Armed with the knowledge and thirst for adventure, Jordon took off with the Jamaican flag, conquering one summit at a time. To date, he has scaled Africa's highest peak - Mount Kilimanjaro (September last year); and just over two weeks ago in Italy and France, he reached the highest mountain and also one of the French Alps' iconic peaks, Mont Blanc (Western Europe's highest mountain), where hurricane-force winds denied him and his team another triumph.

Despite this, Jordon and his multinational team of climbers notched up a remarkable week of climbing.

"To stand on the summit of Gran Paradiso was indescribably awesome," he said from Doha. "The actual summit area is tiny and if you make a mistake and fall off, there is a 1,000-foot plunge straight down the mountain to certain death. I was hanging on so tight to the praying Madonna statue at the top, that I couldn't even take out my Jamaican flag. I was just concentrating so hard on getting down safely," he said.

"Crossing the frozen Gran Paradiso glacier was very tough and then we had to labour our way up the summit ridge in sub-zero temperatures - all the time being blasted by icy winds - but getting to the top was worth every ounce of pain," he says.

Significant feat

Jordon believes he is the first Jamaican to reach the summit of Italy's highest mountain.

After leaving the Aguille du Midi cable car, the team had to descend an impossibly narrow wind-swept ridge down to the Vallee Blanche.

"This was the scariest thing I have ever done," said Jordon. The top of the ridge is no more than about a foot wide in some places and if you trip over and fall, you are in a world of trouble because you will tumble hundreds of feet down a sheer snow-and-rock wall."

Thankfully, the team made it down safely and headed across the Glacier du Geant to climb Pointe Lachenal. After scrambling up a near vertical wall of snow and ice, Jordon raised the Jamaican flag to cheers from the rest of his team.

"The climb was the end of a very tough week, but I never gave up. I was proud to take Jamaica with me to the top of these magnificent mountains!"