Adventure Author to Sign New Book

Ojai resident Rick Ridgeway has sailed to Tahiti, climbed the Himalayas without the use of bottled oxygen, joined the Bicentennial Everest Expedition, survived typhoid in Borneo, almost died in an avalanche and walked across East Africa, dodging herds of angry elephants and cranky hippos.

He’s also written a number of books on his adventures, produced documentaries, and launched his own line of sleeping bags, tents and packs.

Next month, the 49-year-old Ridgeway will sign his new book about the East African adventure, “The Shadow of Kilimanjaro: On Foot Across East Africa.”

Mostly known as a mountaineer, Ridgeway had always been interested in the remote outbacks of the world and has skied in Antarctica and rafted in Siberia.

So it was only natural, he said, to accept an offer from friend Ian Allen in East Africa to walk from the top of Kilimanjaro to the Indian Ocean. No one had done it before.

The pair joined two wardens from the National Park in Kenya, and a friend from California was along to film the one-month, 312-mile trek.

Most of the journey was across Tsavo National Park--the largest national park in East Africa--18 miles a day in 115-degree heat. Ridgeway learned what it was like to spend lengths of time with animals that placed him several rungs down on the food chain.

“We were always on red alert,” Ridgeway said. “When you backpack through the Sespe or the High Sierra, you can go through in a daydream, thinking about bills or life’s problems, and you can go home having never purged yourself of those problems. But if the grizzly bear was still in the mountains, you wouldn’t be sleep-walking but tuned into every sight and smell around you.”

He was charged three times by elephants. He had a close encounter with a rhinoceros. But the animal that gave him the most trouble?

“Hippos. They’re dangerous and temperamental,” Ridgeway said.

The book signing will be at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Ojai Art Center at 113 S. Montgomery St.

Admission is free with a book purchase; $5 otherwise. More information is available at 646-3165.