Friday, October 17, 2003
Expedition Update 2--Shekhdar Reloaded: Southern Ocean rower Jim Shekhdar set out from New Zealand in the wee hours of October 16th. Almost 20 hours, and 45 miles, later he called for a tow back to port. The reason: an unspecified equipment breakdown (back massager? popcorn maker?), and--reading between the lines of his brief report--an irresistible desire to watch the England-South Africa rugby game. He says he'll be off again next week. I guess there's no big hurry since he could be out there a year.....
Shekhdar's Baby: Painted in "Rescue Service Yellow".....
(Photo: oc2003.com)
Shekhdar's Baby: Painted in "Rescue Service Yellow".....
(Photo: oc2003.com)
Everest Update: The latest dispatch from Wally Berg has a lot of ramblings about fruit cakes and the difficulties of sending e-mail via satphone from the village of Namche. But there is important stuff, too. To wit, the team is all back in Base Camp and ready to start climbing. The weather is beautifully calm, though the jet stream is supposed to sink down toward Everest, bringing high winds (Berg is hoping to find a small window to summit through). The Sherpas were up on the South Col for the past two days, beaking trail and fixing ropes. They report a lot of snow. And finally, Berg says that their latest summit target date is Oct. 22. Now it begins.....
Berg (left) and Sherpas: "Just tossing a coin to see who's going to carry Maegan's skis......."
(Photo: Berg Adventures International)
Berg (left) and Sherpas: "Just tossing a coin to see who's going to carry Maegan's skis......."
(Photo: Berg Adventures International)
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Annals of Adventure--The Big Schuss: I'm not a climber so I've never truly understood the pull of Everest. There doesn't seem to be much pleasure in scaling it. Your body rebels at the altitude, you endure headaches, possible pulmonary edemas and brutal, extremity-freezing temps. From the accounts I've read, climbing Everest is about enduring pain. You trudge upward killing brain cells by the handful, littering the mountain with oxygen bottles and trash because you are too exhausted and turned inward to pick up after yourself, and barely noticing the view. The best part of the Everest experience, it seems, is....the aftermath--having climbed the world's highest mountain. But skiing Everest? Now that's a thrill I can picture. And American born Maegan Carney, two-time extreme skiing world champion, is currently on the mountain, aiming to become the first woman and the first North American to ski from the top all the way to base camp--a vertical descent of some 12,000 feet. If all goes well, Carney and her climbing expedition, which is being led by Berg Adventure's Wally Berg--who has been to the top four times--will summit early next week, on Oct. 20 or 21. Carney has skied some big peaks. But as tame as Everest has become in recent years, with hundreds of climbers swarming all over the mountain in the Spring, the mountain is a tiger in October. According to MountEverest.Net out of 1924 total summits, only 279 have taken place in the Fall, and of those only 17 succeeded after Oct. 20. That's because the weather starts to deteriorate after October 10. And right now hurricane force winds are expected at the summit over the weekend and maybe into next week. Berg is prepared to wait it out, if necessary, but the odds only get longer. If Carney pulls this thing off, it will have to rate as one of the greatest ski runs in history....
Mad Maegan: "It would be a lot easier if they would just fix the damn T-bar...."
Mad Maegan: "It would be a lot easier if they would just fix the damn T-bar...."
Welcome, Purple Kermit!: If you root around in obscure places long enough you never know what you might find. And in the Western Ghats Mountains of southern India biologists have discovered a wholly new species of......frog. It's a funny looking little sucker: purple, with a small head, tiny eyes, and the chubby body of a non-frog athlete. Big deal, you say? Consider the fact that there are only 29 known families of frogs and the last new one was identified more than 75 years ago, in 1926. Plus, this guy, who will be known as Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis (he definitely needs a new PR agent), is believed to be the last representative of a type of frog that gamboled at the feet of Cretaceous period dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This frog is also similar to a family of frogs that lives across the Indian Ocean, in the Seychelles, supporting the theory of "Gondwana," the supercontinent which is believed to have incorporated all of earth's current continents before splitting apart. Here's hoping no one decides his funky skin, soaked in boiling water, is an aphrodisiac, or would look good as a purse........
Barney Beware!: "I'm cute and huggable, and I don't sing annoying songs...."
(Photo: S.D. Biju)
Barney Beware!: "I'm cute and huggable, and I don't sing annoying songs...."
(Photo: S.D. Biju)
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Row, Row, Row...And Keep Rowing For A Really Long Time: One last note from the wild and wacky world of ocean rowing. Englishman Jim Shekhdar, 57, is about to set off on a voyage from New Zealand to South Africa via Cape Horn. This is Southern Ocean rowing, folks, and that means winds up to 80 mph and seas of 60 feet or more. Oh yeah, it will also be really, really cold. No one has successfully rowed the Southern Ocean before and Shekhdar will have to propel himself more than 8,000 miles through some of the world's most inhospitable seas. If he's lucky, he'll be out there about 5 months. If he's unlucky it could be more like a year. And if he's really unlucky, well, he may never get home. In short, the voyage will be wildly unpredictable, and Shekhdar says that if storms prevent him from getting north to Cape Town toward the end of his little jaunt, he'll just keep on plugging away until he hits Australia, which would add a few thousand miles to the stunt. The good news is that Shekhdar may pull this thing off (it's mostly downwind) in fewer than the 273 days it took him to row 10,600 miles from Peru to Australia a few years ago. The bad news is that the last guy who tried to row the Southern Ocean--a Frenchman, of course--had to be rescued by the Chilean Navy after his foot turned green and started to smell really bad. You can follow Shekhdar's progress here. Wish him luck. He's going to need it.
Shekhdar's 2001 arrival in Australia: "Damn, I wish I had learned how to Eskimo roll this thing......"
(Photo: Ocean Rowing Society)
Shekhdar's 2001 arrival in Australia: "Damn, I wish I had learned how to Eskimo roll this thing......"
(Photo: Ocean Rowing Society)
BLAST OFF! Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, 38, officially joined the Many Miles High Club as China successfully launched its first human into space today. Liwei is halfway through his flight, and will plummet back to earth early this evening. He says he "feels good" and--calling Central Casting--promised to "gain honor for the People's Liberation Army and for the Chinese nation. I will not disappoint the motherland. I will complete each movement with total concentration."
Astronaut Liwei On His Way: No takeout for a while......
Astronaut Liwei On His Way: No takeout for a while......
Row, Row, Row Your Boat: Transatlantic rowing is hot. This Sunday, 16 double-handed teams will set out from the Canary Islands and race to Barbados, a 2900-mile pull that can take up to two months (the record for the route is 41 days). On average, the teams will row about 18 hours a day, and each oarsman will burn about 7,000 calories a day. The boats are 24-feet long, built from plywood, and will be rowed through heavy swells and sweltering heat. No outside assistance whatsoever is allowed. Freeze dried food--to save weight--will be the fare of choice, and watermakers onboard each boat will provide water. This is the third edition of the Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race, and you can follow the action here. The race is organized by Sir Chay Blyth (the first man to row the Atlantic) and his Challenge Business, and he makes an interesting point: "It's incredible to think that more people have climbed Mount Everest, or have been in space, than have successfully rowed an ocean..."
"Dude, what's this island doing in the middle of the Atlantic......"
(Photo: Challenge Business)
"Dude, what's this island doing in the middle of the Atlantic......"
(Photo: Challenge Business)
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Where's Amelia?: The fate of Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, who disappeared in the Pacific in 1937 while circumnavigating the globe, is one of the adventure world's greatest mysteries. Now, following a tip from an 81-year old WWII veteran, an archeological team will excavate a potential grave site on the island of Tinian. According to the vet, Saint John Naftel, he was approached in 1944 while stationed at Tinian by a local man who said that he had helped bury a white woman and a white man--both wearing aviation suits--in 1937. The man had been working as a laborer for the Japanese in the Marianas at the time, and went on to show Naftel the alleged burial ground. Naftel tried to tell his story after the war, but was repeatedly dismissed by archaeologists and historians, because Earhart was not believed to be anywhere near the Marianas when her plane went down, and it seemed doubtful that the Japanese, if they found her body, would have brought her to Tinian. But after multiple failed expeditions to try and find Earhart, historians are willing to take even a long shot. If it pays off, it will be a story to rival the discovery a few years ago of George Mallory's body on Everest....
Earhart's unorthodox piloting position may have had something to do with the crash.....
(Photo: ameliaearhart.com)
Earhart's unorthodox piloting position may have had something to do with the crash.....
(Photo: ameliaearhart.com)
Don't Try This At Home: Leave it to the crazy Swedes. This is what comes of too much snow, too little to do, and maybe too much Stoli. It's called "speedkicking" and supposedly involves a top velocity of more than 40 miles per hour. Can anyone say "Darwin Award"?
"Wait up Sven, I'm about to hit the afterburner....."
"Wait up Sven, I'm about to hit the afterburner....."
Decline of Civilization--Biker Bingo: They don't pollute and they reduce traffic congestion, but what the hell, let's run 'em down. They're probably liberal wimps, anyhow. That's the message that was aired by shock jocks at Clear Channel radio stations in at least three major markets--Cleveland, Houston, and Raleigh--as they encouraged their motorhead listeners to run bicyclists off the road. The anti-cyclist rants unearthed a whole new vein of right-wing rage, with callers flooding the station to unleash on-air diatribes against bicyclers. One woman bragged that her father had intentionally hit one on the way to church. Who knew?
"Mmm, this Ford Probe is tasty, but now I need to get me some two-wheeler dessert...."
"Mmm, this Ford Probe is tasty, but now I need to get me some two-wheeler dessert...."
Monday, October 13, 2003
Annals of Adventure--The Great Leap Upward: The US space shuttle is grounded. The Russians are broke. So odd as it may seem, you have to look to China for space flight action these days. The New York Times reports that after eleven years of talking about it, China is set to try and become just the third nation on earth to successfully jack one of its citizens into orbit, possibly this Wednesday [registration required; yes, it's annoying but it's free and you just have to register once, so get over it]. Details of the mission are sketchy, but reports have the Shengzhou V mission boosting 1-3 Communauts into earth orbit, where they will complete 14 circuits over 21 hours in an orbital module, which will then parachute back to earth. Some reports have the Chinese leaving another module in orbit, along with a high-res recon camera, which if true is sure to get the Pentagon sweating. But forget politics. The Chinese invented both rockets and gunpowder, so if anyone deserves to build a ginormous Roman Candle and torch it off, they do. Plus, they are talking about going to the moon in a few years, which is just the fix hardcore space junkies are looking for. If anyone needs a space colony, the Chinese do......
Source: Space.com
Oriental Orbiter: Where will Dr. Evil be bunking........
Source: Space.com
Oriental Orbiter: Where will Dr. Evil be bunking........
Let Them Go V--Pammy, PETA, PETA, Pammy: Pam Anderson--who has made her, ummm, talents available to PETA, most recently by posing in some lettuce leaves for a "Go Vegetarian" poster-- jumps into the Siegfried & Roy chow down, with a suspiciously well-informed ("Thanks, PETA staff!") outing of the magical duo's claim that they are helping "save" white tigers. She writes on her web site:
"It's a common misconception that Siegfried & Roy breed white tigers for conservation. White tigers are not endangered - they're not even considered a species. All captive white tigers are inbred and many suffer from serious congenital defects, including cataracts, club feet and near-crippling hip ailments. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association condemns the breeding of white tigers because it serves no conservation purpose. They are simply bred to bring in money-spending curiosity seekers, such as Vegas tourists. While Siegfried & Roy have always said great things about conservation (and done some things too), their show runs totally contrary to the message. Obviously, a bright loud stage is not an exotic animals' natural habitat. What's more, their show is produced by Kenneth Feld - owner of Ringling Bros, which has a long, horrible record of animal cruelty across the country, including forcing a dying baby elephant to perform."
I guess we can lump this conservation dodge in with Siegfried's laughable claim that Montecore the tiger was simply trying to "help" Roy. Hmmm, isn't that what you'd say if you wanted to protect the future--with or without Roy--of a gazillion dollar franchise? Siegfried clearly understands that the punters will stick to slot machines if they think the Siegfried & Roy auditorium is simply an a la carte opportunity for pissed-off tigers......
"I just love animals!": Still from the pirated Pam Anderson/Fido Lee home video
"It's a common misconception that Siegfried & Roy breed white tigers for conservation. White tigers are not endangered - they're not even considered a species. All captive white tigers are inbred and many suffer from serious congenital defects, including cataracts, club feet and near-crippling hip ailments. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association condemns the breeding of white tigers because it serves no conservation purpose. They are simply bred to bring in money-spending curiosity seekers, such as Vegas tourists. While Siegfried & Roy have always said great things about conservation (and done some things too), their show runs totally contrary to the message. Obviously, a bright loud stage is not an exotic animals' natural habitat. What's more, their show is produced by Kenneth Feld - owner of Ringling Bros, which has a long, horrible record of animal cruelty across the country, including forcing a dying baby elephant to perform."
I guess we can lump this conservation dodge in with Siegfried's laughable claim that Montecore the tiger was simply trying to "help" Roy. Hmmm, isn't that what you'd say if you wanted to protect the future--with or without Roy--of a gazillion dollar franchise? Siegfried clearly understands that the punters will stick to slot machines if they think the Siegfried & Roy auditorium is simply an a la carte opportunity for pissed-off tigers......
"I just love animals!": Still from the pirated Pam Anderson/Fido Lee home video
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