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Skiing Down Everest
dalibor writes: "Tired of skiing in crowded tourist resorts? Why not ski from the top of Everest, where you can enjoy virgin snow and ski for 4,000 meters? Davo Karnicar from Slovenia is the first to have accomplished a full top-to-bottom ski descent from the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest! The event was transmited live via the Internet. http://www.everest.simobil.si/" Yahoo has a great report.
I wonder how much money and how many people risk thier lives to go rescue these idiots when they get lost/break a leg/get frostbit/get snowed under/get even less intelligent?
Well, this was one of several slovenian expeditions in last few years. A couple of guys stayed in the mountain. Nobody risked their life to save them. When you try to climb Everest and you don't come down, people tend to leave you there rather than stupidly risk their life trying to find you.
disclaimer: I might be right.
If he lingers at the bottom of the mountain too long, does that monster come after him and eat him up?
Does anyone else find it irresponsible that he, and any of the other everest climbers, would risk his life for a thrill when he has a family with young children?
That's a damn silly question or statement. If having children meant the end of all challange and risk, having children wouldn't be worth living.
Just about the riskiest thing we do in normal daily life is to drive our cars and/or cross the street, and both of these are very risky in statistical terms despite the fact that we think of them as mundane. Are you suggesting that we give up such dangerous activities when we have children? Are we meant to tuck ourselves away in a cocoon?
For goodness sake. If anything, it's a stronger argument that one could increase exposure to risk if one were so inclined after having children, since one's genetic inheritance is then already released for posterity. Mind you, I don't buy that either. We're not here for long, so we have to make life worth living whatever our stage in life. That almost always involves risk.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
"lost two fingers to frostbite when skiing down Everest in a failed attempt in 1996." he may only have 8 fingers, but he has gotta have a big set of balls to make up for it. If I lost a few fingers skiing, I would prolly switch to a different hobby, like... tv
mmmmmmm Shiner Bock
How much would a ticket cost?
The skier was wearing a GNU range of Slackwear fashion ski clothing, topped off with a Redhat. To get up to full speed he Tux his poles behind him.
He would have gone faster but his off piste route was Apache one...
I'll get my coat....
ozric.net
I think I've been reading Slashdot at -1 for too long. After reading the Yahoo article and switching to the main site, after a couple of minutes all I could think was, "why can't I find a picture of the mystery frozen body they found?"
I think I need to get out more.
The "trash" isn't as bad as you make it sound. It's oxygen bottles left from a few decades of climbing. No one wants to carry extra weight, so they'd just drop them when they were empty.
The Nepalese government with private sponsors (like Nike) now pay cash money to anyone who brings a bottle off the mountain, so the sherpas are carrying down well more than are being left. Most of the huge caches of spent bottles have already been taken down by sherpas who want to get extra money...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
No, the trash is as bad as he makes it sound.
The base camps are filthy: litter and human feces. It's freaking disgusting.
Really? Which team were you on when you went to Everest? While there was the occassional humorous bit of trash (frozen japanese candy from 1973) I didn't see any significant rubbish. And human feces is a strict no-no; every team has been responsible for carting it off the mountain for many years now.
I've got pictures of the sherpas carrying barrels of feces down from base camp -- not the guy you want to trip and spill his load!
Every team leaves a significant deposit as part of the climbing permit -- if they don't bring back their own trash and waste they lose the deposit. And you have to pay for a government official to accompany you for the entire time (not cheap) to verify compliance.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Why then did he not simply jump from a helicopter near the summit?
'cause a helicopter can't fly that high (atmosphere too thin) and he'd die in about 5 minutes because he's not adapted to the altitude. Even flying to base camp would kill you.
That's part of the appeal of Everest: nothing short of putting in the hard work makes it possible. No technology (currently) can make up for simply spending the time and energy and suffering to make it. There is no shortcut but to just do it.
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
So, yeah, first top to bottom, but not first.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0073340
The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)
Documentary
"A Japanese skier ultimately dreamed of literally skiing Mt. Everest. He planned to ski some 8,000 feet down an icy glacier at a 40 to 45 degree angle, from the 26,000 foot level near the summit. This documentary chronicles this incredible feat and the tremendous task of climbing Everest itself. The narrator reads from the diary that the skier personally kept."