Rescue by E-mail

BlameFate writes: "This neat article over at The Scotsman tells of a guy trying to be the first person to walk to the north pole solo. He got marooned and needed rescuing though, so how did he co-ordinate the rescue attempt? Why, by making a 400m runway in the snow taking a digital photo of it and then e-mailing the photo to the rescue team in Canada of course! The Scotsman is short on details; but BBC News is out for me right now."

Comments

What?

[weird mehgny]

He didn't use GPS?

Re:What?

[jo42]

GPS' start to go weird near the poles unless if you have one that was designed for it.

kinda cool

[squaretorus]

but somehow I expect populisation of this kind of technology to involve me being sent an awful lot of photos of shoes, skirts, and tops along with the single phrase "what do you think" or "does my bum look big in this".

Not quite as cool, but a much bigger service to mankind saving us from shopping trips with 'the lass' every weekend.

At least we'll have more than a TXT MSG to respond to - WHT CLR SKRT WT MY BLK SPRKLY TP TNT? PNK / BLK ?

response WTFDIC

Re:Minus 1 Flamebait

[squaretorus]

okay

come on

your not a chick are you!

not a 'proper' chick anyway!

Re:Pictures?

[sh0rtie]

because he took a photo of the landing strip he had made so that the rescue plane would have some idea of what condition the landing area they had to land on

Re:I Think....

[Ivan Raikov]

This guy just proved you can't walk to the North pole solo. Oh sure, perhaps you can do it alone, meaning noone closer than Canada, but quite obviously one needs a rescue crew on standby if they want to live through the attempt.

Um, according to this article in the April issue of the National Geographic magazine, a Norwegian had already reached both Poles by foot and sled. So there.

Re:I Think....

[Ivan Raikov]

Oops, I meant the March issue of National Geographic. Read before you post.

Various BBC Links

[Alien54]

• Explorer 'euphoric' at rescue A Scottish explorer who had been stranded on an ice floe at the North Pole is said to be euphoric after he is rescued.
• Marooned explorer's last gasp rescue A Scots explorer marooned on an ice floe near the North Pole has been rescued after calling for help via e-mail.
• Polar Scot's life or death dash A stranded Scots explorer must travel 100km in eight days to be rescued from an expedition to the North Pole.
• Explorer vows to cheat death A Scots adventurer says he is not scared as he faces a race against time to be rescued from a solo expedition to the North Pole.
• Scot abandons pole trek A Scottish explorer has abandoned his attempt to be the first person to walk solo from Canada to the North Pole.
• Scots Marine heads for North Pole A Royal Marine from Stonehaven is racing against time and the weather to complete the UK's first unsupported walk to the North Pole.

Yeah

[psavo]

And then they e-mailed him back a picture of an aeroplane...