BS: Mt. Everest below...

Subject: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:31 PM

Briton paraglides over Mt. Everest
POSTED: 7:00 a.m. EDT, May 18, 2007


KATHMANDU, Nepal (Reuters) -- A British paraglider has flown over Mount Everest, becoming the first man to do so, his agency says.

Bear Grylls, 32, flew 140 meters (460 feet) above the world's highest peak at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet) on Monday after taking off on a powered paraglider from a village in the Khumbhu region where Everest is located, Explore Himalaya agency said Friday.

"Amazing and nervous," Grylls told reporters when asked how he felt about his mission. "It was an incredible experience."

A writer and TV presenter from Ramsbury in Britain, Grylls was able to look down at Everest as he circled above some of the mightiest peaks of the Himalayas.

"Bear Grylls has become the first man to fly over Mount Everest by powered paraglider," Suman Pandey, president of Explore Himalaya, said.

Twenty-three climbing expeditions are trying to scale Mount Everest from the Nepali side in the current climbing season which began in March. The mountain can also be climbed from Tibet.

Nearly 2,000 people have scaled the mountain since it was first conquered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:37 PM

Bear Grylls eats Ray Mears for breakfast! (That's how stupid he is)

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:39 PM

It must've been damn cold up there. But what a view!

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:45 PM

I should have known it would be Bear Grylls who did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:49 PM

The conquest of yet another way to die on Everest has been fulfilled. Group "Glides" will be scheduled soon. I figure they can lose another 10 or 12 a year with this.....maybe even MORE!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Donuel
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:54 PM

I have always been led to believe that modern helicopters can not reach the summit of Everest.

yet a lawnmower engine can?

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: RangerSteve
Date: 18 May 07 - 02:01 PM

Maybe doing Everest on a pogo stick is next.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 18 May 07 - 03:46 PM

Didn't a Japanese team catapult over it a few years ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 18 May 07 - 03:48 PM

I checked Google, I was wrong. It was a fellow named Wyle E Coyote.
Seems like he did it while chasing a bird.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:22 PM

Helicopters don't even get close to the altitude. A friend of ours is Britain's top professional mountaineer, Alan Hinkes, the first Briton to climb all of the mountains higher than 8000 metres.
A few years back, during this challenge, he was high on one of the mountains when a sneeze put his back out of joint. Because of the low air pressure at that hight, the disc swelled up and he was unable to move. He could not be rescued because the rescue helicopters can not fly that high.
It was 10 days before he was able to climb down to an altitude where they could pick him up.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:23 PM

Oh, I forgot
BLICKY.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:24 PM

Helicopters have a poor altitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:32 PM

Things are changing ...it seems a helicopter HAS done it.

A few years ago, a Nepalese pilot did a rescue at 20,000 ft on Everest that was considered quite daring at the time...this seems to have spurred ideas on how to do better.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:38 PM

And plans are being made for un-manned helicopter rescues

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:41 PM

Geoff, I am glad you don't go extreme climbing with Hinskey! Truly a Mad Yorkshireman!**bG**

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:51 PM

If each team that reached the top left just one rope in a bucket, in short order they'd have a long enough rope so that when someone got in trouble the rescue team could just walk up there and toss the end of the rope down to them.

Of course, some d***d fool would forget to tie the other end of the rope down ... but they could blame that on the hypoxia.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 18 May 07 - 05:17 PM

Kat - I don't climb - can't stand depths ( don't mind heights - they are ABOVE where I am standing. It's falling down DEPTHS that hurts).
Mind you, mudcatter Collier Lad DID used to climb and knows Alan Hinkes from being on mountains.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Donuel
Date: 18 May 07 - 11:00 PM

live and learn

live long enough and you can watch the bastards die in front of you.
Don Rickles

btw Don R is alive and well and at the peak of his craft.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 May 07 - 11:37 PM

There was a Japanese guy who tried to ski down Everest, wasn't there? He made it part way.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Peace
Date: 19 May 07 - 01:15 AM

Yuichiro Miura

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 07 - 01:27 AM

"un-manned helicopter rescues "

My God! It's "Internationsal Rescue"!

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 07 - 01:36 AM

A normal chopper keeps up by the engine putting out enough power so that the blades can push down enough mass of air at enough speed to generate enough momentum to create sufficient push.

As the air gets thinner, there is not enough mass of air moved (and the air gets too thin for the engine to run at full power), so you need to design the blades to handle the height (they may then work wrongly at lower heights! - such as having too much "load on the engine") and usually boost the engine with a supercharge - or turbocharger - to push more fuel/air into the engine.

It's not a trivial engineering job.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Dead Horse
Date: 19 May 07 - 05:57 AM

.....and at altitude the extreme cold does nasty things to the elastic band !

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 07 - 10:08 AM

... not to mention the poor bloody hamsters...

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 19 May 07 - 11:43 AM

I'd imagine there are amazing things being done with light materials, as well as blade design and power train, in order to be able to actually carry enough weight.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 07 - 08:37 PM

One of the main reasons, Bll, they have gone for an unmanned vehicle at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: tarheel
Date: 20 May 07 - 11:02 AM

why doesnt anyone ever talk about the dead bodies om mt.everest? i recently saw an expedition story on the discovery channel and they had video of many dead bodies there ( the ones that could be seen) and they reported that many of them had been there for years...i guess helping your fellow man becomes less important than reaching the top of the mountain.
one climber saw a man that was left behind and was dying at the moment and nothing the climber cxould do at that point to help save the man...
what an insane thing to do...
nothing is so important to leave your friend to die so that you can reach the top of a stupid frozen mountain of rock,ice, snow and sub-zero freezing temperatures..
it's insane!
Tar...

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 20 May 07 - 11:46 AM

tarheel.........The people who do that climb are well aware of the dangers, and most of them WILL help each other....within reason. There are many stories of heroic rescues...But IF a climber is beyond help, or dies in a fall where it is difficult to reach him, it is foolish to risk MORE lives to recover a body. Each case is evaluated on its merits.

The 'rules' are different for people who choose to risk their lives up there.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 May 07 - 06:54 PM

Tarheel

The human body is operating at its very limits (this includes medically) up there. The physical effort involved in moving one's own body and clothing and support supplies is on the edge of what most individuals can do. If a climber is 'disabled' to any great extent, assisting them may be well beyond the remaining capabilities of other nearby climbers, especially if it involves casting aside most of your own essential support material to carry someone else. Not to mention the extremely difficult terrain.

If you haven't been there, like landing on D-Day, it's far too easy to criticize, and far too difficult to imagine...

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Rowan
Date: 21 May 07 - 02:57 AM

"Nearly 2,000 people have scaled the mountain since it was first conquered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953."

Tarheel's reference to the collection of bodies would seem to give the lie to the notion that Everst has been "conquered". And Foolstroupe is right; the rules at that extreme are different. Nobody wants to be the person who has to cut the rope holding their mate from destruction, and nobody wants to be the one who's cut loose, but you don't get into that situation without properly preparing yourself for the possibility.

A mate with whom I worked was one of the professional guides up there the year they had the large casualty list; while he was OK he still bears various scars of the experience. On Everest, the only thing that's ever conquered is one's own timidity.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: tarheel
Date: 21 May 07 - 07:34 PM

well,it seems that it would be a decent thing to somehow recover the bodies to their families for a proper burial...
and,   i know that more climbers would probably be lost in that effort too!
it's a catch 22 situation,i guess!
Tar...

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 21 May 07 - 07:58 PM

Many, many of the climbers are from other countries...from all over the world. Not every culture DOES 'proper burials'..

By the way...the weather is being cooperative this year, and over 300 have made it to the top....they think they may break the record this year. Not nearly the problems of some years.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Ref
Date: 21 May 07 - 08:10 PM

Bill D., you're right on the mark. I was recently in a discussion about the obligation (?) to render asistance at high altitude to a stranger who was plainly not equipped or fit to be there. I was one of the minority saying "different rules up there." I believe there have been a couple of deaths this season. Even if you limited access to those few who are fit, trained, and equipped for the climb, it will continue to cost lives because human beings JUST DON'T BELONG THERE! All the rich jokers and adventure junkies just increase the percentage. Trivia point: Mr. Everest, the royal geographer who first described its altitude, thought that it was tacky to give Western names to features that already had perfectly good ones from the natives. He'd call it "Chomolungma."

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Rowan
Date: 21 May 07 - 09:54 PM

"Trivia point: Mr. Everest, the royal geographer who first described its altitude, thought that it was tacky to give Western names to features that already had perfectly good ones from the natives. He'd call it "Chomolungma.""

And you should visit the Indian museum that holds the theodolite Mr Everest used. I wish I could remember the name of the book that described the Great Arc Survey.

Speaking of giving "Western names to features that already had perfectly good ones from the natives" reminds me that Australia's highest "paddock with its back up" (Kosciuszko) was earlier called Tar Gan Gil by at least one of the Aboriginal language groups that used the area to harvest bogong moths. Bob Carr changed the spelling to the correct Polish spelling of the patriot but forgot about the earlier name.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Bill D
Date: 22 May 07 - 11:47 AM

This is the first time I have seen reference to "Chomolungma" in many years. My memory tells me that the word means "Goddess Mother of the World".
(When I was a kid, I had dreams of hanging by my eyeteeth from a rope over a ledge and summiting some exotic peak.....I lived in Kansas, and couldn't seem to find a handy place to practice)...
I read "Annapurna" and followed stories of Hillary and Norgay and wished.

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Wesley S
Date: 22 May 07 - 04:08 PM

And he's a BBC story about the first Cell Phone Call from Mt Everest

Subject: RE: BS: Mt. Everest below...
From: Ref
Date: 22 May 07 - 07:50 PM

...and Mount Cook in New Zealand (Aotearoa) is actually Aoraki. Bill, look for the recent autobio by Ed Viesters, the subject of the "Everest" IMAX film. Forgot the title, sorry.