Trolling....

Glamour -- Adventure -- Celebrity/Notoriety -- Come and share in the pleasure! The Clash between Civilization and Nihilism yours to share"!

"You will invade the Arabian Peninsula, and Allah will enable you to conquer it."
"You will then invade Persia, and Allah will enable you to conquer it."
"You will then invade Rome, and Allah will enable you to conquer it."
"Then you will fight the [false messiah], and Allah will enable you to conquer him."
The Flood -- Islamic State magazine, Dabiq

"[There is] no third camp present [only] the camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy -- the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia."
"The Hour will not be established until the Romans land at ... Dabiq."
First three issues of Islamic State magazine, Dabiq

Dabiq is filled with disturbing images of violence and strong terror messages. Source: Supplied

Fancy that, linking Russia and the United States as co-conspirators and allied threats against Islamism. What a thrill for Washington and Moscow. Well, after all, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin did get on famously; the latter effortlessly leading the former to his way of thinking about the superior elements in diplomacy between countries, while forsaking the menace of 'kinetic' threats as a measure of warning the target not to cross any 'red lines' in the sand of the Middle East.

The Islamic State assumes that all the red lines have long been crossed, from ancient times to the present. And they're not going to take it any longer. They're pressing on to finish what the Prophet Mohammed began. "One of the greatest" battles between the Ottomans and the Maluks reputedly took place in the region of Dabiq in 1516, and the Islamic State commemorates that great event by naming its propaganda mouthpiece in its honour.

The lessons gained in public relations, glitz, celebrity, fashions and sweet-talk have given the Islamic State converts and recruits from the West much to offer to their rough Mideast and SouthAsia cousins. The slick graphics and enticing verbiage do justice to their divine mission to resurrect the prospect of a global Caliphate. Emulating video games and exciting action and science fiction films, they artfully present attractive promises of an exciting lifestyle with no namby-pamby boundaries to recruits.

The emphasis is on meeting and greeting the end-of-days, the cataclysmic Armageddon. Now that's exciting, that's adventure on the grandest of scales, and the promise that there will be no borders that cannot be crossed in generally-regarded in polite company inhumane actions to emphasize just how much they mean business represents a powerful attraction to the psychopaths champing at the bit to join in the fun.

Propaganda magazine Dabiq is shocking in its content and is widely available Source: Supplied

These messages aimed directly at believers, both in the faith and in the promise of the pending apocalypse. And since it's inevitable, why not have a blast while bringing it that much closer to fruition? The irresistible impulse to become part of modern fanatical Islamist history-in-the-making in close emulation of history-made has attracted Tunisians representing two-thirds of the believers in apocalypse, closely followed by Iraqis themselves, clamouring to see the return of the messiah.

Risky Adventure Tourism

"When human lives are at risk -- although there is a dollar value attached to it -- I'm not sure that a cost can really be calculated."
"Canadians expect us to do this."
"When people are in distress in this country, we utilize our assets to find these people and bring them back to safety."
"Although lives may not have been hanging by a thread at that particular point, in the North or off the coast, things can change quickly."
Master Warrant Officer Greg Smith, Canadian Joint Operations Command search and rescue advisor

Nunavut Tourism

So, here's the story of Canada's courageous military rescuing tourists and their guides -- ten tourists hailing from Japan, Jordan, Australia, Britain, France, United States, oh and Canada. Ten staff from an outfitters, all ensconced on a very large ice floe, 50 kilometres long, 25 wide. Oops, it was no longer anchored, and had begun drifting toward the Northwest Passage. Yes, that Northwest Passage of legendary exploration, where you know, during the age of Arctic discovery many lives were lost?

The cost alone for flying rescue aircraft in a noble effort to save these people from the folly of their adventure came to $1,044,302. A lot of loose change, that. Wait; we're nowhere near done; five "radio message droppers" were floated down to the adventurers at a cost of $493.37 each. Strangely, those meant to be rescued signalled that they were "all OK", and gee whiz, "too busy to talk". Still, concerned at the ice "making large ominous sounds".

There's more to the rescue costs: three sea-rescue survival kits containing: six-person life raft, survival equipment and radio, air-dropped "just as a precaution", each ringing in at $23,000. They were not used, they were not needed, but guess what, irrespective of use or need, they cannot be "reused" another day for another rescue. They are now finito. Oops, five waterproof radio transmitters: $352.96, and five light markers at $62.96 apiece.

Not to forget salaries and living expenses for the rescuers, along with their room accommodation where a room in Arctic Bay comes in at $231 nightly. Another $2,903 for civilian overtime and $5,910 for military salaries. Now, let's see, the total would be -- $2,270,282. Rivalling, without a doubt, the stupendous costs associated with one rescue mission after another dispatched to find the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin and his crew.

A mission that was, in the end, spectacular in its vision and determination, but ultimately unsuccessful, since their remains never were discovered. As luck and modernity would have it, all those adventurous people on the ground more or less rescued themselves. Brought to Arctic Bay airport, and not by the crew of the Hercules preparing to rescue them. No fewer than five provinces sent planes and helicopters to help in the mission.

The tour director later explained that the situation as it unfolded "was never an emergency". His happy clients "were having dinner served to them and listening to presentations", even as the military was mobilizing its rescue resources. Speaking of expenses, this is a tour advertised for $10,900, plus $4,524 for return flights from Ottawa to Arctic Bay "based on double occupancy". A little pricey for many people, but presumably these were a well-heeled bunch.

"What the people were doing is a detail that doesn't change the responsibility of the folks at the pointy end of it, those doing the rescue", chided Master Warrant Officer Smit. The luxury being enjoyed by those on the cusp of rescue does not calculate for the military.  It might, though, for the people footing the bill, which is to say the Canadian taxpayer. Because that money comes from somewhere, after all.

And when all is said and done, perhaps we should expect those who can afford such delightful experiences to pay their own way, fully, when they come as guests to the country to enjoy the incredible geography, scenery and perils of survival. It should logically be well understood when such adventures are being arranged by tourism hosts that they inform their guests that they are required to have proof in their possession of prepaid danger insurance.

To compensate the military for such expenditures when they want to play Dudley Doright, and by extension, of course the Canadian taxpayer dinged by circumstances, most of whom can only dream of such fascinating adventures for themselves. Who don't really think it's up to them to subsidize either the tour operators or their clients for their delightful expeditions into the known unknown.

Hey! The Northwest Passage...!
Where for centuries Arctic exploration was riveted on the possibility of finding a passage through the ice-packed ocean that might link Europe to the Far East. From Viking sailors and Basque whalers to the European explorers whose names ring familiarly in historical accounts of hardship and disappointment, privation and abandonment. John Cabot, Vasco da Gama, Martin Frobisher, Sir John Franklin.

Some of the rescued hunters and tourists walk away from a military helicopter in Arctic Bay, Nunavut. (Photo courtesy of Niore Iqalukjuak) 

Now, with climate change and melting ice, not only is shipping being envisaged, but tourism is booming. Come one, come all, the taxpayers of Canada are proud to present this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to the curious and the opportunistic.

Nunavut Tourism

Man Proposes, Nature Disposes

"The group had encountered ice, high winds, cool temperatures and felt they were not safe and were at risk if they did not request rescue/ evacuation assistance. No injuries reported."
Rachelle Smith, regional manager communications, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

"We wake up in the morning and we're locked in the ice. The ice has moved in, it's completely around all the jet skies and the boat.
Dangerous Waters expedition leader, Steve Moll

"Some critics have suggested that our truncated journey speaks to the contrary but nothing could be further from the truth. Our slow progress due to high winds and erratic weather demonstrates the difficulties of rowing in an Arctic environment, not the existence or non-existence of climate change."
Kevin Vallely, expedition member

Steve Moll, the host of MAVTV's "Dangerous Waters," is shown here with the other jet-skiers in a photo from the show's Facebook page.

The intention was that the Americans filming the reality show Dangerous Waters, circumnavigating the globe on personal watercraft, would cross the Northwest Passage, round the southern tip of Greenland and complete their journey by paddling the Atlantic into London, England. It is, after all, from Britain that so many expeditions, including the series of Franklin's that began Arctic exploration.

They intended to do it in reverse. And their purpose was to paddle straight through, since of course ice conditions have been deteriorating steadily with the onset of Global Change. Sea ice is not what is once was. In theory, such ships as their, small personal vessels, could handily make their way around the sea ice that remained, finding open passage, a passage that foiled Sir John Franklin in 1845 when his entire expedition navigating fruitlessly, became lost to history.

Modern communications technology being what it is, saved the day for the seven men filming for Dangerous Waters. It wasn't just the plunging icy temperatures, and the sea ice, and the ocean freezing up right under them. It was the frightening nuisance factor of a denizen of the Arctic, curious about what they were up to. An uninvited polar bear ripped apart one of their tents.


In this photo from the Facebook page for the television show, "Dangerous Waters," the jet-skiers are camping on an Arctic beach.

Wrote expedition leader Steve Moll in his updated blog: "I know the guys think, 'Oh, we'll handle the bears', but polar bears will smell you from 35 miles away and you're just another piece of meat. I don't like the idea of them. It's the polar bears that worry me. I don't like them. We'll put Pat [Patrick McGregor, the group's medic] on all night watch with a Taser".

But as it happened when they discovered their path through the Canadian Arctic blocked they called for help. And Fisheries and Oceans responded as Iqaluit-based Nunatsiaq News was informed. Evidently it cost the Canadian taxpayer in the six figures to rescue the crew. Which has made no mention of any intention to repay the cost.

Crew members of the Arctic Joule struggle to anchor the rowboat to the ice. Photo by Mainstream Last First

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Crew members on the Arctic Joule struggle to anchor the rowboat to the ice. Scan this photo with the Layar app to see more photos and video from the expedition.  Photograph by: Mainstream Last First

- See more at: http://www.nsnews.com/news/1-900-arctic-kilometres-by-rowboat-1.611572#sthash.AqPfnz3o.dpuf

A week previously the Last First Expedition comprised of four Vancouver men determined to cross the Arctic in a rowboat, cancelled their trip as well, 1,128 km short of their goal. They too encountered inclement weather, the passages full of ice. Which in fact, was their goal to begin with; to demonstrate how readily they could manage the crossing, since the passage was so ice-free.

Oops, twice over!

Huge Slope, Slight Misunderstandings

"There was a slight misunderstanding and communication gap between them. This has been sorted out and the climbers are at the base camp."
Dipendra Paudel, Nepali tourism ministry spokesman

"The problem was the sherpa and the Italian not speaking good English. They said some bad words, there was a misunderstanding. In the high areas, the mind is not so good because of the altitude."
Tika Gurung, executive committee member, Expedition Operators Association

The problem was the arrogance of the privileged. The problem was that the Sherpas risk their lives to do the heavy lifting -- it's their living -- while the mountaineers sneer at their ministrations, their ability to out-manoeuvre, to expend energy and anticipate the needs of the high-paying would-be expeditioners, the summiteers who feel the world belongs to them and the sherpas must heed to their commands and obey their demands.

Not all mountain climbers, needless to say. Some, if not most, have the good sense to give respect where it is due. But there are always those who will behave discourteously, uncivilly, abruptly and dismissively as the three European climbers did in mounting toward the summit of Mount Everest this week to commit a colossal climbing blunder that earned them the ire of attending Sherpas.

Photograph: Jimmy Chin

It is the Sherpas who undertake every year when the seasonal climbing season begins, to go ahead of the climbers and secure routes for the expeditions that will begin when people with various levels of expertise and experience in high-elevation ascents will bargain with the mountain to allow them to realize their dreams of conquering a height impossible to imagine, through uncertain geologic, atmospheric and weather conditions.

Without the risks they take and the skilled positioning of temporary rope bridges and metal pieces hammered into the rock and ice from which to suspend guiding ropes and passageways many of the aspiring climbers would never realize their potential to succeed.

Three climbers who decided they would make the ascent of the fabled mountain unassisted, ignored the appeal of sherpas who had been tasked with securing a route before the arrival of expected expeditions to wait until they had completed their task.

Jonathan Griffith, a Brit, Simone Moro, Italian, and Ueli Steck from Switzerland, simply continued on their determined way, climbing over, around and above the working Sherpas. In the process interfering with their work, and unsurprisingly managing to loose pieces of ice in their progress that fell back upon the working Sherpas.

An insulting action that infuriated the Sherpas and led them to upbraid and then attack the climbers.
Who claim they were threatened and placed in great physical danger by the reacting Sherpas, and no doubt they were.

Resentment as being insulted, being treated as inferiors and being placed in potential danger by those who are in fact visitors to the country, evincing little respect for tradition and civility can certainly cause indigenous people to resort to uncivilized means themselves. And these three would not have been the only summiteers to have felt threatened by angered Sherpas.

A simple request; before stepping over the ropes, please wait until the task has been completed. Of course, when people are on a mission to ascend to the pinnacle of a mountain famed for refusing that triumph to many who attempt it, the speed of the ascent when weather permits and the climbers feel capable of exerting sufficient strength and stamina, waiting does throw a wrench into their plans.

It is why so many climbers fail to stop to aid those whose mental and physical condition have deteriorated to the point where they succumbed to the stress, leaving them to die.

One of the climbers on his website, described the events that transpired: the lead climber of the sherpas rappelled down at speed landing on top of one of the climbers who instinctively raised his hands to protect himself..."This prompted the lead climber to accuse Ueli Steck of 'touching him'", he said. And then "the lead climber turned on him (Mr. Moro) wielding his ice axe in his direction".

As the climbers descended to Camp 2, a "mob" of 100 sherpas kicked them, pelted them with rocks. In the event, they felt they "owed their lives" to a small group of Western climbers at the camp who "acted as a buffer between the out-of-control mob and the climbers". 

Climbing Mount Everest represents an extreme adventure that appeals to westerners who can afford the trip. And who anticipate that their excellent physical condition, their athletic capability and their desire to attain the rare will give them a certain panache, an elite status of achievement.

It also represents a living wage to local sherpas who act as guides and mentors, servants and life-savers.

Nepal's tourism ministry is attempting to smooth things over; bad publicity does not auger well for the country that depends on tourism, and its people who depend on the foreign currency it brings in. "We are leaving Nepal as soon as we can", huffed Mr. Griffith, unwilling to accept the apologizing blandishments of the Nepalese spokespeople.

Good riddance, but for the maligning publicity.

PHOTO: Mount Everest, in two billion pixels

Posted by Anup Kaphle on December 18, 2012 at 4:20 pm The Washington Post

You must have seen thousands of photographs of Everest. But there have been none like this: 

Image shows Khumbu glacier from Pumori viewpoint near Mt. Everest. Click on the photo to view in 

full resolution. (Photo Credit: David Breashears)

 (Click to see the panoramic image of the Himalaya in gigapixel navigation) 

According to NPR, the image is the result of a project by David Breashears, who has already climbed the highest mountain in the world five times. He used old images of Everest and its glaciers and combined them with new ones.

The photo is part of a broader project called GlacierWorks by the mountaineer Breashears, who made the much-acclaimed IMAX documentary “Everest.”

His project aims to document the current state of glaciers in the Himalayas and how the mountain and those glaciers are being affected by climate change.

SEE: “The dangerous road to Mount Everest” in photos.

‘I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened’: Missing Ohio filmmaker’s body found near waterfall in B.C. wilderness

Armina Ligaya | Nov 18, 2012 8:31 PM ET | Last Updated: Nov 18, 2012 8:34 PM ET

RCMP / The Canadian Press Files Warren Andrew Sill has been found dead in northern B.C.

 

The mystery of the Ohio filmmaker who went missing in the B.C. wilderness this summer was finally solved this weekend when his body was discovered in a pool of water by a waterfall, but officials may never know how he reached his untimely death.

Warren Andrew Sill, who set out into Seven Sisters Provincial Park to find and photograph the elusive B.C. spirit bear, was found dead on Saturday in the Gull Creek area, RCMP said Sunday.
At this stage, police believe Mr. Sill, 26, drowned and there was no foul play, but how he ended up in the water is still unclear, RCMP spokeswoman Constable Lesley Smith.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened…. We’re probably leaning more towards the fact that he probably lost his footing and fell, because he was still wearing his hiking boots when we did locate him,” she said.

In July, Mr. Sill left his home in North Ridgeville, Ohio, on the outskirts of Cleveland, in a SUV loaded with camping gear and camera equipment. His goal was to track down the spirit bear, or Kermode bear, which is a rare subspecies of black bear with an all-white coat found primarily on the B.C. coast.

He was a Kent State University graduate who worked for an insurance company.

“He’s just a really curious, inquisitive person — especially when it comes to nature,” said his sister, Maureen Sill, in July.

Mr. Sill didn’t have a strict itinerary, but he planned to incorporate his travels into a documentary protesting the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, said Joel Fowler, a musician who hosted Mr. Sill over the Canada Day weekend and who spoke to the Post in July.

After trekking into the park, Mr. Sill had reportedly planned to meet up with a host in nearby Terrace, B.C.

Robin Rowland / The Canadian Press     Frank MacDonald, centre, a search manager with the Bulkley Valley Search and Rescue, briefs his team on the search for missing Ohio film maker Warren Andrew Sill in Gull Creek, B.C., on July 15, 2012. 

 

On July 5, Mr. Sill was seen in Prince George. But five days later, his abandoned Pontiac — with his tent and sleeping bag still inside — was discovered in an old rock pit on the Whiskey Creek Trail, a multi-day 7.2 kilometre hike that snakes through “pleasant mature” forest before it comes to a tricky water crossing.

During the summer, the surrounding park is well-known for its heavy bear presence.

Five day hikes in the area are commonplace, but when local RCMP learned Mr. Sill was not an avid outdoorsman, they called in a search and rescue team.

Helicopters, volunteers, sniffer dogs scoured the heart of bear country in mid-July, but found nothing.
On Saturday, local RCMP, who have continued to search the area and used it to conduct training exercises, found a shirt near a waterfall, said Const. Smith.

“It was a shirt that was intact enough that we knew that it belonged to Warren, due to a logo that was on that shirt from Ohio,” she said.

Because water levels in the Gull Creek area had receded from the high levels in the summer months, the terrain had become more accessible.

A local search and rescue team conducted an intense search, including a dive, and discovered Mr. Sill’s body underwater, Const. Smith said.

“The mystery would be how he came to be in the water,” she said. “Did he lose his footing [upstream] and [fall] into the waterfall? Or did he lose his footing down below?”

It will be difficult to determine whether an animal also played a role, she said, due to the state of the Mr. Sill’s body after being underwater for months.

His body was sent to Vancouver for dental records analysis — which confirmed his identity — and an autopsy, the results of which are not yet complete, said Const. Smith.

The RCMP sends their condolences to the Sill family, and their friends.

“It’s very bittersweet,” said Const. Smith. “You know it was a mystery at one time, but now they have closure and they can bring him home to rest. So, it’s very sad, but again, a closure for his family and his friends.”

National Post
With files from Tristin Hopper

Why NASA Is Celebrating Obama's Victory

By Andrew McCarthy

 | 

Posted Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012, at 2:20 PM ET The Slatest

A view of the Earth appears over the Lunar horizon as the Apollo 11 Command Module comes into view
Photo by NASA/Newsmakers.

President Obama's re-election is shaping up to be great news for NASA.

Those In The Know tell Space.com that the space agency is likely to reveal a set of ambitious goals now that the president has locked up another four years in office.

Assuming that the rumored plans are indeed true, the next twenty to thirty years of space exploration might play out like a real-life Carl Sagan fantasy. Items on the rumored docket include: more manned missions to the moon, a manned outpost on the far side of the moon, a mission sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and the commencement of manned missions to Mars by the mid-2030s.

According to space policy expert and George Washington University professor emeritus John Logsdon, the game plan has already been given the go-ahead by the White House, but senior NASA officials had decided to keep their plans under wraps until they were certain that Obama would be back in the Oval Office for a second term.

Mitt Romney had spoken plainly about his plans to re-evaluate the purpose of government-sponsored space missions, thereby leaving agency officials uncertain that their ambitious plans would remain feasible under a Republican-controlled executive branch. With this fear alleviated by Romney’s defeat, most signs point to an impending announcement from the agency about the future of American space exploration.

Here’s Space.com with some more background and details:

In 2010, President Obama directed NASA to work toward sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. To reach such deep-space destinations, the agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a crew capsule named Orion.

But astronauts likely won't head straight to a space rock when SLS and Orion are ready to fly together in 2021. In the last year, word has begun leaking out that NASA wants to explore Earth-moon L2 a point in space that lies beyond the moon's far side, as a precursor ... so NASA (and perhaps international partners) can learn more about supporting humans in deep space. Astronauts stationed there could also aid in lunar exploration — by teleoperating rovers on the moon's surface, for example.

NASA officials think they can pull off such manned missions without busting their budget, which stands at $17.7 billion in the proposed 2013 federal budget.

It is worth noting, however, that this news isn’t exactly 100 percent out of the blue. In September, NASA deputy chief Lori Garver had been blunt about what the space agency had cooking, saying "we're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars.

CBC Documentary

The True Patriot Love Expedition

June 4th, 2012

On October 7, 2012, fifteen wounded Canadian veterans and a group of corporate civilians will begin a 20,305 ft high trek up Island Peak, a mere 10 kilometers away from Everest in the Himalayas. This expedition is a True Patriot Love initiative whose mission is to build bridges between soldiers and civilians. The money raised will go to supporting other injured soldiers and their families.

The expedition will be turned into a CBC documentary called March to the Top to be aired in January 2013, where viewers will able watch the soldiers attempt to summit while learning about their military lives, their families, their injuries and their struggles, and their hopes for the future.

The group will be led by documentary producer, Ben Webster who has led five successful Mount Everest Expedition. Ben is documenting his preparations for the climb at http://www.cbc.ca/marchtothetop/blog.html

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner breaks sound barrier

 BBC News online - 14 October 2012

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent

Highlights from Felix Baumgartner's leap into the record books

Austrian Felix Baumgartner has become the first skydiver to break the speed of sound, reaching a top speed of 833.9mph (1,342km/h), officials say.

The 43-year-old jumped out of a balloon 128,000ft (24 miles, 39km) above New Mexico, breaking the record for the highest skydive.

He said he almost aborted the jump because his helmet visor frosted up.

It took just under 10 minutes for him to land safely, but he did not set a record for the longest freefall.
Video cameras relayed the moment Baumgartner stepped from his balloon capsule to begin his fall to Earth.

Only the last few thousand feet were negotiated by parachute. Once down, he fell to his knees and raised his fists in triumph. Helicopter recovery teams were on hand moments later.

"When you're standing there on top of the world you become so humble. The only thing is you want to come back alive," he said at a press conference after he landed.

None of the new marks set by Baumgartner can be classed as "official" until endorsed by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).

Eva Baumgartner watches her son climb into the sky

Its representative was the first to greet the skydiver on the ground. GPS data recorded on to a microcard in the Austrian's chest pack will form the basis for any height and speed claims that are made.

There was concern early in the dive that he was in trouble. Baumgartner was supposed to get himself into a delta position - head down, arms back - as soon as possible after leaving his capsule. But the video showed him tumbling over and over.

Eventually, however, he was able to use his great experience, from more than 2,500 career skydives, to correct his fall and get into a stable configuration.

Even before this drama, it was thought the mission might have to be aborted. As he went through last-minute checks inside the capsule, it was found that a heater for his visor was not working. This meant the visor fogged up as he exhaled.

"This is very serious, Joe," he told retired US Air Force Col Joe Kittinger, whose records he was attempting to break, and who was acting as his radio link in mission control at Roswell airport.
Baumgartner's efforts have finally toppled records that have stood for more than 50 years.

The Austrian has been discussing his attempt since 2005

 

The previous highest, farthest, and longest freefall was made by Col Kittinger, who leapt from a helium envelope in 1960. His altitude was 102,800ft (31.3km). (His mark for the longest freefall remains intact; he fell for more that four and a half minutes before deploying his chute.)

Col Kittinger, now an octogenarian, has been an integral part of Baumgartner's team, and has provided the Austrian with advice and encouragement whenever he has doubted his ability to complete such a daring venture.

The 43-year-old adventurer - perhaps best known for leaping off skyscrapers - first discussed the possibility of beating Col Kittinger's records in 2005.

Since then, he has had to battle technical and budgetary challenges to make it happen.
What he was proposing was extremely dangerous, even for a man used to those skyscraper stunts.

Baumgartner was given commands by the previous record holder, Joe Kittinger

 

At an altitude of 120,000ft (36.5km), the air pressure is less than 2% of what it is at sea level, and it is impossible to breathe without an oxygen supply.

Others who have tried to break the records for the highest, fastest and longest freefalls have lost their lives in the process.

Baumgartner's team built him a special pressurised capsule to protect him on the way up, and for his descent he wore a next generation, full pressure suit made by the same company that prepares the flight suits of astronauts.

Although the jump had the appearance of another Baumgartner stunt, his team stressed its high scientific relevance.

The researchers on the Red Bull Stratos project say it has already provided invaluable data for the development of high-performance, high-altitude parachute systems, and that the lessons learned will inform the development of new ideas for emergency evacuation from vehicles, such as spacecraft, passing through the stratosphere.

Nasa and its spacecraft manufacturers have asked to be kept informed.

Jon Clark is the medical director on the team. The former shuttle flight surgeon lost his wife in the Columbia accident in 2003.

He said Baumgartner's experience could help save the lives of future astronauts who get into trouble.
A BBC/National Geographic documentary is being made about the project and will probably be aired in November.

The giant helium balloon carrying Baumgartner's capsule was released at 0831 local time in Roswell

 Intrepid Adventurers

"A huge avalanche swept through camp 3 at 4:45 a.m. on Manaslu, catching lots of people in their sleeping bags, many dead and injured.  Luckily our team is fine, and helped with the rescue.  Greg Hill, skier/mountaineer, from Revelstoke, B.C.

There were, in fact, a total of 231 climbers representing various national groups on the slopes of Mount Manaslu, with a peak of 8,156 metres in Nepal which boasts it is home to eight of the 14 highest peaks in the world.  Ten climbers were killed as a result of the deadly avalanche and six other climbers are missing.  Most of the dead are of French origin.

A former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, Ang Tshering Sherpa, informed the media that other victims were from Italy, Germany and Spain.  And one Canadian climber, a surgeon from Quebec who was an experienced climber, intent on combining his two passions; mountain climbing and raising funds for his hospital. 

Dominique Ouimet, a cardiologist with Saint-Jerome regional hospital was involved in fundraising to enable the hospital to purchase specialized equipment for the cardiology department.  Those missing including Dr. Ouimet are five French nationals and an Italian climber.  The search was called off due to deteriorating weather conditions and nightfall, last night.

Weather conditions closed in quickly, hampering search and rescue attempts. During the fall climbing season on the mountain weather is far more unpredictable than throughout the spring climbing season when weather patterns tend to be more stable.  Dr. Ouimet had already climbed a number of the world's high peaks.  On this attempt he was intent on beating his 6,960 metre altitude record.

"I was afraid.  I was so confused that I can't say how far I was swept away or how many people were there in the camp at the time of the avalanche.  I had luck.  I did not go far enough and was (left) outside ... not buried under snow", said German Climber Andreas Reitero who was asleep at the 7,000 metre-level at his camp when he suddenly heard a "big sound".

Mountaineers who have this type of extreme mountain climbing in their blood usually use such climbs as experience precursors to climbing Mount Everest which beckons these extreme adventurers as the world's most famous and one of its most difficult climbing experiences, along with K2, where many lives have been lost to the ambition to stand victorious on those summits.

The Nepalese guides refer to Mount Manaslu as the "killer mountain".  Helicopters are being used in that remote, inaccessible area to search for the missing.  Cloud and fog have been complicating rescue efforts. 

 Avalanche sweeps away climbers in Nepal

BBC News online - 23 September 2012

Injured climbers were flown to safety by helicopter

 

At least nine climbers are feared dead and six more are missing in Nepal after an avalanche swept away Europeans and others on a Himalayan peak.

Officials confirmed two bodies had been recovered while a further seven were spotted on the slopes of Mount Manaslu in the north of the country.

The avalanche struck a base camp near the summit on Saturday, police said.

The two bodies recovered are said to be of a German and a Nepalese guide.

Police official Basanta Bahadur Kuwar was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency that 10 people had survived the avalanche but many among them were injured.

They were being flown to hospitals by rescue helicopters, he added.

Officials are trying to determine exactly how many people were in the climbing party.

Deteriorating weather conditions meant it was impossible to continue air searches of the mountain on Sunday, Mr Kuwar said.

• In pictures: Manaslu avalanche

The climbers were caught at 7,000m (22,960ft) as they were preparing to head toward the summit, which is 8,156m high. 

"The avalanche hit camp three of the Manaslu peak... resulting in a flood of snow," said Laxmi Dhakal, head of the Nepalese home ministry's disaster response division.

Hundreds of foreign climbers head every year for the Himalayas in Nepal, which has eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.

Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain in the world, is considered one of the most dangerous, with dozens of deaths in recent years.

The autumn climbing season began this month.

The Ice-Melt Canary

'There's the midnight sun, the incredible ice formations, the purity and colour of the water, there's a seal swimming off the boat right now'.

'There are narwhals, beluga whales, musk ox, all these mythical creatures.  Then there are these amazing visual effects like the northern lights, Fata Morgana, all sorts of crazy sunbows, rainbows of white light ... It's like you entered a parallel universe'.  Nicolas Peissel of Montreal

Montreal, however, is not where Mr. Peissel is viewing all these exotic frigid-atmosphere phenomena.  He embarked on an expedition through the Northwest Passage with his cousin from the U.S. Mogan Peissel and their colleague and friend, Swede Edvin Buegren, to prove something.  In their 31-foot fibreglass boat they have navigated through the Northwest Passage, accomplishing a feat that many before them for the last several hundred years have attempted, to little avail.

They set out three months ago, starting in Newfoundland, through to Greenland and the Canadian Arctic to prove, through their experiences, that Climate Change is real.  Routes like the McClure Strait have opened, a historical anomaly in a traditionally frozen landscape.  In the winter of the mid-1880s, Robert McClure himself had no such luck.  He decided to enter the Arctic waters in yet another search for John Franklin undertaken by the British Admiralty.

'Away he went, into the grinding confusion of the pack.  A tongue of ice, solid as granite, blocked their way.  With a strong following breeze blowing, McClure ordered every shred of canvas up and then boldly turned the ship's prow toward the very centre of the obstacle.  The Investigator shuddered to a near standstill, the masts trembling so violently they seemed about to shake the ship to pieces.  Then, suddenly, the ice split under the impact and they were through into open water.

'It required forty men in five boats to tow the Investigator around Point Barrow, an exhausting haul.  Now they entered uncharted waters.  Soon McClure could see the permanent polar pack ninety miles to the north, a stupendous, glittering wall of white, the growth of ages.  He had never seen anything like it in Baffin Bay or in the straits of the eastern Arctic.'*

Robert McClure was a determined man.  He had served under other well-known Arctic explorers on various expeditions and he was a seasoned seafarer.  He had luck where others had not and became convinced that he was being sheltered by a higher power; Providence, at the very least.  He brought his men and his ship through the main channel northeast of Banks Island, that would later be named for him as McClure Strait.

The three modern-day Arctic adventurers crossed the northernmost route of the Northwestern Passage, connecting Baffin Bay to the Arctic Ocean.  'There's no reason why we should have been able to do that' said Nicolas Peissel over a satellite telephone connection.  At any other time in the history of the Arctic that would have been impossible.  The McClure Strait representing the last stretch of land-bound water before the Beaufort Sea would have been iced in completely.

'If we get hit by a piece of ice, it will put a gaping hole into the boat', he said, speaking of navigating the boat through 55-kilometre-an-hour winds and waves cresting at four metres.  The waves, said Peissel, were packed with sharp pieces of ice.  On reaching McClure Strait they received an advisory from the Canadian Ice Service, an updated ice map and a warning not to 'attempt to cross because ice from north was pushing down on the strait.'

'But it was our only window.  So we made the decision to push through.  We wrote them back and said, 'Thank you, we understand the risks.  Please provide us with updates for the next 48 hours.'  The crew of three in fact had no sleep for the next 48 hours, the passage they sailed was narrow and dangerous, with rock on one side, ice on the other which threatened to trap them as it did Robert McClure, in his day, forcing him and his men to over-winter where they were.

Their mission, to prove that climate change is occurring, that millions on millions of gallons of fresh water is melting from the ice caps into the ocean, changing everything about us.  'The Arctic is the canary in the cage that tells us what's happening to the rest of the world', cautioned Peissel.

 *The Arctic Grail, The quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909, Pierre Berton

The Arctic Search For Franklin

"I told the crew of the boat yesterday that I'm sure some day they'll come around the bend and there's going to be the ship and there's going to be the body of Franklin over there, right on the wheel waiting there all this time."  Prime Minister Stephen Harper

So Canada is set to embark on yet another search for Franklin's lost ships, his remains and those of his men.  Not expecting to spend too much in the effort, but hoping that the mystery of his disappearance will at long last be solved.  Of course, just after his disappearance on the third and final of his expeditions looking for the Northwest Passage, there were many search parties launched for the purpose of 'rescuing' Franklin and his men.

His wife was determined that he should be found and brought back directly to her.  Her prodigious lobbying efforts to prod Parliament and the Royal Navy to expend funds and have Royal Navy ships embark on one search after another all came to nothing.  She never gave up hope that her husband would be returned to her, and Britain was persuaded by her public pleading and her connections in high places that it would redound to its reputation to bring him and his crew back.

"The eleven-year search for the lost ships elevated Sir John Franklin to the pantheon of Arctic sainthood.  To the New York Times, he was "one of the ablest, oldest and bravest men who had trodden that perilous path" (the Passage).  The newspaper praised the Franklin expedition and the search that followed as being "as noble an epic as that which has immortalized the fall of Troy or the conquest of Jerusalem.

"There is hardly a man of this generation whom the noble story of Arctic exploration has not moved to the depths of his soul. "  Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail

The purple prose of the day quite matched the era of the "age of chivalry" that 19th Century exploration exemplified.  As for Jane Franklin herself, her personality became beloved of the British and the Americans; they thought of her as "indomitable".  The very force of her public argument, its heart-rending pleas to the public to subscribe to her determination to ensure that authorities would agree time and again to yet another search for her lost husband, was seen to be inspirational.

"Because of her persistence, seven ships were frozen into the ice of the Arctic archipelago: McClure at Mercy Bay on Banks Island, Collinson at Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island, and Belcher's five vessels in the Wellington Channel, at Beechey Island, and in Melville Sound.

"That was not enough for the resolute and persevering widow.  She had now passed her sixtieth year but had lost none of her energy of commitment.  She clung stubbornly to the belief that her long-dead spouse or some of his men might still be alive."  Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail, The quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole 1818-1909

And so, it now appears that the Government of Canada has picked up where others shortly after Sir John Franklins's ships, the Erebus and the Terror disappeared, left the issue, unsolved and mysterious.  Parks Canada has been commissioned to pick up where they left off.  Their earlier search that came up with nothing will serve to at least eliminate some of the area for that part of the Arctic Ocean seabed where those sunken ships had sunk.

"The wreckage of the Franklin expedition is a national historic site.  It is the only undiscovered national historic site.  We feel an obligation to discover it.  It is an historic and iconic moment in our country's history, that's why people still write songs about it and essays about it," explained the Prime Minister, in his bid to enthuse the public about the romantic potential of discovery in solving a mysterious disappearance whose answer eluded detection by those in Franklin's Victorian era of exploration.

It is Franklin's name and his alone that is referred to with reference.  The plight of the 130 sailors whose safety and endurance was his responsibility remains an afterthought.  King William Island and the surrounding frozen Arctic have been loathe to surrender the mystery that they have clasped so tightly, for so long, away from human detection.  It remains to be seen whether this man, somewhat past his prime, somewhat incompetent, will yet enjoy another bout of acclaim.

Erebus:
Hecla-class bomb ship / 3 masts / L,B,D 105' x 28.5' x 13.8' - 32m x 8.7m x 4.2m / 372 tons / Hull: wooden / Complement 67 / Arms: 1 x 13" mortar, 1 x 10" mortar, 2 x 6pdr, 8 x 24 pdr / Designed Sir Henry Peake / Built: Pembroke dockyard, Wales 1826.

 Entitled, Driven, Arrogant

"As I got closer I could see the yellow of a down suit - it was a climber lying still on his side.  His oxygen mask was off and his nostrils were white, frostbitten.  I asked him his name and what group he was with but only got a slurred, unrecognizable response."

That was a scene that played out on the slope of Mount Everest on May 20, when a Polish climber had been abandoned by his team, which decided to leave him there, in the death zone, and themselves push on to ascend the peak of Everest, achieving their goal, and sacrificing one of their members to do so. 

Another team of climbers, coming across the dying man abandoned their summit attempt.  They spent their time instead in the humanitarian effort to bring the man down to one of the lower camps, from the South Col where he was lying in the snow, close to unconsciousness and death.

Ten climbers have died this climbing season on Mount Everest.  The month of May is seen as the window of opportunity, after which weather conditions are considered to be far too violently inclement to attempt the push to the summit.  Even with ideal weather people are exhausted, disoriented by the high altitude and oxygen deprivation.

They die on the slopes, some falling down crevasses, never to be seen again, others suffer from strokes, and yet others, like the Polish mountaineer, left to perish, freezing to death, while others climb right past them, unflinching in the reality of death, disbelieving that it could happen to them, fiercely determined to make the summit and realize their ambition.

That was a British team that had made the decision to bypass their ambition and instead save another human life.  Another British climber spoke later of the effect it had on him, seeing the human carnage on the mountain slope.  "On our ascent, we actually passed three of the dead and another two who were in an awful state."

In the opinion of an American summiteer who himself ascended successful as part of a team from the National Geographic Society on May 25, "a fully 25%" of those he witnessed attempting the ascent obviously lacked adequate training, let alone useful experience.  "This is a mortal sport, not tennis or bowling.  You make one mistake, the mountain might forgive you, but if  you make two or three, you die."

It would appear that over a four-day period this year, no fewer than 548 people decided to make the effort to the top.  Averaging out to 137 people each of those four days.  "Experienced climbers can make their own way and get away from the crowds.  But for those that have to stay on the fixed lines, everyone has to move at the speed of the slowest person."

People become besotted with the very idea of achieving the seemingly impossible physical feat of endurance and strength that it takes to commit to the climb of Everest.  They don't do this independently, since they are, at best, amateur climbers, people of athletic ability and skills who envision themselves being able to boast that they succeeded.  They pay between $70,000 to $110,000 to commercial guides.

After paying that kind of money, they are resistant when and if their guides tell them they risk losing their lives and it's best to turn back.  They insist on going forward, exhaust themselves, and become liabilities to the other climbers.  One man spent four days near the 8,000 'death zone' area, despite the low oxygen level and freezing temperatures, refusing to descend without reach the summit.  He was finally rescued, suffering frostbite.

"The mountain didn't kill these people, they killed themselves.  In many cases, the Sherpas told the client, 'You are moving too slowly, you are going to die' and the client refused - and they died.  They viewed the summit as more important than their own life."  Likely they viewed the attempt as possible, refusing to believe they hadn't the strength, stamina and determination to make it.  Reality occasionally escapes people.

The Nepalese government charges $10,000 per permit per person.  "More expeditions mean more royalty and more revenue for the government.  Because expeditions have become so commercial, there is much less stress on training.  Poorly trained climbers without enough exposure to the climate are going up who have no idea about the need to acclimatize to the oxygen levels and hardships."

And they simply do not come back down again under their own steam.  It's estimated that the commercial tour guides earned something in the neighbourhood of $31-million from the estimated 446 foreigners who aspired to climb the mountain this year, with $5-million going into government coffers. 

Extreme Endurance/Ghoulishly Extreme

They're driven to succeed.  Having committed themselves to the venture, they must summit the mountain.  The window of opportunity is rare and it is slim.  They must take advantage of any and all opportunities to ascend the last, most dangerous portion of their clamber to success.  There is money, ambition, reputation and a dash of narcissistic appeal in the heady brew.

Climbers reach the Hillary Step portion of the climb to the summit of Mt Everest. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

 

And the adventurous mountaineers, with the considerable assistance of their more capable, agile, experienced and physically enduring Sherpas, plod on through vicious weather conditions and extreme geological environments to succeed at their goal.   Countless people have determined that they will conquer that mountain.  Many have.

And  then there are those who remain on the mountain, in perpetuity.  Perhaps not for an eternity, but until they may no longer remain there. They have become exhausted, incapable of thinking rationally, of defending themselves from the elements, of brain instructing body to act.  And there they sit, or remain prostate, unmoving, silent reminders to those who pass, averting their eyes.

Except for the very new deaths that have occurred in places where they cannot be ignored.  Say, for example, still clipped to those ropes that climbers must use to haul themselves into position, one after the other.  Climbers who have to clip and then unclip themselves to pass over a body hanging there on the mountain.  Carrying on, forcing their minds to concentrate on their survival, not someone else's death.

"There was another man who was almost dead.  He was sitting attached to an anchor and he was rocking and I just thought it was a dead body rocking in the wind, but as we passed he raised his arm and looked at us.  He didn't know anyone was there.  He was almost dead.  He was dead when we came back down".  These are those people so dedicated to their goal that they will pass by another human in mortal distress.

To stop and attempt to help, to form a brigade to assist, to bring that dying man down to a lower level where oxygen could be restored, where medical aid could be applied, would mean surrendering one's own goal to succeed to the summit.  Unthinkable.  Although it has been done, in the past, by those whose standards and values encompassed compassion leading to offering help in the knowledge that time will offer other opportunities to summit...

"There was a single rope attached to the mountain and you have to pass people on ridges that are only wide enough for one set of feet, and you are literally climbing over other people to get back down again", reported one adventurous young woman, a medical student at Southampton University, who found the experience more terrifying than rewarding.

This is a mountain-climbing expedition that does not benefit from countless people attempting to realize their dreams of success, creating a back-up of others behind them awaiting their ascent so that they may begin their own, over treacherous terrain, where a very narrow trail exists, and occasionally the only means of moving forward and upward is with the aid of a dangling rope that can only be accessed carefully, one-by-one.

Moreover, those crowded conditions mean that the long waits before the trails could be clear to proceed, would bring the climbers to a late-afternoon, and dangerous time lag.  When the optimum time to reach the summit is ten in the morning, so the descent can begin and conclude at an equally early time of day.  The later one waits to achieve the peak, the more dangerous the descent becomes.  And it is in the descent at the eight-thousand-metre death-zone level where death waits.

Four victims of their own ambitions died above the South Col camp, the last camp before the summit.  In the area famously recognized as the death zone.  Where extreme cold can freeze a person to death who lingers too long; where oxygen deprivation can cause the kind of irreparable mental and physical distress that will make a person linger too long, because he becomes unaware...

Shriya Shah-Klorfine, a Nepali-Canadian woman whose life's ambition was to ascend Mount Everest was so passionate about her ambition that she refused to listen to the three Sherpas whom she had hired to guide her to the mountain peak.  Too late in the day to proceed, and she was far too exhausted.  But she insisted that they struggle on, and she was rewarded by standing on the peak of Mount Everest.

Those three Sherpas, who were forced to leave the dying woman on the descent in abysmal weather conditions to save their own lives, have made an effort to return, to retrieve her body and return it to her family.  They partially succeeded, then had to surrender to inclement, dangerous conditions, determined to try again.  Her last words evidently were "Save me".

And the Sherpas will attempt to save her body from remaining forever on the slopes of the mountain in the death zone.  If they can, before the season abruptly shuts down, as it is destined to.

 Life-Risky Mountain Climbing

"I sat Yasuko down in Beck's lap," Madsen recalls, "but he was pretty unresponsive by that time, and Yasuko wasn't moving at all.  A little later I saw that she'd laid down flat on her back, with snow blowing into her hood.  Somehow she'd lost a glove - her right hand was bare and her fingers were curled up so tightly you couldn't straighten them.  It looked like they were pretty much frozen to the bone.

"I assumed she was dead", Madsen continues.  "But then a while later she suddenly moved, and it freaked me out; she sort of arched her neck slightly, as if she was trying to sit up, and her right arm came up, then that was it.  Yasuko lay back down and never moved again."  Jon Krakauer: Into Thin Air

A lot of people have died on Mount Everest in the Himalaya.  And on that expedition-crowded day of May 10, 1996 a record number died in one day; it represented the deadliest season in the history of Mount Everest.  Jon Krakauer, an experienced summitteer, wrote of his experiences on that fateful day, up the mountain and within the 'Death Zone' above 25,000 feet where extreme cold and exhaustion, and high winds and oxygen-depletion took its toll.


History has a habit of repeating itself.  There was a 'traffic jam' on that fateful day in May, the most auspicious month for such ascents, and considered to be the optimum climbing season, and a similar situation that revealed itself in May of 2012, sixteen years later.  Five people died on Everest this week.  Weather conditions were atrocious, and people were dreadfully fatigued, coming down off the peak.


A Canadian woman, Shriya Shah-Klorfine, was blown to her death off the mountain by a sudden storm.  South Korean Song Won-Bin, 44 is missing, but the Nepali government assures it it was simply "not possible for him to have survived.  A German national, Dr. Eberhard Schaaf died of altitude sickness - or alternately was swept away by an avalanche, and Chinese national Wangyi Fa was killed by the same high winds that took Ms. Shah-Klorfine, born in Nepal.


"[One man] was basically hallucinating, he took his hat off, his gloves were thrown away and then he kind of reached out and looked at me ... he kind of reached out to me, kind of in a zombie-lake fashion", related U.S. climber Jon Kedrowski to a Colorado Fox News affiliate.  Oxygen deprivation, extreme fatigue, they take their toll.

And everyone is desperately exhausted, so much so that they must concentrate on their own survival.


Ms. Shah-Klorfine, the Nepali-Canadian, 33 years of age, was summitting as an aspirational dream.  "Nothing is impossible in this world, even the word 'impossible' says 'I M POSSIBLE'!", she wrote on her website.  She was among a group of 150 climbers who grasped the opportunity of what looked like good weather ahead, to press on for the summit.


In all, there were over 300 aspirants to the top that day, Saturday, May 19th.  Altitude sickness and extreme cold took their toll at the 8,000-metre level, the "Death Zone".  This year's push to the top was marked by extremely dangerous conditions as well.  A mix of loose snow and slick surfaces as a result of the mountain's warmest spring on record.


This kind of extreme mountain climbing adventure is life-risky.  The British Medical Journal in 2006 put the death rate at one fatality for each ten successfully-concluded climbs.  Those who manage to make it to the peak experience a one-in-twenty chance they won't survive the descent.  Those who die on Everest remain there.  Over 200 dead climbers are visible from various aspects on the trails and mountain slopes.


It is an immense mountain.  With a single passage or trail or pathway in most areas which people must traverse.  With such a crowded group of mountain enthusiasts negotiating the trails, time elapses waiting for the line to thin out as each takes his/her turn at the tricky, difficult passes and climbing areas, negotiating ice and snow and geological irregularities and assistive bridges and ladders.  Waiting is dangerous.

Two Sherpas died on the mountain that day that five foreigners lost their lives.  The Sherpas perished in the service of those who come to the region to challenge their own nature and endurance and that of the mountain.  The Sherpas died in an effort to make a living for themselves and their families.

There is a vital time limit for ascending and descending to minimize danger.  And danger is always present.  Five climbers dead in 2012; eight climbers who died in the blizzard of 1996 that Jon Krakauer wrote of.
 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Sends shivers down one's spine, to think of the very notion of being folded into a very cramped space in an underwater submersible whose specifications must be such that it is capable of resisting water pressure a thousand times over the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.

People are very crushable, when an elephant, for example, sits on them. The elephant in this case, the extreme level of the Mariana Trench.

Of course at that extreme depth - 35,756 feet - the rays of the sun, let alone light of any kind does not penetrage; it is dark, pitch dark. Lights, of course on the submersible, can provide some opportunity to view what surrounds one in the trench.

For there is life down there, both aquatic plant life and creatures swimming about in those profound depths.

And this is where filmmaker James Cameron spent three hours of his time in a submersible he had specially built so he could dive within it about 11 kilometers deep in the Pacific Ocean. It is dark there and it is impressively cold, around the freezing mark.

Cameron plans to film in three-D down there, his journey to the depths of the world's warm ocean.
This is called the Deep-Sea Challenge project. There will shortly be another scheduled dive, this one by another adventurer-explorer, Richard Branson.

Cameron planned to return with scientific data and specimens. With that kind of financial expenditure, and for the furtherment of science, might it not have been a very good idea to send down a willing biologist, eager to uncover some of the mysteries of nature at that impossible depth, rather than a rank amateur?

If you have the celebrity and the wealth to proceed, and the ego to push you along, the very thought of surrendering yourself to the practical value of furthering science to that degree is, one supposes, irrelevant.

Severe Irreversible Damage

She was one of those shooting stars. Suddenly appearing in the firmament of elite athletes. Blazing her way to recognition and fame with the admiration of those who witnessed her skill and determination to push the boundaries of human endeavour and our binding relationship to the Earth we live upon through the force of gravity.

By all accounts she excelled at what she did best. Because what she did best was something that inspired her to keep on testing herself. "That's when we're the happiest", she told an interviewer, talking about her life and her husband's life as extreme sport enthusiasts. Winter sport was their passion, and this is what they lived for.

"...It's what our lives are, is being on the hill. And there's a reason for that, it's amazing, it's where we met, it's where we play, we live ..."

Who could argue with that? Her husband, during that interview about X Games contests, and the togetherness of snowmobiling that they so clung to, added: "And hopefully where we'll die." That struck a chord with Sarah Burke, and she repeated what her husband, Rory Bushfield had said: "And where we'll die."

And this is precisely what the pioneering superpipe skier did.

This is most certainly not what she meant to do. She was attempting a flat spin 540, something she had done countless times before. Only this time something went dreadfully wrong. She fell. She hit her head. That led to a disastrous outcome. A ruptured vertebral artery where blood was no longer supplied to her exuberantly adventurous brain.

She went into cardiac arrest then and there. And while the artery was surgically repaired later, it was too late for Sarah Burke. No mere band-aid surgery could repair the morbid trauma her brain had sustained. Which was "severe irreversible damage to her brain due to the lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest."

Young, beautiful, bold and talented. A life crammed with excitement and satisfaction in what she did. And very much dead.

Back to article Sarah Burke, a fearless competitor who shaped her sport

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