Because It's There : Climbing Mount Everest

"Mount Everest is still a very dangerous mountain, and climbing it will never become a walk in the park, because it's way above the limits of what most people can do."  "By analyzing climbing data, we provide accurate information on the chances of success and on the chances of dying, thereby helping climbers make an informed decision about whether to attempt this great peak."                                  Professor Raymond Huey, University of Washington

"The researchers found that a contemporary 60-year-old climber has about the same death rate -- about 2 percent -- as a 48.5-year-old in the earlier period, suggesting '60 is the new 40' when it comes to summiting Everest. The probabilities of summiting were similar for men and women."                              University of Washington researchers

A newly-published study has concluded with interesting but also predictable results. Published by the journal PLOS One, the findings represent a comprehensive view of climbing success and the rate of death to date, on the world highest peak. The 29,000-foot peak, once thought unassailable, has traditionally been sacred to the people of the region, the abode of a goddess who is worshipped by the Sherpas who call the mountain Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the World.

Twice as many mountaineers successfully climb Mount Everest, pictured, now than three decades ago — but the death rate remains at around 1 per cent, a study has found

 

 

 

 

 Between 1990 and 2005, one third of the  mountaineers who set out to climb Mount Everest reached the summit. Between 2006 and 2019 that success rate doubled to two-thirds realizing success in their bid to reach the top, point out the University of Washington researchers. Current expeditions are likelier to succeed in scaling the mountain, using supplemental oxygen. The thin air at the topmost levels of the mountain, known as the 'Death Zone' can cause high altitude sickness in even the most fit people.

That condition produces brain fog, impacts judgement, creates tiredness, sapping energy when lower air pressure and low oxygen levels wreak havoc in the brain. Climbers acclimatize to lower oxygen levels by gradually approaching the thinner atmosphere, returning from camp 4, for example, to camp 5 to gradualize the impact on their body function. With the use of supplemental oxygen canisters the risk of acquiring mountain sickness is dramatically reduced.

There have been mountaineers, the elite in the field, who have managed to reach the summit eschewing supplemental oxygen; over the years that number has reached up to several hundred ambitious and highly experienced climbers. Another useful climbing tool is the fixed ropes put in place at particularly dangerous places on the mountainside to enable climbers to maintain footing, and not stray from the most direct route to the summit. That dangerous and highly skilled pre-preparation work is usually undertaken by Sherpas under direction from a head Sherpa.

Reaching 29,030 feet above sea level, the summit of Everest in the Himalayas attracts around 500 climbers wanting to scale the world's tallest peak each year. Pictured, the Everest base camp

Communication has improved substantially, and that has been a huge help, since accurate weather reports warn mountaineers what they will be encountering, and with that information, plan when to set off for best possible ascent conditions to the summit -- and when to lay low and wait out the kind of atrocious weather conditions at high altitude that Mount Everest is known for; sudden snowstorms and winds strong enough to rip tents off the mountainside, often trapping summiteers for days in their tents waiting for the storm to pass.

Expedition leaders have gained invaluable experience with repeat climbs, as have the indispensable Sherpas whose climbing prowess has long been acclaimed as essential to the success of a climbing expedition. All those things considered, climbing Everest is extremely dangerous. Roughly one percent of people who attempt the climb succumb to accidental death. Even after a successful ascent the rigours of the descent after an exhausting climb claim more lives than does the ascent itself.

Between 1990 and 2004, 2,211 climbers dedicated their endeavours to mounting the peak, a number that increased to 3,620 people from 2005 to 2019, a rise of about 64 percent. Increasingly, inexperienced climbers take on the challenge of the summit as a prestigious feather in their cap as it were, leading to crowded conditions at narrow precipices and passes when time is of the essence, creating long wait times and adding to exhaustion and danger.

Adventure Travel//Mountaineer//Out There

Comparisons between the two periods show that:

• Summit success rates from the first period to the second period have essentially doubled; two-thirds of climbers now reach the summit, verses one-third previously
• The overall death rate of around 1% hasn't changed
• A contemporary 60-year-old climber has the same success rate (about 40%) as a 40-year-old climber in the prior period -- i.e., 60 is the new 40
• A contemporary 60-year-old climber has the about the same death rate (about 2%) as a 48.5-year-old in the earlier period
• More women are attempting the climb in recent years (14.6%) verses the previous period (9.1%)
• Women and men had very similar odds of success or death in both periods

 

Searching Out Awesome Thrills

"I looked down once and I thought to myself, 'This is it, I'm going to fall to my death. I'm a goner."
"I just locked on and held on as hard as I could. I didn't have much grip left in me at all. My hand was opening, I was slipping."
"Gail [his wife] and her pilot took off first…. looked cool as hell. Then my pilot and I lined up for takeoff. We waited a bit for the updraft to pick up and then we ran till we left the side of the 4000 ft mountain edge. I was expecting to level out above the pilot as we went, but quickly discovered that my harness was not attached to the hang glider or anything else…"
"While the pilot made a critical error in our pre-flight set-up by not attaching me to the glider, he did all he could to get me down to the ground as quickly as possible while grabbing onto my harness and flying with one hand."
"My body weight shifted straight down and I found myself hanging on for my life. I remember looking down and thinking, this is it. I was losing grip with my right hand that was holding onto a strap on the pilot’s right shoulder. He was trying to make a beeline to the landing field as he knew what the situation could bring."
"As we were going down for a hot landing I was slowly losing my grip with my right hand as I was swinging in the wind with the glider. The pilot grabbed my hand, but like in the movies it was a slow motion slipping of the grip until my right hand slipped off and I grabbed another strap on his left side for a bit but this slipped off also."
"I ended up holding on the bar with the left hand and the lower part of his leg with the right when we were nearing the ground."  
Chris Gursky, American tourist in Switzerland

Chris Gursky and his wife, Gail, were on vacation in Switzerland when they decided to try hang gliding for the first time.

Working as an auto-parts store manager and photographer might not be the most fascinating job in the world, so it's possible that Chris Gursky of North Port, Florida was ready for some drama and life-changing excitement. He might not have imagined just how life-threatening that drama might turn out to be, but then who among us does when we set out to do something out of the ordinary to break up the tedium in life's routines?

This would be Mr. Gursky and his wife Gail's first such adventure; hang-gliding, but it seems they needed no convincing that this first-time exposure to the thrills of the recreational 'sport' would add something to their lives. In fact, it came close to subtracting something vital to both their lives. He might have ended up very dead, and she a widow. Not the kind of thought that appeals to most people looking to be entertained.

No one, least of all, Mr. Gursky, and perhaps the pilot who somehow overlooked the most vital safety assurance incumbent upon an instructor-pilot having someone else's life in his hands, might foresee. But accidents happen and one man's forgetfulness can translate as another man's ill fortune. In this instance, however, it was not to be and Mr. Gursky had the good fortune to come away from his rather unorthodox experience in hang-gliding relatively unscathed.

No serious physical injuries incurred, though it's remotely possible he will have nightmares for a while. Remotely in the sense that because he had been unable to experience the thrill of a safe hang-gliding exploit, he is still determined to do so and plans in the future to give it another try. This time, however -- if there is another 'this time' -- he will know enough to ensure that he is securely strapped on to the device even if the professional momentarily and almost-catastrophically forgets.

The episode took two minutes total, start to finish. It started badly and ended extremely well. Both Mr. Gursky and the pilot shaken needless to say, but both survived what appeared at first to be the epitaph of one man in failure to launch and the haunted conscience and loss of professional gravitas of the other. Generously, Mr. Gursky praises the pilot as a "good guy" who "did all he could and more" ... aside from neglecting to secure him as per standard avoidance of death technique.

Still from video   Global News

They took off from a 4,000-foot mountain ledge (be still, my heart) when the realization hit that there was nothing securing him to the glider, the harness he was fitted with was nicely in place but unattached. Mr. Gursky found himself dangling to the left of the pilot, clinging to the bar of the glider and alternately to the pilot, not too enthused about meeting the ground prematurely with nothing to cushion the impact.

He did deliberately loose his grip on the pilot/glider at just the right time, ejecting while moving at 70 km/h, seconds before the glider landed in a field of grass. A broken wrist and a torn biceps tendon was what the effort cost him. On the other hand, the video documenting the entire episode has found a celebrated home on YouTube with over a million gawping views by Tuesday following the Monday event.

And Mr. Gursky is now a celebrity of sorts. To whom congratulations for his survival of an untoward incident is due.

Still from video   Global News

The Aching Vacuum

"[It's not a specific dream, but] mostly the comfort of his presence, seeing  him, hearing his voice -- just a feeling that he is with me. [Dreaming, there is a brief reprieve from] the constant aching void that I feel for him every waking minute."
"...I didn't want to be that helicopter parent, the overprotective mother."
"It's such a backward and such a corrupt country [Peru]."
"At the cemetery [for her father's funeral, late August], I scooped up a shovel full of earth and dropped it on the coffin -- and said, 'Oh, my God, this is my goal'. It hit  me like a ton of bricks: I'm  trying to bring my son home in a coffin. But it's not even that; it's that I have to know what happened."
"Because I brought them [son and daughter] up alone and because he was the older one, he was my friend. Jesse was not just my son, but he was my best friend. We took ski  trips out west alone together annually, loved spending time together, and we talked about everything."
"We were closer than the usual mother-son relationship -- even through his teens. He was an enormous emotional support to me, and a huge part of my life."
"Every single time I go back [to Peru] with hope anew -- and I am disappointed. But I have to keep going. I can't finish it until I have an ending."
Alisa Clamen, 53, Montreal

Alisa Clamen at home in Côte-St-Luc. "Jesse was not just my son, but he was my best friend." John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette

"We built a psychology profile of Jesse to figure out what he considered and what he did not consider and to figure out how he made his decisions."
"Either he was carried out of the area [Santa Cruz Trail, Peru], or hidden very carefully."
"[Alisa Clamen is] one of the strongest people [I've ever encountered in such missing persons cases.] She is very strong, very rational and she is making every effort."
"Though it takes time, we believe we will reach a solution."
Magnus International Search & Rescue CEO Guy Atzmon

"To find him now is a matter of intelligence to point you in the right direction to look. It means very deep work, getting into small villages, local people."
"...My heart is with the mother. That's what is driving me, to try to raise the mystery out of those mountains."
"We would like to provide some peace for her soul."
Hilik Magnus, founder, Magnus International Search & Rescue

Jesse Galganov, 22, (right) is seen with his mother Alisa Clamen in this undated photo. (CP24)

He was 22 years old, a young man of adventurous spirit, about to begin medical school in Philadelphia, come July. Before then, he planned to satisfy his sense of adventure on a solo trip to South America and Asia, an eight-month travel venture. His mother drove him to the airport so he could board a flight for Peru. That was a year ago. On the 28th of September Jesse texted his mother, informing her he'd be out of touch for four days while he hiked the Santa Cruz trail along the world's highest tropical mountain range.

October 2 arrived and Jesse's mother felt certainthat her son must have set out on a longer trail. By the following week she contacted the Canadian embassy to be informed that a police report was required to alert Interpol. On October 17, the single mother of two young adults, a practising lawyer, set out herself for Peru. From her experience while there, she gained the indelible impression that authorities were not all that interested in tracking her son's whereabouts. Not did she get much help elsewhere.

She found a lack of security and organization. Registration trail logs were missing or incomplete; technology companies and service providers refused to release details of last use of Jesse's electronic devices. She quickly organized searches both by local teams and through an elite Israeli-based search-and-rescue group with equipment and advanced technology inclusive of underwater robots and drones, in the search and investigation. So far all that activity has come in at a cool $2 million. Helped by community support, fundraising, and mortgaging her home, she carried on.

She no longer hopes to find her son alive, but she desperately wants to know what happened to him, and if at all possible, to discover where his body is, and to bring it home to Canada. She has been long divorced; her daughter was one year old at the time, Jesse two. She is no longer capable of practising her profession as she once did; concentration eludes her. She now lives a fairly secluded life, unwilling to socialize, seeing none but close friends and family. "I don't have the desire or energy for anything else", she points out, understandably.

She is no longer "in step" with the world at large. She goes out of her way to avoid running into people she knows: "They don't know what to say. I hate putting them in that position." She continues to pay her son's cellphone invoices: "I can't bring myself to stop", and until recently maintained his car lease. People admire her strength and perseverance. "What's the alternative? I can fall apart and just stay in bed -- or I can try to function. If I don't continue the search for Jesse, who else will?"

The Magnus crew analyzed Jesse's trek, the environment in which he found himself, how he managed to forge ahead with his plans. They contacted close to 200 other travellers from around the world they managed to identify through Facebook photos, "to build the full picture of who Jesse met, whom he spoke to". Two hikers who had shared the same campsite with Jesse on September 30 for example. They discovered that on October 1, Jesse had enquired of a group of Czech tourists where he might find water. After that there was no sign of him.

There are those who feel Jesse may have been assailed with altitude sickness causing him to wander off trail where he succumbed to the elements. Possibly, someone might have come across his body, robbed him and moved him to a remote location by donkey or horse, or even thrown his body into a body of water nearby. Not content to allow others to do the searching Alisa Clamen spent four months in the past year in Peru, 21 nights of which were spent on the Santa Cruz trail, willing herself to view what her son encountered, to walk in his footsteps.

The trail, she found, is difficult to navigate, dangerous, poorly marked with ample hazards aside from altitude sickness. There are mud fields, jagged rock fragments (scree) and slippery rock sheets to negotiate. In July she went along with a local guide-company owner she trusts and his team on a glacier search on the trail, encountering a 50-cm snowfall that impeded progress on their search. A canine team trained to sniff out human remains failed to work due to the difficulty of the terrain.

Alisa Clamen yearns, and needs her son Jesse, alive or dead, to return home to her, so her soul can be at rest just as his will be put to rest.

Jesse Galganov Fund

Missing Children's Network Canada

Cocktails at Antarctica

"[Researchers have] only got so much money. There are only so many ships, there's only so much time in the academic year. We're up there four times a summer, and these researchers might get to go once. We saw an opportunity to fill that gap in, to do research where it's not being done already."
"This project is important because it is a test of amateurs being able to collect good data."
"We had a huge amount to learn, but ... we were able to settle into producing accurate and consistent data, which we then felt confident uploading for use."
Alex Cowan, geologist, contracted expedition staff

Citizen Science at the North Pole -- August 1, 2015 -- Photos by Lauren Farmer

 

"Glaciers we used to take people to are now gone. They're not only no longer in the water, they're so far back on the land that we can't reasonably hike to the foot of them."
"We do have an impact when we go there [Arctic]. It's well managed and our impact is small, but ... I think there's a real responsibility to do more than go there and take."
"For a first-time visitor, it's an incredibly powerful experience, but it doesn't really penetrate sometimes. I firmly believe that getting involved in the science means staying out longer, getting a little colder, getting out of your comfort zone, but ultimately you get a more vivid experience."
"You don't go to Antarctica for the cocktails, you know?"
Ted Cheeseman, ecological tour operator

Polar travel adventures as tourists now have a new twist to them. Typically, such expeditions have on board scientists, biologists, geologists, who contract with a travel companies to such ecologically exotic places to explain to tourists the landscapes they are observing and the ecology and the wildlife they happen to come across. When, for example, university is out for the summer months, professors of biology, or botany sometimes find it personally useful to sign on to expeditions as contracted specialists, available to give lectures and to act as guides for tourists travelling to the Arctic.

Whale-watching expeditions, for example, then offer the expertise of contracted marine biologists who will explain to those interested in delving deeper into the biology and habits of whales, just what is involved, bring the experience alive and educating tourists at the same time; entertainment and information in one fell swoop of the intersection of travel and academia. The duo of geologist Alex Cowan and photographer Lauren Farmer, working as contracted expedition staff last year discussed that intersection.

Lauren Farmer   Travellers on an Northern expedition are conscripted to gather data to be used research for climate scientists

And from that discussion arose the concept of citizen-science. Ordinary people already sign on to giving additional assistance to government bodies, for example, in reporting certain weather events enabling forecasters to get a more wide-ranging idea of what's happening with the atmosphere. Enthusiastic birders tallying their ongoing sightings, help ornithologists and other agencies to get a clearer picture of migration and other issues of interest to science. The idea that Cowan and Farmer hatched was the involvement of ordinary people, as tourists on cruise ships to ecologically sensitive locations.

After recruitment of those interested in volunteering their time, a small circle of citizen scientists emerge, who are exposed to some training to enable them to understand what is required. Four round trips between Murmansk, Russia and the North Pole with Poseidon Expeditions enabled Cowan and Farmer to test their initiative with what they ultimately named the Sea Ice Research Team. All the volunteers were trained to measure the temperature and salinity of melt ponds in the Arctic Ocean, to aid scientists in producing accurate models of the speed of sea ice melt.

The work has been recognized as potentially valuable to ecologists. It is being used by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States Sea Ice Prediction Network. The growing popularity of Arctic tourism in the cruise industry, with increasing numbers of tourists on passenger vessels travelling across Nunavut is a recognized trend that researchers are now exploring for its potential to bring them much-needed data. As with the Arctic, so too with the Antarctic. There, tourists are to track whale movement through documentation assembled in photographs. Researchers then record whale sounds applying multi-sensor tags, tracking the animals' underwater movements.

The travel industry years ago initiated a new type of travel; tourism abroad where people could volunteer to work on projects in underdeveloped countries. It gave people a sense of purpose to their tourism travels. This new line of tourist-involvement in gathering data useful to scientists is yet another way to allow tourists the opportunity to feel that they are being productive even while they are indulging their penchant for travel and sight-seeing. It is a more in-depth commitment, but one that promises to result in personal satisfaction of having been of use to science.

Leviathan II Tragedy

"This vessel has operated for 20 years with an absolutely perfect safety record. This is something just totally out of the blue. We just don't understand and we won't know the answers until the Transportation Safety Board finishes their investigations."
"On larger vessels [like Leviathan II] we're not required to have the passengers wear the life jackets. On smaller open boats they are."
Jamie Bray, owner, Jamie's Whaling Station, Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

"They must have got swamped by a huge wave and it flipped their boat completely. I don't think they had time to do anything."
"Whatever happened, happened so quick."
Alec Dick, first responder

"It wasn't even blowing hard. This is the largest boat in Tofino, and I was really surprised that it went down."
"They [rescuers] grabbed on to a body and while they were doing that another body popped up and surfaced in the water. They grabbed two and said they had a difficult time because their bodies were covered in diesel. There was three of them they [relatives] brought in."
Joe Martin, carver, Tal-o-qui-aht tribal member

Brian Hutchinson/National Post  Clarence Smith, from the Ahousaht First Nation, describes the rescue effort in Tofino

 

It was fishing boats from the nearby Ahousaht First Nation that first arrived near Plover Reefs, west of Vargas Island when the whale-watching boat Leviathan II, a 65-foot covered cruiser, suddenly capsized in a 30-foot depth, after four in the afternoon on Sunday afternoon. In total, 27 people were aboard the tour boat, including tourists and crew. Of that number 21 were rescued; five bodies were recovered and one person was missing.

At that point -- where sea lions are often seen, an attraction for tourists who take such tours in hopes of seeing wild sea creatures like orcas and grey whales -- an area called Sea Lion Rocks by locals, there was nothing, evidently, to warn anyone, crew or tourists, that they would shortly be in trouble. When the ship had left the harbour in Tofino the waters were glassy-calm. But past the tip of Vargas Island, swells are more common, with two-metre waves plowing onto the rocks, the sea lions undisturbed by it all.

The first sign that something was wrong was when two men [Clarence Smith and Kenny Brown] fishing in their small boat from the Ahousaht First Nation, suddenly saw a flare reach for the sky; a distress signal, but when they dialled their radio there was no emergency call. The two men turned their fishing boat toward Sea Lion Rocks, and soon screaming was audible from panicked people. They were incredulous to see the Leviathan II close to fully capsized, its bow above water.

Albert Titian/Facebook  The Leviathan II whale-watching boat capsized near Tofino, B.C., Sunday, with 27 people aboard. Five Britons died, and one person remains missing

And then they saw people in the water, some on liferafts, and they began the difficult task of trying to retrieve as many as they could from the frigid, choppy water, relieved to soon see other fishing boats arrive to offer their assistance in the calamity as well, hauling frightened and freezing people out of the sea, and bodies as well of those who had died. A traumatic experience for everyone, the tourists whose furthest thought would have been they would be in danger, the rescuers, and the boat owners.

Later, the BC Coroners Service verified that three of the dead had come to Canada as tourists; one person came from Ontario, and the other lived in British Columbia; four men and one woman died, between the ages of 18 and 76. The search had been called off late Sunday night, a statement from the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre revealed. With Mounties taking charge afterward, of the search for the missing passenger.

And the fisherfolk of the Ahousaht First Nation determined to give aid to the search launched by the RCMP, as is their custom. "They know these waters. They have a custom not to leave a body out at sea", said volunteer Robert Burridge.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito   Ahousaht First Nation boats patrol an area on Monday, Oct.26, 2015 where the whale-watching boat Leviathan II capsized near Tofino, B.C. Sunday afternoon.

Thrilling Dangerously

"[I've] just witnessed history. The glass-bottomed walkway on Yuntai Mountain just cracked. When I was about to reach the end [of the passage], I heard a sudden bang and felt a shake under my feet."

"I looked down and saw the glass floor beneath me shattered. [I have] no idea why it happened, at that moment everybody was screaming."

"I yelled out loud 'It cracked, it really cracked!', then pushed the people in front of me to leave. [I was] terrified."

Female tourist: internet screen name 'lidonghaishuohezainihaowodehai'

Glass, the perfect medium to view objects through. With silvered backing glass reflects us as we peer at a looking-glass (mirror). With the glass freely transparent, we can see what lies beyond the glass. Windows invite light into chambers from the out-of-doors. The utility of windows is obvious when used in perfectly normal, pedestrian ways that we are familiar with. When glass is used otherwise in construction, say, as a building curtain to take the place of conventional brick and mortar, cement and steel, the appearance is quite different; sometimes the glass is imbued with a copper tinge, or other metals for variation. With glass shrouding the outer surface of a building we see the sky reflected in it, as though the sky is absorbing the building itself.


And when a bridge -- conventionally built to enable passage from one height to another over an impassable middle like a river or a gorge -- is constructed with glass, we can view at all angles, including below our very feet what the chasm below looks like. It takes an enormous leap of faith, to casually traverse a glass bridge. Glass is viewed as friable, easily broken or smashed when force is applied. Replacing metal with glass to sheath a bridge seems risky, even with the knowledge that glass can be produced that is shatter-proof, with enormous strength.

But people can be trusting when they are informed that there is safety in modern construction methods, even those which use glass to enable people to walk across great distances to view landscapes they would never see under other, ordinary circumstances, enhanced beyond measure when the viewing platform their feet stand upon is completely transparent. People take comfort in the presence of other people doing similar things. If so many people find the assurances trustworthy, then why not themselves as well?

Glass-bottomed bridges have become a popular tourist attraction at various venues throughout the world. And in particular in spectacular natural areas of the world, like great, yawning canyons. The world's highest and longest glass skywalk was built in Zhangjiajie, in Hunan province. It is a structure that stretches 430 metres in length, situated above a canyon floor at a height of 300 metres. Acrophobiacs need not apply.

Terrified: The event yesterday left visitors screaming on the walkway 3,540 ft high

A newly-built and -opened structure located in Hunan province at the Yuntaishan scenic area, a walkway capable of and indeed supporting dozens of tourists emitted a loud crack when a pane of the 68-metre section shattered into small segments. Tourists who were there to hear the panel crack were understandably alarmed. But to their credit no stampede of fearful people resulted, to create a scenario of chaotic danger imperilling peoples' lives.

As a result, no injuries were reported due to panic. This is a structure that has been built on a cliff side about 120 metres above a canyon in a remote mountain area treasured for its ethereal beauty. The site and its glass walkway opened on September 20. The management of the bridge posted information stating that the cracks resulted from external force, but that the walkway is capable of supporting weights of over 800 kilograms per square metre. One of the three layers of glass had cracked leaving the remaining two intact.

The bridge management dismissed fears of whether or not walking along a glass walkway over an immense depth is a good idea by emphasizing that "This has no impact on safety", and so, for the trusting and the curious -- definitely not the faint of heart -- but the hardy thrill-seeker; all those whose spirit of adventure no mere set-back like a glass square of a glass bridge cracking is not easily jarred, rest easy.

Johannes Eisele—AFP/Getty IMages    A Chinese tourist holds onto his son as they walk across a glass-bottomed suspension bridge in the Shinuizhai mountains in Pingjang county, Hunan province some 150 kilometers from Changsha on Oct. 7, 2015

The Nature of Things

In 2013, Natalia Molchanova became the only woman in the sport's history to break the 100-meter barrier, at the world championships in Kalamata, Greece. Credit Daan Verhoeven

"The bear was in bad condition, very skinny, and was of course very desperate for food. [With no ice floes just open water the bear had] no choice than to start his dive a long way ... from where the seals were (located)."
"[The dive] far exceeds anything previously reported."
Rinie van Meurs, co-author study: Longest Recorded Underwater Dive by a Polar Bear, Polar Biology journal

"She was a free-diving superstar and we all thought nothing could harm her."
Kimmo Lahtinen, president, AIDA, global federation for free diving

"The world has lost its greatest free diver. I don't think anybody would dispute that."
Will Trubridge, 15-time free-dive world-record holder

"Free diving is not only sport, it's a way to understand who we are. When we go down if we don't think, we understand we are whole. We are one with [the] world."
Natalia Molchanova, Russian free diver

Molchanova and her son, Alexey Molchanov, in Kalamata. Credit Daan Verhoeven
Regarded the greatest free diver in history, Natalia Molchanova set out on a 'fun' recreational dive off the coast of Formentera, an island near Ibiza, and never surfaced from her dive. The dive was routine, her failure to come to the surface of the ocean on the Balearic Sea off the east cost of Spain, was not. She prepared for her dive in a 'breathing up' exercise consisting of deep relaxation to lower the heart rate to enable her to utilize oxygen efficiently.

The depth she aspired to on this casual dive was nothing out of the ordinary for this extraordinary diver. Her son Alexy announced on Tuesday that his 53-year-old mother would not be found alive, after two days of intense searches following her disastrous dive. Human beings have a propensity to test the limits of their endurance, and Ms. Molchanova certainly did that. She met with success and world renown, but nature always has surprises in store for us.

The dozens of world records she achieved notwithstanding, the 'fun' dive she undertook with a handful of friends was to be her last. Currents at the surface and at depths of Poniente de es Freus where she and her friends had been diving are known to be powerful and unpredictable. It is  unknown what might have occurred, but there are theories; that she blacked out; the involvement of a shark; her head hit something fatally; she was swept away by the current.

In another instance of spectacular diving, Canadian researchers witnessed a Polar bear in the act of holding his breath underwater for a record-breaking three minutes, where the normally observed time for Polar bear dives are 30-second plunges for fish or whale carcasses. Bears have a particular "lobulated" kidney permitting them to filter waste products after a long dive; a biological peculiarity shared with dolphins, whales and sea otters.

Biologist Ian Stirling witnessed an emaciated bear remaining underwater -- during an expedition off Norway's Svalbard Islands -- for three minutes and ten seconds in an attempt to surreptitiously approach a group of bearded seals on an ice floe. Ice floes are vital to allowing polar bears to hunt as nature intended them to do. The summertime ice cover is on a disappearing trend, leaving the bears desperate to find food by any means possible.

The target of the Svalbard bear was three seals; easily reached had the sea been full of ice floes enabling him to come up for air periodically without fear of detection by his prey. But with open water and no ice under these new environmental conditions, the bear undertook its spectacular dive and underwater approach. Dr. Stirling commented on the belief of many biologists that Polar bears will simply accustom themselves to foraging on land.

"There is simply not enough to eat on land to support so many large bears", he stated flatly rejecting the thesis that bears "might be more resilient than is commonly thought". With the evolving issue of climate change, those bears that are capable of developing superior diving capacities, and growing wider, fin-like paws could be favoured evolution-wise to survive what may be a catastrophic change for most bears.

The caution is that with such swift ecological alterations, time is not on the bears' side.

And for Natalia Molechanova, who relished the freedom in nature and the oneness she felt with nature and all its creatures, time simply ran out.

Molchanova in the 2014 team world championships. “The world has lost its greatest free diver,” a world-record holder said. Credit Alessandro Madeddu

Surviving Inspired Idiocy

"It was eerie because it didn't feel the same way you thought it would. It wasn't as bumpy as you'd expect, but when the balloons started blowing up the whole chair would shake like crazy. It was like a gun going off."
"About halfway through my descent, I knew I was getting pushed backwards and there was no way I was going to make it. I had to pick an emergency landing spot. I'm pretty sure I broke my foot. It's no big deal."
"We didn't think they'd take it as seriously as they are [police]. Things are a little more severe than we anticipated."
"The winds were so violent up there. It was aggressive. I was a little bit in shock it was so cold up there."
"If I were to do it again [the police] wouldn't be as easy on me. If I had the opportunity to it again legally, I would do it again."
Dan Boria, owner, All Clean Natural company

"Obviously it's not a regulated device [agglomeration of helium balloons]. It's something that he concocted himself."
"I've been on this job for twenty years and this is the first time I've seen something like this. Usually you see it on the TV shows of things not to do."
Kyle Grant, acting inspector, District 1, Calgary Police Services

As public relations and advertising stunts go this was rather imaginative and pretty well simpleton-inspired. What could go wrong? Well, putting together one hundred helium-filled balloons and trusting that their airy loft would safeguard one's life while suspended beneath their aggregate lift in a plastic lawn chair, hovering above clouds while airplanes pass close by isn't most people's idea of brilliant inspiration. Perhaps they don't know how to spell: BOLD INNOVATION.



And for this stunt, drawing attention to himself and his company through this incredible piece of showmanship one can only classified as demented derring-do and a disregard for one's safety, unless one is completely beyond recognizing the foolishness of such an enterprise, 26-year-old entrepreneur Dan Boria was charged with public mischief, leaving Calgary police, during the event known as the Calgary Stampede which draws thousands out to watch that spectacle, scratching their heads in bewilderment.

At the lengths people with imagination and insufficient common sense to accompany it, will go to, in an effort to be noticed, presumably admired, and feted for a new level of salesmanship. He was advertising his cleaning company, with the use of air currents enabling him to float above the Stampede. He meant to conclude his little adventure by skydiving into the chuckwagon races, flying his company logo by, on a banner hauled by a small airplane above his balloons.

He meant also, to arouse a spirit of celebration among those witnessing this idiocy, without a doubt. However, things went somewhat awry after 30 minutes aloft, when he was unable to parachute into the races and instead crash-landed "a mile or two" away from the Stampede. Making not quite the splash he had intended, but managing to survive his miscalculation nonetheless. For which most people would be grateful, but he appears inspired to give it another try.

Calgary Police were waiting for him as he landed and charged him with mischief causing danger to life; arresting him at the scene of his inglorious descent as he came down to earth, literally. He suffered "minor injuries" treated then and there, and transported to the court services program. The company owner, Dan Boria and his employees evidently thought of the idea together. Might it be possible his employees worked on the theory that their idiotic employer might learn a lesson in sobriety?

Calgary Sun

The $20 lawn chair, the six-foot balloons and helium that cost $12,000 could be reckoned an investment in opportunity to treat the public to really imaginative advertising; since television and radio adverts are so last-century, after all.

One can only imagine his long-suffering mother, raising this creatively imaginative child to become an irrationally imaginative semi-adult whose exploits must lead her from heart palpitations to the constant verge of total collapse.

Youthful Exuberance and Cultural Offence

"I do believe they've not committed any offence in what they've done. They didn't knowingly offend the group of people. Obviously the disaster that happened, the earthquake is extremely unfortunate, but if that is believed locally to be the cause of the earthquake that's not something Lindsey or Danielle would have known about."
"They were super funny but they weren't necessarily ones to go streaking."
"It was a completely sensible photograph, nothing indecent."
Phillip Gourley, fellow backpacker

Facebook   Lindsey and Danielle Petersen. "AFTER 6+ months, the dynamic duo are reunited,” the caption reads.

"The guide warned them not to do so, but they replied: 'Stupid man, go to hell'. He could not stop them. They even took a group photo and a selfie. Then they dressed and returned to the backpacker lodge."
Malaysian newspaper report

Well, then, perhaps some Canadians do strange things. The writer of this blog decades ago climbing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, ascended Moosilauke on several occasions. The first time with my husband and our three teen-age children, finding the summit bald and smoothly-surfaced in granite. It was a hot day, we intended to rest awhile before descending. I stripped to my underwear and splayed out on a large rounded boulder and sunbathed. True, we were the only hikers up there that day at that time, and it felt rather private. True, it was in the U.S. and who would object?

But in a Muslim-majority country to ascend a mountain with a guide leading a group, that's taking a chance. And it's a chance that some backpackers evidently decided out of a youthful spirit of joy, freedom and exuberance to take, thinking little obviously of the potential fall-out. A brother and a sister from Saskatchewan among the group now face court action as a result of their 'crime of obscenity'. They offended the spirit of the sacred Mount Kinabalu. The offence the spirit took at their flaunting of their nakedness caused it to shrug its shoulders in rage.

The result was an earthquake. And the result of the earthquake was the death of 18 mountaineers. Of course one must believe that mountains are sacred in the sense that spirits of godly virtue and powerful emotions inhabit them. Much as the Nepalese worship the mountains of the Himalayas and give offerings to appease the spirits or the gods and goddesses of the mountains before embarking on a commercial climbing season in the hopes that the geology and the weather will smile favourably upon them and fail to extract vengeance for insults and misdemeanors by causing death.

Malaysian investigating officer Asp Japri Abdul Halim from a police station in Sabah informed reporters that authorities would be holding the offenders of Mount Kinabalu for several days in Kepayan at which time the Native Courts will make a decision whether to proceed with charges. If the decision goes in favour of proceeding to lay criminal charges the backpackers could conceivably be looking toward up to three months in prison in Malaysia.



Before the Canadian brother and sister arrived in Malaysia they were backpacking elsewhere, and this is where they made friends with another backpacker, Phillip Gourley, who has expressed his belief that the two were completely innocent of intent to offend, but were victims of youthful zest in the happiness their surroundings invested them with. He had received a very favourable impression of the pair with whom he trekked in Indonesia and Bali as backpacking tourists.

The brother and sister, Lindsey and Danielle Petersen, uploaded Facebook photos of their mountain trek, proud of having summitted the 4,095-foot peak, the  highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. The group of ten young people had completed their hike in 30C heat, then stripped down to their underwear. In the photographs they had turned their backs to the camera. After the group photo was snapped, they dressed and thought little of their extravagant jubilation, carrying on to descend the peak.

Now, however, although they have been barred from exiting Malaysia, "They were pretty worried about the reaction of the media and how it was being portrayed", said their friend. The quote attributed to them by the Malaysian newspaper (above) is fairly absurd; expressing a version of events that suits public outrage. Still, that old adage, "When in Rome do as the Romans do", represented excellent advice thousands of years ago, and still presents as excellent warning to those who have fail to do their homework before embarking on a trip that will bring them in contact with another culture.

Facebook    The Malaysian government is stopping Lindsey and Danielle Petersen of Saskatchewan, from leaving the country for being part of a group of tourist who took naked photos of themselves at the top of Mount Kinabalu.

La Donna Delle Stelle"

"In only 140 characters [Twitter feed] she's able to represent, to explain in a simple way, the results of very important research."
Francesco Corfaro, Italian mission in Ottawa

"Most of the time we would be spinning! [On two-day flight to the International Space Station.] In fact when there are no dynamic operations [example: no need to fire the thrusters or the main engine], the Soyuz is put in gyroscopic stabilization with the solar panels pointed at the sun to maximize power generation."
"It's actually not the greatest things for the crew; any space sickness you're experiencing, the spinning is guaranteed to make it worse [or to give you symptoms, if you didn't have any]. But unless you actively stabilize the altitude with thrusters, the only way to keep a stable orientation is to rotate on an axis."
"I find [the Canadarm2] an object of intrinsic beauty, I'll confess. But it's of course intended as a tool of visualization and as an aid in the extensive brain gymnastics to come: mentally flipping camera images, predicting how the arm movement will look from different points of view, identifying the best camera combination to monitor clearances from structure, determining hand controller inputs in different co-ordinate frames, visualizing joint movements -- these are some of the tasks that are sure to keep your brain on its toes as you fly the arm."
Samantha Cristoforetti, Italian astronaut, on board the International Space Station, Space-to-you

Samantha Cristoforetti snaps photos of the Earth from orbit aboard the ISS.
ESA/NASA

She will speak of her fascination with space and space travel, her scientific and engineering interests to anyone who is interested in five languages, take your pick. She is a gifted scientist and a science popularizer. Two years in the United States, once as a high-schooler, the second year at a Texas Air Force base. She received her master's in engineering from Technische Universitat Munich. Four months of that degree were spent in France. And ten months of research at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology in Russia. She's practising Chinese, now as well.

To say that this 38 year old woman is accomplished is to understate the obvious. Apart from the distinction of being Italy's first woman in space, her academic degrees launched her into quite the career. She has experience as a fighter pilot, as a flight engineer, a scuba diver, and she is a bibliophile. Oh, and as a woman whose career trajectory has taken her where few have gone before, she is an obvious role model for young women who impatiently shunt aside compliments on their physical beauty, to focus on aspirations of rare accomplishment.

How many young woman of spectacular ambition, talent and beauty are capable of sending messages such as this one? Good night from #space. Buona notte dallo spazio.

Over two thousand of the photographs she has taken on this trip have been posted on flickr. She shoots both videos and stills, showcasing the northern lights, and landscapes of the Earth from distances and angles unique indeed from Space.  She teaches, while orbiting Earth, a formal physics lesson on gravitational pull on orbiting objects, with equations and floating baseballs, just to make the lesson all the more appealing and approachable to the ordinary mind.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield may have initiated a popular connection with the viewing public excited about space travel, inviting them into his temporary space-travel world while orbiting Earth, explaining the inexplicable [to most people], with a common touch, and giving his avid fans a view of what he himself treasured while in deep, dark space. And now, this extraordinary woman is doing the very same thing, entertaining and informing the public, casually and appealingly.

She, along with the other astronauts that team up in an international experience of ongoing exploration and experiments greets a sunrise and a sunset every 92 minutes, throughout the course of their "day" in Space. And each time she settles down for a well-earned rest from her duties and her communications, she sends the same message: "Good night from #space. Buona notte dallo spazio."

In Perspective

"There are more Western doctors, more facilities, more medical supplies and more equipment to manage that situation in the Everest Base Camp than anywhere else in Nepal."
"Any climber who has any sense of attachment to Nepal, or any sense of fairness or right or wrong would agree."
"Those climbers are up there because of a chosen avocation, or sport, and they're fine. And I think they all know that. You might see some occasional pleas or cries for help, but they have to think, 'I'm up here by choice."
"It's with manual labour and toil and engineering and risk that the sherpas go in there [Khumbu ice fall infrastructure] and put the ice screws in and fix the lines and position the ladders. That's why we hear reports of climbers being trapped. Some of the climbers I talked to today said they can't go down to get this thing fixed."
"Some are talking about taking helicopters to shuttle them back and down across through the icefalls so they don't have to climb. But I sure hope somebody is saying they should use those helicopters elsewhere in Nepal because there should be a great deal of demand for that equipment elsewhere."
Wally Berg, Canadian mountaineer

In this photo, released on Monday, a rescue helicopter is shown at Mount Everest’s south base camp. (6summitschallenge.com/Reuters)

"We all rushed out to the open and the next moment a huge wall of snow just piled on me."
"I managed to dig out of what could easily have been my grave. I wiggled and used my hands as claws to dig as much as I could."
"I was suffocating. I could not breathe. But I knew I had to survive."
Bhim Bahadur Khatri, 35, sherpa cook, Everest Base Camp

What Mr. Berg, who operates an adventure company out of Canmore, Alberta, and who has himself climbed Mount Everest repeatedly feared, has in fact occurred. A handful of helicopters was diverted from search-and-rescue operations in Nepal's earthquaked zone, to rescue the estimated 170 people who were on the slopes of the world's tallest mountain. A relative handful remain, and will be taken off the mountain by Wednesday.

There were nineteen climbers whom the avalanche killed -- triggered by the 7.8- magnitude earthquake that devastated Kathmandu and surrounding area -- whose bodies will be taken off the mountain for return to their families and burial. The injured are being treated. The death toll in Nepal itself, with many of its isolated villages still to be reached by rescue crews, has surmounted five thousand, with countless thousands of people having sustained injuries, some very serious.

Mr. Berg's observation that the mountaineers take risks when they decide to trek up Mount Everest is quite correct; most of them are fairly well provisioned, with food enough and medicines to last them weeks. But in the event of emergencies and when natural events occur of such disastrous proportions people tend to lose perspective, knowing that many have died and there is no guarantee that aftershocks causing other avalanches will not recur, and they prefer to be evacuated, their aspirations of summiting shattered.

The reality is, as Mr. Berg has observed, people die on the mountain year on year. As did 16 sherpas last year, in one fell swoop in the Khumbu Icefield area, cancelling that season's climbs. The Khumbu Icefall, a perilous portion of the climb, just above Base Camp, has become infinitely more treacherous since the avalanche began with huge rocks being dislodged from a promontory directly above the Icefall, rendering all the preparatory ascent/descent work done annually by sherpa volunteers useless, and stranding mountaineers on the slopes above.

Some climbers posted appeals on social media for help. "Huge disaster. Helped, searched and rescued victims through huge debris area. Many dead. Much more badly injured. More to die if not heli ASAP", wrote Romanian climber Alex Gavan. The response to his appeal ensured that those on the mountain were taken away from the area posing such potential danger to them.


A rescue chopper carrying people down to Everest base camp on Monday. (Nima Namgyal Sherpa/AP)

Mr. Berg's long experience in Nepal and his care for the country and its people were front and centre in his statements, that many from within the climbing community have been assailed with grim sadness and yet a sense of inevitability. Seated on a major fault line, Nepal is quite simply vulnerable to the tectonic shifts taking place in the bowels of the Earth where an Indian plate and a Nepali plate grind against each other, gradually shifting Nepal itself under Mount Everest in incremental steps long into the geological future.

There is a "long and deep sentimental and emotional attachment to the people. They are humble; they have great integrity and inner spiritual strength and resilience. We care for them and we're thinking about them. A lot of us from the developed world who have been to Nepal and love it, I know, are wrenched with this loss of those ancient medieval streets that we used to walk", stated Wally Berg, of a country and a people that have taken his heart.

Becoming a Missing Person

"People who are suicidal can have this fantasy where they can have a temporary escape -- a temporary suicide. And maybe that way they will stand out, and somebody will come along and save them. Maybe this was some form of this woman testing fate."
Dr. Simon Hatcher, professor of psychiatry, University of Ottawa

"Sometimes people romanticize about how they might control their death, and they can become fixated on a place."
"Maybe this woman came to Canada to create some distance from her family, and to spare them from it."
Karen Letofsky, executive director, Toronto Distress Centres

"Nobody knows what happened to her. And there is a good chance nobody ever will."
"Can you imagine what this must be like for her family?"
David Radcliffe, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

The Canadian Press / RCMP    Atsumi Yoshikubo, a 45-year-old Japanese psychiatrist with long black hair and brown eyes, and a history of traveling alone, checked into The Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife on Oct. 17. Two days later she visited a gift shop and tourist information centre. Security footage shows her wearing a pink coat, a pink hat, black pants and white shoes. On Wednesday Oct. 22 she was seen walking out of town, toward Jackfish Lake. She hasn’t been seen since

There is that about nature that fascinates the Japanese; veneration for nature is embedded in Shinto (Buddhism) and in the Japanese tradition of living within nature, respecting and enjoying it. Living briefly in Japan decades ago, we often noted the propensity of Japanese taking early-morning buses -- subways, trains in a long complicated journey to exit Tokyo to arrive at a countryside venue adjacent forests and mountains -- would be dressed for the part, in alpen-clothing.

We had ourselves joined an outdoor-hiking group that arranged bi-weekly outings into the forests of Japan. Those long hikes had a twofold purpose for the Japanese among the group comprised largely of Japanese, Australians, Germans, and we two Canadians; it gave the Japanese an opportunity to try out their English proficiency among European English-speakers while still enjoying forested uphill romps.

Kyoto, Kiyomizudera Temple with its pagoda on the skyline.

Hiking through the mountains around Tokyo one comes across shrines and temples built atop them on occasion, with some enterprising Japanese setting up roadside stands selling useful walking sticks. At some places one can take part in tea ceremonies. And at other places signs warn to be cognizant of the presence of monkeys not to be monkeyed with.

Striding through a bamboo forest is a mystic experience, particularly with the presence of stone lanterns set amidst the tall straight bamboo, as large in circumference as any modestly robust tree of some agedness.

Atsumi Yoshikubo had no need to come to Canada's Northwest Territories to lose herself in the wilderness surrounding Yellowknife; Japan has ample wilderness areas of its own, where a lone hiker at the forest of choice might or might not see anyone else to say Konnichawa! and pass on. There is no lack of places where someone estranged from life can choose solitude, and even, if the mood strikes, seek to end their life.

Japan is no stranger to suicide within its population. Many, it would appear, decide they will do so within the confines of a forest. The author of The Complete Manual of Suicide, Wataru Tsurumi, considers the forest to be the "perfect place to die". Alone in a forest, things can take on an spectral appearance, and sounds can assume a very alien timbre to those accustomed to living in tight shared spaces like Tokyo.

In the case of the 45-year-old Atsumi Yoshikubo, a practising psychiatrist with a penchant for travel often on her own, it might not have been unusual that she chose Canada, staying at The Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife. She arrived there on October 17. A closed-circuit video camera filmed her shopping on the 19th at a gift shop and tourism information centre. Three days later she was seen walking out of Yellowknife, in the direction of Jackfish Lake.

When she failed to return, the RCMP was contacted and an extensive search began with hundreds of locals taking part. Then, on November 4, the RCMP announced the search was ended, issuing a media release that Ms. Yoshikubo had "arrived in Yellowknife with a plan to go into the wilderness and become a missing person."

Evidently she had left a suicide note with a friend back in Japan. Her brother felt his sister meant to return to Japan; her airfare reservation was for a round trip, and she had bought mementos of her trip, presumably intending to take them back home with her. But her brother hadn't seen her in ten years, and had no idea his sister had flown to Canada on a trip.

In Yellowknife last week it was quite cold, at minus-19 Celsius; undoubtedly even colder in the forests surrounding the city. Late October isn't an ideal time of year to venture out into a forest unknown to the venturer. At this time of year in Canada the ground, preparatory to deep-freezing, becomes wet and slippery, making traction difficult if heading up- or downhill. Ice begins to form, and the nights are not fit for man nor beast.