Thursday, March 1, 2007

Two Crazy Everest Attempts!


You can add two more climbers to the list attempting Everest this Spring. But these two are going at it a bit differently. First up, MountEverest.net brings us the story of Gavin Bate, an Irish climber who will be attempting Everest for the fourth time. Gavin has yet to summit, but that doesn't prevent him from pushing the envelope on the mountain. This time, he'll be trying a traverse of Everet, alpine style. Gavin will forego the help of Sherpas, nor will he use fixed camps. He'll try to make a go of it in one push. Did I mention he's going to do it all without supplemental oxygen? Told you it was a crazy attempt.

As if that wasn't crazy enough however, Wim Hoff is going to give it a go without pants! The Dutch Iceman, as he's known, will attempt a summit in shorts only. He earned his nickname by doing other extreme events in the cold, such as running a half marathon, above the arctic circle in Finland, wearing only a pair of shorts. Yep, just shorts. Not even shoes. The article says that the ground temperature was -35 degrees!

I wish them both luck. It'll be interesting to see how they do. I guess it's not enough to just stroll up the mountain these days.

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