British Climber Clings To Ledge By Fingertips... For Six Hours!

Here's an amazing story of survival if I've ever heard one.

This past weekend, an unnamed 23-year old British climber, and his climbing partner, became stuck on a rock face known as the Giant's Head Chimney, found on the 3,790ft Lochnagar. Apparently the lead climber reached an impasse and could no longer go up or down, stranding both men on the mountain, but fortunately, the second climber was able to find a safe ledge and make a call for help. That was at approximately 4 PM in the afternoon, and it would be six hours before they would be rescued, with the stuck climber clinging to the rock by his fingertips for the entire time.

Following the call, the RAF scrambled a rescue helicopter, with eight crew members, to the area, but it took some time to assemble the crew, fly to the region, and locate the missing climbers. When they did find them, a rescuer had to be lowered from the helicopter to retrieve the pair, while local police watched from the ground.

All told, the two men were stuck on the wall for six hours. Authorities say that the bottom climber was in good health and suffered no ill effects, and was in fact quite comfortable and warm on his ledge. The lead climber however, clung to the rocks for all those hours, exposed to temperatures that hovered around the 20ºF mark. As a result, he suffered mild frostbite and is now recovering from those effects.

The article says that the two climbers were both quite experienced and well equipped. They just happened to maneuver themselves into a position where they couldn't move, and had to call for help. I guess there is a good lesson in there in that no matter how experienced you are and how much gear you bring, something can always go wrong.

Thanks to The Goat for the heads up on this story.

Ancient "Sat Nav" System Discovered in the U.K.

This was my daily post over at Gadling this morning as well, and I see that Gizmodo has picked up on the story too. Thought some of you would find it interest.

Historians in the U.K. now believe that rock monoliths and monuments found throughout England and Wales, including Stonehenge, were part of an elaborate navigation system created by prehistoric man to quickly and easily find their way through the countryside. The system worked as a stone "satellite navigation" system that pointed the way to settlements, fortresses, and other points of interest in the region.

Tom Brooks, a British researcher who examined the system, used modern day GPS coordinates to plot an intricate grid system that uses isosceles triangles to connect more than 1500 different ancient sites. In each case, Brooks found that the triangles all had two sides of the same length and each of them pointed directly to the next location. In a sense, the travelers could find their way using these primitive waypoints, which were accurate up to 100 meters, which is an astounding number considering the historical period we're looking at here.

Even more interesting is that the use of these geometric patterns shows a sophistication and understanding of mathematical principles we didn't expect out of such an ancient civilization. It has been widely accepted that the Greeks discovered Geometry, but this navigational system predates that by more than 3000 years. Brooks says he doesn't rule out some external force assisting in the production of the navigational network, and even says that that assistance could have come from an extraterrestrial source. Hmm...

Regardless of how it came about, it is a very interesting system, and a fascinating story to read. And while it does help to explain why stone monoliths were build in the English countryside, it still doesn't explain exactly how something like Stonehenge was built.