Annals Of Achievement–Jannu Conquered: Hail to the Russians! Yesterday, two exhausted, freezing, climbers scrabbled up the last few meters of stubborn rock and stood at the top of Jannu. They were the first ever to arrive there via the unyielding 3000 meter face on the north side, and in doing so polished off one of the greatest team climbing feats in the history of Himalayan adventure. For the full context, the full skinny on why this is such a kickass achievement, check out this wrap-up over at Explorer’s Web. Simply put, there are a lot of experts who consider scaling the north face of Jannu–which is akin to going up El Capitan at 22,000-feet plus–the most difficult climbing problem in the Himalaya. A lot of great climbers have tried it, but none could withstand the onslaught of exhaustion, bad weather and flying rocks. All these factors made this particular climb a transcendent climb, something really special that puts to shame all those tourists trudging up the fixed ropes on Everest. According to Ex Web:

“French climbing ace Pierre Béghin attempted a route up the center of the north face in 1982. “It was the most moving experience I had ever had in the Himalaya because of the harshness of the wall,” he later wrote. “None of us had ever seen such a cold, steep face.”

Except perhaps those other crazy Russians over on Everest’s North Central Wall…



“I’m trying to pretend I’m in the sun on El Cap at Yosemite, but I can’t feel any of my toes…”

Annals of Adventure–Open Water Kiteboarding: It was only a matter of time before the kiteboarding world started to get off the beach and head for the deep ocean. And last weekend, three Cali kiteboarders (Chip Wasson, Steve Gibson, and Jeff Kafka (almost a great name, Dude)) strapped in and made the 28-mile crossing from the Farralon Islands, off San Francisco, to the Golden Gate. Winds blew from 12-28 mph, and the passage was made in exactly two hours, so they were ripping along. There are reports of kiteboarders sailing from Florida to Cuba, and Catalina Island to Long Beach. But this one had a particular twist, aside from the frigid water and strong winds: the Farralon Islands are a noted shark breeding ground, and popular hangout for Great White sharks. Were the kiteboarders worried about becoming wetsuited chum? “Sharks were definitely a consideration,” deadpanned expedition coordinator Steve Gibson. “But sharks can’t fly and kiteboarders can.” Great line. I wonder how long it will take some Frenchman to set out to kiteboard the Atlantic? There’s a whole world of new records just waiting to be conquered…



“It’s true sharks can’t fly, but it’s also true I have to come down eventually. Sh*t, better try to feed that big b*stard down there my board first…”

(Photo: Clay Rogers/Red Bull)

Wetass Video Of The Week…: Watch paddler Nate Herbeck, roll, tumble and occasionally kayak his way down eastern Washington’s raging Icicle Creek (courtesy of Wet Dawg)…



“Damn, I knew I should have divided the beer evenly between bow and stern…”

(Photo: Dunbar Hardy)

Russian Big Wallers–Left Hanging: The crack Russian climbing teams trying to conquer the massive rock faces on the north sides of Everest and Jannu are within striking distance of the summits, but have been hunkered down for the past few days, battered by wind and snow. “Everyone is sitting in their “bubbles” and drinking everything that they can find, from an aspirin up to coffee,” reports the Jannu team.

The Everest climbers will apparently make their summit assault today:

“As you understand, these pushes are the final. The team will not have an other opportunity. A fixed ropes ended at 8400 m. The highest camp is at 8300 m. Shabaline’s group should fix 3-4 pitches more above 8400, and then they will go to the summit without ropes. If for any reasons it will be not possible to them, the following groups should execute this task.”

“Without ropes.” Gulp…



Jannu North Face: The Russian Route So Far

Annals Of Adventure–Hang-Gliding Over Everest: Here’s an inspired idea. Hire a zillion porters. Hump both a microlight airplane and a hang glider to the Himalayan foothills around Everest. Wait for good weather (very important). Use microlight to tow hang-glider to 25,000-plus feet. Release. Hang glide over Everest. Land. Somewhere. Hopefully. Hmmm. I don’t know what they were drinking when they came up with this one, but British Microlight pilot Richard Meredith-Hardy and Italian hang-glider pilot Angelo D’Arrigo not only cooked it up, they actually set out to do it. Click here to read the full, hairy report. Here’s Meredith-Hardy, who flew the microlight, on what happened as he towed D’Arrigo toward Everest:

“All the time we had that massive South West Face of Everest in front of us. The colours were striking; grey rock with streaks of white snow and the famous ‘yellow band’ glowing in the early morning light. Up we circled, higher than Lhotse, a formidable spiky peak unlike the great hump of Everest just above us…At about this time in no turbulence there was a slight jerk and I realized we had a line break, and by the way my machine leapt forward I could immediately tell it was my end, whether it was the safety ‘weak link’ fuse which had broken or something else I had no way of knowing. Angelo suddenly would have been landed with 65 metres of rope. With all my high altitude kit on I don’t have much neck mobility so I couldn’t look round to see him and I didn’t see anything in the mirror; by the time I had circled round, Angelo, in a white glider against the vast white background of the upper Khumbu Glacier was nowhere to be seen. Vanished into thin air.”

What happened to Angelo? You’ll have to go read about it yourself…



Angelo At Altitude: “Damn, we need maximum lift and I forgot to put the other bird shoe on my left foot…”

(Photo: Over Everest Expedition)

TWC Quick Hits…:

San Diegan Lands 140-pound Marlin…From A Kayak: “It looked like it was going to jump right at the kayak at one point, so I put the rod tip into the water, and it just went right under my boat…It was sketchy.” Yup, sketchy. But no San Diegan kayaker kebob..

Man Orders Deadly Snakes Over Internet, Gets Bitten And Dies After Opening Package: Alert the Darwin Awards. The quality of the gene pool just took a bump up…

Titanic Discoverer Robert Ballard Complains Wreck Is Being Turned Into A Circus: “A few years ago a couple of people went down and got married on the bow.” After making a pile from multiple movies, book sales, and lectures, now he’s unhappy…?



“I do! Okay, honey, let’s join the rest of our guests in the main ballroom for the reception…”

Can You Say “Pororoca”?: Even more important, can you surf it? The answer is yes, if you are willing to head to Brazil and wend your way up the Amazon a ways. If you are, you will encounter the famed “pororoca” wave, which occurs once a month when the Atlantic tides meet the flooding Amazon. The result is a massive wave that sets up and rolls along at 20 miles per hour. It can be surfed for a half hour or more, and once a year, when the moons and tides are right, it really kicks ass. That’s what happened last month, and naturally the “Brazilian National Pororoca Surfing Championship” was convened. Click here to read about the competition and check out the great event photos. Surfing the Pororoca, Pororoca, Pororoca (sorry, I just like the way it rolls off the tongue..). This one deserves to go on the list of things to do before you die…



Hanging Ten, Amazon River-Style: “Dude, I’ve surfed through just about everything….but are these freakin’ lily pads?

(Photo: Ricardo Macario)

A Modern Parable–Oregon Family Robinson: Last month an Australian cross-country runner was doing his thing in Portland, Oregon’s Forest Park, when he came across a man with bushy, white hair, a 12-year old girl, and an elaborate hillside camp. Soon the police were out on a manhunt, thinking Elizabeth Smart redux, and here is what they found: a man and his daughter, living and surviving in the wild, with a tarp-covered wood frame for shelter, and a few basic tools. They drank and bathed in a nearby stream, and kept a vegetable garden. Also in the camp was a rope swing, a Bible, and a stack of old World Book Encyclopedias. Naturally, the police assumed there might be all kinds of evil occurring under the conifers, and that at a minimum keeping a young girl in the wild was equivalent to child abuse. So it was a triumph for the Wetass way of life, and a blow against the twisted assumptions of modernism when they discovered: 1) that both the man and the girl (his daughter) were clean and healthy (no cavities even!); 2) that the man and his daughter demonstrated a remarkable closeness and affection that is rare today between parents and video-dazed children; and 3) the young girl–educated almost entirely with the World Books–was about 5 years ahead of all the “civilized” girls in town in both her education, speaking ability, and general maturity. Why were they in the forest? The man, a Vietnam vet and college grad, was down on his luck. So instead of exposing his daughter to the alcohol, drugs and abuse that comes with a life on the street, he hiked deep into the forest and chose an entirely novel lifestyle. To their credit, the police did not just hand the pair over to social services. But they did talk them into moving out of the forest. Now the guy and his daughter live in a crappy mobile home (hey, don’t you know you can’t live without running water and electricity?) while he cuts lawns. Some improvement. Hope he and the girl ditch their better life and hightail it for the forest again before the producers of Dateline track them down…



“Damn, I’m trying to remember why I moved here…”

Everest Update–Fast F*cker: Most Everest expeditions work really, really hard to make climbing the world’s tallest mountain seem like an incredible ordeal, a near-impossible feat that requires a military style assault with teams of porters and sherpas, a series of ascending camps that breaks the mountain into stages, and weeks of acclimatization. And then along comes an unassuming 26 year old named Pemba Dorji Sherpa. Last Thursday evening he walked out of Base Camp and just started climbing. 8 hours and 10 minutes later, after passing all the climbers heroically scratching their way toward the summit, he was at the top, setting a new speed climbing record for Everest. Oh yeah, he also pulled it off just 4 days after summitting with an expedition, putting him on top twice within a week. So what does that say about all the slow-ass climbers making such a big deal out of Everest?



Super Sherpa: “I can’t believe all the crap the Westerners climb with…and then just leave lying around on the mountain.”

J22 Worlds Finale: It all boils down to this. On the plus side: Team Wetass squeaked into the Gold Fleet (the top 64 boats that were competing for the championship). On the minus side: Team Wetass (moi, mainly) sailed like dumbasses once we got there. We went into the championship round in 57th place and when all the shouting was over we finished 60th (out of 130 boats). We weren’t Dead F*cking Last (DFL) in the Gold Fleet, but we were Almost Dead F*cking Last (ADFL). Still, it was a great, great week on the water, we learned a ton, and we only encountered a few d*ckheads at the very crowded mark roundings. Oh yeah, a couple of other huge pluses: the beer was mostly free, the weather was mostly good, and we all spent a week sailing instead of sitting around in offices…



“Uh, Tim. How come I keep seeing so many boats in front of us…?”

(Photo courtesy of Dave Gendell, editor of local Annapolis sailing mag Spinsheet. Check out his handy new online Chesapeake news service, Floatline).