NEWS: Danger Rocks Denali National Park This Season

Denali National Park’s climbing season began with a deadly start this year—only a month into the season, which tapers off in July, and five mountaineers have already been reported dead.

Home of 20,320-foot Mount McKinley—the highest mountain in North America—and several other peaks in the Alaskan Range, Denali’s mountains are often underestimated, Denali National Park spokeswoman Kris Fister told the Associated Press (AP). Its peaks aren’t as tall as many mountaineering destinations in other parts of the world, making it seem harmless. But opposing weather systems often slam into the range creating unforeseen complications.

On May 18, Andre Callari, 33, and Brian Postlethwait, 32, both of Utah, were identified by park rescue at the base of 7,650-foot Mount Barille. They were attempting a moderate route known as Japanese Couloir when an avalanche swept through. Park rangers estimated the men were carried 1,500 to 2,000 feet before their bodies settled amidst ice and snow, the AP reported.

Just a few days prior to the Mount Barille tragedy, two climbers descending Mount McKinley fell 1,900 feet to their deaths. Just shy of reaching 19,000 feet, Mizuki Takahashi, 36, roped to her partner, Brian Massey, 27, both of Washington, fell to an elevation just below the 17,200 mark where mountaineering ranger patrol members were stationed. They were near a challenging route called the West Rib.

And last month, experienced climber Lara-Karena Kellogg, 38, of Seattle died while rappelling down 8,100-foot Mount Wake.

“We’re getting off to a difficult start, and the climbing season has just begun,” Fister told the AP.

No one had fallen from Mount McKinley since May 2005 when two Ohio men died, Fister told the AP. That said, almost half of the 28 deaths totaled in the park since 1996 have occurred while attempting Mount McKinley’s treacherous peak.

Denali National Park enforced new safety measures for climbing the two highest peaks within park boundaries—17,400-foot Mount Foraker and Mount McKinley—after the 1992 season’s death toll reached 13. Registration and $200 in fees are required.

Within 60 days, climbers receive custom educational materials that are tailored by park officials to the climber’s level of experience.

NEWS: Subsistence hunting quotas renewed

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) on Tuesday renewed the United States and Russia’s subsistence whale hunting quotas for its native populations at the same time it deferred Greenland’s controversial bid for a quota expansion.

Officials put on hold Greenland’s bid to increase its quota from 175 to 200 minke whales and its request to add 10 humpbacks and two bowhead whales to its annual quota as well, two whales that have not been hunted in Greenland for decades.

The semi-autonomous Danish territory also wants to increase its fin whale hunt from a voluntary annual cap of 10 to 19 whales.

The IWC, a 75-nation commission that manages whaling and conservation, imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Subsistence hunting of a variety of species, including whales and polar bears, however, is still allowed in many nations to protect their longstanding cultural traditions.

Many environmental groups, including the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, raised concerns over Greenland’s controversial bid.

Teva Mountain Games: Day 1

The first day of the Teva Mountain Games culminated with a battle of the boats in a kayak paddlecross.  Four kayakers set out head-to-head on the Class IV rapids of Dowd Chute on Vail, Colorado's Eagle River. Today's winner in the men's category is—surprise, surprise—Eric Jackson, the recent champ at the 2007 World Freestyle Kayaking Championships on Canada's Ottawa River. "I am not afraid of the pressure of a do or die ride, but why put myself in that position?" Jackson has said.   "Get in, do it right the first time." Jackson beat out Tao Berman and Jason Beakes for second and third place, respectively. In the women's category, New Zealand-bred kayaker Nikki Kelly took the top podium, with Shannon Carroll and Tanya Faux rounding out the top three.

Mountainfilm in Telluride

There's one hazard to attending Mountainfilm in Telluride : If you skip out for an afternoon to hike or backcountry ski—or to sleep off last night's hangover—you'll miss a movie that might have changed your life. With 89 films, there were a lot of life-altering options. I skipped Panta Rei, a film about a former world-champion windsurfer turned genius Norwegian artist Jan Wanggaard who installed a miniature solar system in the Lofoten Islands [?!]. My friends came away from it all glaze-eyed and blown away. All I can say is thank God for Netflix.

Mountainfilm is "dedicated to educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures, worth exploring, environments worth preserving, and conversations worth sustaining."  If you go next year, be prepared for inspiration overload. In the course of 24 hours, I resolved to convert my jeep to biofuel (thanks to Everything's Cool, a witty if somewhat sobering overview of Americans' denial of global warming); sat in the black hole of the funky Sheridan theater while watching Dean Potter evade death-by-basejumping, -slack-lining, and -free-climbing in The Aerialist. Then there was David Breashears' Imax world premiere, Remnants of Everest, a rehash of the 1996 disaster in which he traveled the globe interviewing all survivors willing to talk to him. Who knew the secret to Makalu Gau's survival was to "dance disco" while freezing off his hands and nose? On the top of the Every-American-Must-Watch-This list was Emmy, a film about an AIDS orphan in Uganda, and God Grew Tired of Us,a documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan.

When you're not watching films, icons of the outdoor world are everywhere: At Rustico on Friday night, John Harlin III, author of the The Eiger Obsession (hear a podcast with John Harlin and preview the film), carboloaded with his old buddy, former Outside Hard Way columnist Mark Jenkins, while celebrity archaeologist Josh Bernstein sat tucked away in a corner showing a camera-phone slideshow to a blonde friend. At La Marmotte on Sunday, polar explorer Will Steger helped celebrate a birthday while David Breasher's sat a few tables away talking business with a British entrepreneur. At the North Face party on Saturday night, the icons of rock, ice, and snow—from Kit and Rob DesLauriers to Steph Davis and Dean Potter—drank beers. On Monday morning, after a night of extreme ping pong at filmmaker David Holbrooke's house, extreme skier Kit Deslauriers, climber Lynn Hill, explorer Denise Notenboom, and long-distance rower Roz Savage answered questions from a crowd of 100 about what it's like to be a diva who rips.

Best of Festival went to Edge of Eden: Living With Grizzlies. I missed it. But it’s next up on my Netflix cue after Hard as Nails, a documentary by David and Sarah Holbrooke about hip-hop Catholic evangelist Justin Faticaby. Who knows, it may inspire me to go to confession. —Stephanie Pearson

The economics of oil and tequila

Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!! Rising demand for ethanol in the U.S. has made corn a more valuable crop than blue agave for Mexican farmers, who are burning fields of the latter to make room for the former. The skinny: a sharp reduction in the agave supply in coming years. Brace yourself for more well-brand margaritas.

EVENTS: National Trails Day, June 2

Set your DVR to record the Red Sox-Yankees game, the French Open, or what ever else you were going to watch this Saturday, and get outside instead for National Trails Day, the largest annual single-day trails celebration in the country. Trail clubs and outfitters around the U.S. will host work projects, day hikes, gear demos, etc.

Last year, more than 111,000 people participated across all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Canada to maintain or construct some 1,700 miles of hiking trails. American Hiking Society, the driving force behind National Trails Day, estimates that the 140,000 volunteer hours put in on this day last year added up to $2.5 million worth of work.

Now in its 15^th year, more than 1,200 events will take place, so you should have no trouble finding a trail celebration this Saturday. American Hiking Society has a comprehensive list of events by state. Trails make for healthier people and a healthier planet; do your part this weekend and beyond.

Teva Mountain Games: Floyd Landis?

You heard right. Outside's July 2006 cover boy, Floyd Landis, who is famously awaiting final rulings on the doping charges made against him after his victory at last year's Tour de France, has signed up to compete in two events at this weekend's annual Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado. Landis will be competing in the Nature Valley Mountain Bike Championship, three laps on a rugged seven-mile course, on Saturday, and the Trek Road Bike Hill Climb, a steep ascent up Vail Pass, on Sunday. He'll be part of a team entering the GNC Ultimate Mountain Challenge, a four-part event that also includes a downriver sprint kayak race and a 10K trail run. His partners? Pro kayaker Tao Berman and pro trail runner Simon Gutierrez. Something tells me this desk-bound editor (who's been duped into signing up for the Ultimate Mountain Challenge solo!) doesn't stand a chance against this team. Check back for regular on-the-ground updates from the Teva Mountain Games from Thursday through Sunday. And read about what it feels like to get smoked by Floyd.

NEWS: Google Announces "Virtual" Mapping

Google is taking its popular mapping tool to the street level, the company announced Tuesday, allowing users to explore various U.S. cities through panoramic, 360-degree images.

The new “Street View” feature on Google Maps will allow users to tour cities through street level images, virtually navigating through the city, identifying stores, restaurants and other popular attractions.  Users will even be able to zoom in on street signs and to follow directions. 

The feature is currently only available for New York, Denver, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas, but Google has plans to expand the feature to other major U.S. cities. 

NEWS: Mother-and-Baby Whale Duo Venture Home

Unlike "Sludgie" the one-year-old wayward minke whale who beached itself after making a wrong turn up Brooklyn's once-polluted Gowanus Canal last month, the two wandering humpback whales in California's Sacramento River are nearly two-thirds of the way home.

After swimming about 24 miles toward the ocean, starting on Sunday, the whales came to a halt under a busy bridge on Monday afternoon. While they didn't quite make it to the Pacific, the whales are actually in a good place. They've entered into more brackish water which will help heal gashes created by a collision with a boat.

After their 16-day, 90-mile journey inland, who can blame the mother and calf for taking a breather?

MEDIA TUESDAY: Stealing the Wave

The rivalry and friendship between big wave surfers Mark Foo and Ken Bradshaw is getting the full-length book treatment in Andy Martin's latest, "Stealing the Wave"  released today. Foo was killed in December of 1994 when surfing Mavericks on the California coast. For more on Foo, Read Jon Krakauer's May 1995 feature story, "Mark Foo's Last Ride" here.

NEWS: Global Warming Could Cost Alaska Billions of Dollars

New research suggests a warming planet could cost Alaska upwards of $10 billion dollars over the next few decades. 

As temperatures rise, Alaska’s infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and municipal sanitation systems, will face enormous upkeep costs, Peter Larsen, as resource economist at the University of Alaska, told delegates at a climate change conference in Belize. 

“There is a rough magnitude of between $5 and $10 billion of public infrastructure that’s vulnerable to climate change just in Alaska,” Larsen said at the conference, according to Reuters. 

Alaska is experiencing its highest temperatures in the last 400 years, according to ice core data, and Larsen led a team of engineers trying calculate how the U.S.’s largest state will cope with changing climate. 

Nearly two-thirds of Alaska is permafrost, and as the frozen ground thaws, roads, bridges and buildings are all susceptible to collapse, Larsen said at the conference, a meeting of Arctic peoples and islanders who are suffering and will suffer the worst effects of global warming.

In addition to collapsing infrastructure, some coastal areas of Alaska are also in danger of disappearing as sea levels rise, forcing mass evacuations of coastal Alaskans.  Relocations alone could cost the state more than $100 million. 

Atmospheric temperatures in the Artic region increase more rapidly than at mid-latitudes due in part because of a thinner atmosphere, and temperatures in Alaska, the northernmost sate in the U.S., have risen more than three degrees Fahrenheit over the past five decades, said Larsen.   

According to the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Arctic temperatures are rising at more than twice than rate of the rest of the world. 

Regular upkeep of public infrastructure will cost the state between $32 and $56 billion by 2080, according to Larsen, and a warming climate will undoubtedly increase the burden on state finances.

NEWS: 1996 Tour Winner Admits to Doping

In yet another stunning development this week in the world of cycling, the 1996 winner of the Tour de France, Bjarne Riis, has admitted to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Riis admitted in a televised news conference Friday that he used the blood boosting hormone EPO during a five-year span including the year he won cycling’s premier event, the Tour de France.

My jersey is at home in a cardboard box,” he said at the news conference, referring to his yellow leader’s jersey. “ They are welcome to come and get it.  I have my memories for myself.”

Riis, now the owner and manager of the elite cycling team CSC, also admitted to using cortisone and human growth hormone.

Riis’s admission comes on the heels of a bizarre and scandal-plagued month in the world of cycling.  On Thursday two of Riis’s former support riders in the 1996 Tour, Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs that year.  And last week drama unfolded in the doping trial of Floyd Landis, the winner of last year’s Tour, when Greg LeMond accused Landis’s coach of threatening to reveal information about LeMond being sexually abused as a child. 

   
   

NEWS: Everest Rescue

Another reason we love our correspondent Dave Hahn: He stops to help little old ladies across the summit ridge.

American, Sherpa Save Nepalese Woman Left to Die on Mount Everest

GEAR: If Newton Invented Shoes, Too

Physicist Sir Isaac Newton's three laws of motion, first published back in 1687, defined physical properties of a body's movement as it relates to force. Sounds complex, right? Well, chew on this: A new running shoe company, aptly named Newton Running, has spent the last 10 years using Newton's scientific theories to create a high performance shoe. Gimmick or no? Michellie Jones—2006 Ironman Hawaii World Champion—swears by them, so the science must be solid. The shoes' patented membrane technology utilizes energy to push you forward—which is a fancy way of saying they're supposed to make running easier, faster, and lighter. Made with a breathable mesh upper, ample cushioning, and a total weight of around 10 ounces (2 to 3 ounces less than a normal running shoe), Newtons are made to feel like you're running barefoot on sand. For that sensation, it's worth pulling out that dusty high school physics text book. 

Travel Advice...From Borat?

Yes, Borat has a book deal. On Wednesday, Flying Dolphin Press announced that the Kazakh character made famous by Sacha Baron Cohen will be dishing travel advice in a two-sided book; the first half, a guide for Kazakhs traveling to the U.S., Borat: Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and the other for Westerners traveling to Kazakhstan, Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Look for it on stands on November 6.
    "There is one and only Borat and we are honored to have him join our pantheon of international writers," said Suzanne Herz, Publisher of Flying Dolphin Press in a statement.  "There is no doubt he will deliver a brilliant book."
    Whether or not Cohen will actually be writing the book is still unclear (as the deal was inked by Borat, and there's no mention of Cohen in the press release) but the book will include text, illustrations, and four color photographs.
    Borat first appeared on Cohen's "Da Ali G Show" on HBO and the film version Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan a pseudo-documentary about his trip to the United States (now on DVD), grossed over $265 million worldwide, and garnered a best screenplay nomination at this year's Oscars and a Golden Globe Award for Cohen.

   

EVEREST BLOG 12: The Descent

"It's not climbing, exactly. It's... Everesting."
            —recent Everest summiter

Down we go. After more than a week above 21,000 feet,we can't get out of here fast enough. I managed to take a "shower"—a bucket of warm water with a plastic cup—at ABC after my North Col excursion, and my skin fell off in corn-flake size pieces. So much hair came out of my head I could have knit a pair of mittens. My eyes were bloodshot and my limbs had withered to ghastly, chicken-boned appendages.

The trek back to BC is a 14-mile (27 kilometer) forced march over undulating glacial moraine. No stop at Interim Camp on the way down; it's a single epic knee-grinding push. Somehow I got recruited to help escort two middle-aged women—Marion and Monica—trekkers who were attempting the North Col, back to BC. They had managed to reach ABC, but their blood-oxygen saturation levels had fallen below 50 percent; this is so low that had they been near a hospital, they would have been immediately admitted to an intensive care unit. In this case, they were set up with oxygen, and sent hiking down under supervision—by yours truly, and one of our stalwart climbers, an endocrinologist by the name of Fred from southern California. After three hours, we'd covered only a few miles. The Two Ms were suffering and it was beginning to look like we were, in fact, going to be spending the night at Interim Camp.

I was just about to radio down to BC when Phurba Tashi and the Famous Five, plus a half dozen of HiMex's other super-Sherpas, came trotting down the trail. In their matching blue fleece jackets, they looked like a professional soccer team. We explained our situation to Phurba, pointing out that there was no way we'd make it to BC before nightfall at this pace. No worries, Phurba assured us, and a few moments later the Two Ms were being piggybacked down the trail, riding in a makeshift sling on the backs of Phurba's strongest boys. A little further down, the Sherpas managed to wrangle a couple of yaks for the women, and transferred them onto the animals. Fred and I were free to set off on our own pace.

It was another four hours before we emerged at the toe of the central Rongbuk. I had fallen into lockstep with Fred, induced into a trance-like state, starring at the trail and somewhere taking distant mental notes of all the detritus passing underfoot: the pull-tabs and candy wrappers and crushed cans and frosting of yak shit smeared everywhere. The sun beat down, broiling us. I could hear the meltwater running under the rocks, the glacier eroding beneath us. Fred's footsteps kicked up clouds of dust that caught in the relentless headwind and swirled up into my face like belches of auto exhaust. I worried about Black Lung. I worried about yet another layer of my face falling off. I worried about spraining my ankle as we stumble-bummed over rocks that teetered and spun in unpredictable directions. I worried about taking a yak horn to the gut as we skirted anxiously past convoys of livestock.

Fred told me about his climbs on K2 and McKinley, how he'd run out of food in Alaska and rappelled into a crevasse to retrieve a cache tossed there by another team on their way out, only to discover that other teams had also thrown all their feces into the same hole. He told me how excited his kids were when he told them a few days ago, via SAT phone, that he was coming home early, that he would see them in just a few days, not weeks. Not months.

At last we emerged into the vast basin at the end of the glacier. Many teams had already left, and Base Camp seemed all that much more desolate and deserted. Other camps were in the process of breaking down, loading trucks idling nearby.

"It's almost like it could be 1921," Fred commented, referring to the first reconnaissance by Mallory and company. It seemed astonishing to me that those early expeditions had been here nearly a century ago. I wondered what it would be like a dozen years from now, approaching that anniversary. Paved roads were encroaching. The train from Beijing, now ending in Lhasa, was due to be extended to Tingri, just a couple of hours away, within a decade. The tentacles of civilization were tickling the edge of the Rongbuk. How long, I wondered, before you came here and stayed in a lodge, rode a pressurized cable car to the col for lunch? How long until any of us could stand as close to space as you can get on Earth?

It was late afternoon, the valleys half-shadowed. Fred and I had descended 4,000 vertical feet in the last 7 hours. We were still at 17,000 feet, but the air here felt as thick and rich as if we were in Rio. We'd been hiking through a deep gash in the glacier, but now the views opened up again and there was Everest, filling up the southern sky. I was so used to it by now, I barely took notice. It was just there, like a mural painted on the horizon.

It had been a strange and remarkable season—the weather nearly perfect, stable and warm, almost one continuous summit day since the middle of May. Some speculated about global warming—bad for civilization; good for high-altitude mountaineering. Whatever the case, hundreds had summitted over the past few weeks, and nearly everyone voiced their surprise that conditions had remained so good for so long.

In two days, I'd be on a bus back to Kathmandu. Two days after that: boarding a series of flights back to the U.S., a grueling 40-hour journey shoehorned into a coach-class seat. I was hoping that I might be returning having advanced my understanding of why people came here to climb this big dumb extrusion of rock, but the truth was I had no deeper insights than when I'd arrived. Everyone's reasons seemed different, personal, in some cases unexplainable, even to them. Some relished the athletic challenge. Some were picking up the pieces of a broken down life, reaffirming their self worth, empowering themselves. Some seemed to approach the climb with a kind of engineer's detachment, a mechanical problem to be solved; whatever emotional impact the experience brought about remained off-stage, well hidden.

I had come with the misbegotten and overly romantic notion that climbing Everest—Everesting—was somehow transformational, that the toil and hardship and fear and risk had the ability to reveal something deeper and more meaningful in our lives, that something fundamental would change. But there seemed no such reflection among the summitters, just a kind of deep, weathered fatigue. I had only climbed a little way up the mountain, but it had been plenty; my curiosity about stumbling along an airy ridge, panting into an oxygen mask, had been satisfied. If there was any common denominator, any consensus among those with whom I had spent the past month, it was a yearning to go home, to be with family and friends, to sleep in a soft bed and soak in a hot bath. And maybe that was it after all—simply to return with renewed appreciation for all the things we take for granted every day: Indoor plumbing. Furniture. Refrigeration. A well-mixed margarita. Chips. Salsa.

All I knew is that I couldn't wait to get back: to my unruly dog, my problem-wracked house, my bills, my gas guzzling pickup truck, my politically embarrassing country, my romantic failures, my noisy neighbors, my career anxieties, my aging relatives, my athletic defeats, my humiliations and embarrassments, my regrets and mistakes. My life. —Nick Heil

NEWS: Final Challengers Set for America's Cup

The finalists for the America's Cup challenger series are set, and for the first time in 24 years no American team will be competing for the Louis Vuitton Cup and the chance to race against the defending America’s Cup holder, the Swiss boat Alinghi.

On Sunday, Luna Rossa of Italy beat the American team BMW Oracle Racing in the sixth race of a best-of-nine semifinal series to advance.

The Italians routinely out-sailed the Americans despite BMW Oracle Racing swapping its helmsman for the final race and putting its owner back on board. The loss was a big defeat to owner Ralph Ellison, who poured nearly $270 million into his efforts to bring the Auld Mug back to the United States for the first time in more than ten years.

“It certainly wasn’t the outcome we planned for or expected,” Ellison told the Associated Press. “Luna Rossa raised their game and deserve a lot of credit. I am very proud that our team went out and fought right down to the last jibe. We never gave up.”

The loss by the Americans sets up a best-of-nine match between two remaining teams. The Italians will face Emirates Team New Zealand, who defeated Desafío Español 2007 on Wednesday afternoon 5-2.

The winner of the June 1-11 Lousi Vuitton Cup final will advance to compete against defending champion Alinghi in the America's Cup beginning June 23.

In November 2004, America’s Cup Management announced Valencia, Spain, had been to chosen to host the 2007 race, making it the first time in over 150 years that the race will be held in Europe.

The America’s Cup, originally called the Hundred Guinea Cup, originated in 1851 after the 100-foot schooner America won a race around the Isle of Wight sponsored by the Royal Yacht Squadron of Great Britain. The American winners of the cup donated it to the New York Yacht Club in 1857 for a perpetual international sailing competition.

Today the cup is the oldest active trophy used in international competition and is often referred to as the “Holy Grail” of yachting.

The America’s Cup is often deemed a race solely for the wealthy because of the exorbitant costs associated with competition, but this year’s race promises to be one of the most spectator-friendly races in America’s Cup history.

The race will feature everything from live online broadcasts to spectator boats for avid fans to 3-D animations.

The America’s Cup takes place June 23 to July 4.

PERSONALITIES: Big Man on the Mountain

Here's the trailer for Montanan-turned-gymnist-turned-ski-phenom Tanner Hall's new film, Believe. (No, it isn't possible to be both a Montanan and a gymnast.)  Hall is known for his park and pipe prowess—he's the favorite in any superpipe contest—but more recently has shown he's capable of styling any big-mountain line. Check out the pillow series at the end of the clip. The film comes out this fall. Look for it at Oakley.

NEWS: United Nations Surpasses Billion-Tree Pledge Goal

On Tuesday, Senegal’s pledge of 20 million trees hit the goal of the United Nation’s Billion Tree Campaign, a 12-month push to raise pledges for one billion trees to aid in the fight against global warming. The Campaign met its goal in only five months and then surpassed it with Uganda’s promise of 30 million trees, soon after Senegal’s goal-making contribution.

Kenya’s Wangari Maathai was one of the primary champions in the effort and her Green Belt Movement—planting 30 million trees in Africa as a step towards ending poverty and natural resource conflicts—garnered her the Nobel Peace Prize, making her the first African woman to win the honor and first “green” activist to win the notable achievement. She kicked off the Billion Tree Campaign by pledging two million trees.

“People talk too much,” Maathai told a news conference in Kenya. “We are no longer talking, we are working.”

While Maathai continues efforts, the campaign itself is far from complete. According to Reuters only 14 million trees of the total 1.13 billion pledged have been planted. Nonetheless, the UN says it is monitoring all pledges for credibility, to ensure the trees actually go into the ground.

The international enthusiasm for the project varies from five-year-old children to elderly people, individuals from more than 19 countries, local communities, kindergartens, scout groups, schools, artists, city councils, and companies. The grassroots effort has been so successful that foundations and scout movements have been funding their own Billion Tree Campaign advertisements. According to the UN press release dispatched Tuesday, thousands of blogs are helping to spread the word as well.

The Campaign, which can be accessed through the UN Environment Programme’s website, is mainly combating deforestation, a top contributor to harmful carbon emissions. If no action is taken to decrease deforestation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Facts and Figures estimates that between 15 percent and close to 40 percent of plant and animal species in North America will be “committed to extinction” by 2050.

EVEREST BLOG 11: 25 Percent

"The substance of my article was that in the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the connection between Earth and Sky. Its highest summit touches the sphere of eternity, and its base branches out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals."

-Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue

Snow. First a light shower but as the day draws along a deepening, steady downfall. I ride it out in the mess tent for awhile with a few others still in camp, but gradually the chill chases us into our individual tents. It grows steadily more quiet. I can hear yak bells, like wind chimes; heavy boots plodding by, the yakman's cries: "H'yah! Suh!"; somewhere up-camp a radio thumping reggae. The limpid red light in my tent grows darker as the snow piles onto the rain fly. I shake the dome from the inside and the first several inches slide off. I lie in the drowsy light, read, listen to the precipitation pepper my tiny shelter. Shake fly. Read some more. Look at watch. Two hours till dinner.

This is our first interruption in what has been a steady run of good weather--conditions that have allowed a stream of climbers to make their way to the summit, and yours truly to make his first acclimatization hike above camp. I am planning to ascend higher, to the North Col, though that keeps getting postponed due to all the traffic moving up and down the ropes. Meantime I've been doing what mountaineers do at ABC: sitting on my ass, drinking tea and eating biscuits, making small talk with whoever's nearby.

The other day, that happened to be Hiro, one of the guides who, when he's not in the mountains, lives in a small town outside of Tokyo. Hiro is exceedingly cheery, with prominent crows feet by both eyes either from smiling or squinting in the bright Himalayan light or, most likely, both. He first came to Everest back in the 80s. Two days ago, a Japanese climber that Hiro knew died high on the mountain. When we spoke, Hiro had just come back from the Japanese camp of which the climber had been a part.

The man had attempted Everest twice before, including one trip a couple of years ago with HimEx, when Hiro had been guiding. Russell Brice had turned the man around high on the NE ridge when it was apparent he wasn't going to have enough energy to get back down. "25 percent" is the rule: You've got to have 25 percent of your energy left when you reach the summit to make the treacherous trip down to one of the high camps, where you can recover and safely rest for the night.

According to Hiro, the climber and his Sherpa had radioed their expedition leader during the ascent, when they had reached the Second Step, because the man was beginning to have problems--trouble walking, erratic behavior, that kind of thing. But the climber insisted they push on toward the summit; they were so close. They reached the top a couple of hours later, but by then the Japanese climber was in trouble. He pulled off his gloves and threw them over the side. Then he started hitting himself in the head with his ice ax. His Sherpa managed to get him partway back down the ridge, but the man finally sat down in the snow and never got up again.

"Used to be, people die here and it's understood. It's part of climbing high mountain," Hiro told me. "Now people want point finger." He shrugged. "Very sad."

I think about 25 percent, lying in my tent as the snow comes down. I think: How do you know how much you've got left--not oxygen, but energy? How do you know when so far is too far? There were so many stories like this here, so many who made it to the top, but not back down. —Nick Heil

Landis Trial Goes to Jerry Springer Land

Day four of Floyd Landis' doping trial offers up Greg LeMond, an alleged admission of guilt, a claim of childhood sexual abuse, and a very odd prank phone call.

For Only the Price of a Cup of Coffee A Day, You Too Can Achieve Enlightenment

By Grayson Schaffer

Photo of someone's commute by Kellogg

Like a lot of people this week, I rode my bike to work, but also before work. And like a lot of nerds, I use NPR for workout music (Ira Glass when it's time to really feel the burn). Morning Edition ran a story about a $20 million federal grant received by Marin County, California as part of a pilot program to promote cycling as antidote to global warming. They'll be using the cash to build more bike paths and sidewalks.

The interesting part of listening, on a bike, on a busy highway, burning nothing but oatmeal and too much butter, was the part that seemed crass—a bit of rationalization. Marjorie Sun was interviewing the Marin County Bicycle Coalition's well-named Deb Hubsmith who gave the old Sally Struthers standby: "Even if you changed your behavior for one trip a week you'd be making a difference...in the health of the planet."

True as it may be, it's also irrational. So let me offer this additional observation. Turning the cranks on breakfast alone makes very real just how much energy a car uses. Economically speaking, that sliver of energy I save is also making gas prices microscopically cheaper for every driver on the road. The important thing isn't the savings, it's the perspective shift.

Mostly, I still drive my car the one mile to work after riding—don't even ask what kind it is—but when it comes time to make those group choices that require voting, you won't hear me whining about giving up cars. When you raise CAFE standards, make gas cost what it should, and put a real emphasis on public transportation, I'll sell my...OK, it's a Suburban.

Endangered Soft-shell Turtle Discovered in Cambodia

By Ryan Krogh

One of the world’s largest and most endangered freshwater turtles has been discovered in a remote stretch of the Mekong River in Cambodia, raising hopes that the species can be saved from extinction.    

Scientists from Conservation International (CI) and the World Wildlife Fund  (WWF), as well as conservationists from Cambodia, recently announced the discovery of the Cantor's giant softshell turtle and active nesting sites along the river from a survey in March.

“This incredible discovery means that a unique turtle can be saved from disappearing from our planet,” said David Emmett, a CI biologist, in a press release. “We thought it might be almost gone, but found it in abundance in this one pristine stretch of the Mekong, making the area the world’s most important site for saving this one particular species.”

The researchers caught and released a 24lb female turtle and brought back eggs from a nest that have since hatched.  The hatchlings were released back into the wild along with another adult turtle and hatchlings that were captured by fisherman but handed over to conservationists, according to the press release.

Last seen in the wild in 2003, the Cantor’s giant softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii) has a rubbery, olive or brown skin and its ribs are fused together to protect the internal organs instead of the hard exterior shell typically associated with turtles.  It can grow up to six feet in length and weigh over 100 pounds. The species spends nearly 95 percent of its time hidden in sand or mud with only it’s eyes and nose protruding and is able to extend its neck with lightning speed and crush bone with its jaws.

“It has the fastest strike of any animal I have ever seen, including cobras,” said Emmett in the press release.   

The Cantor’s turtle is currently classified as Endangered on The World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.  The species has disappeared from much of its former range in Vietnam and Thailand from over-harvesting by hunters and its meat is still sometimes sold in markets of India and Bangladesh.   The turtle once occupied a range from India to southern China but habitat loss from dams and dredging has reduced it to the brink of extinction.   

The stretch of the Mekong where the turtles were discovered has been closed to scientific exploration for many years because it was a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.  The survey was the first detailed scientific exploration of the area since restrictions were lifted in the 1990s.   

“Our survey work to date has documented some of the highest freshwater biodiversity values in the entire Lower Mekong Basin,” said Mark Bezuijen of the WWF’s Living Mekong Program and leader of the expedition in the press release.  “We discovered an entirely new plant species along with surviving populations of such threatened species as terns, fish, eagles, green peafowl, otters, and silvered leaf-monkeys.”

The area where the turtles were discovered is “a near pristine region of tall riverine forest, waterways, and island archipelagos where further exciting biological discoveries will almost certainly be made,” said Bezuijen. 

A further survey of the area is expected in July.