Climbing the Eiger: Richard Bangs Challenges Wall of Death

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Astronuc
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Challenging the Wall of Death
by Richard Bangs

In the shadow of the most notorious rock wall in the Swiss Alps, John Harlin III contemplates the climb of his life — the one that claimed his father 40 years ago.

One rope length from the White Spider, the last great defiance on the mountain wall that is one of the world’s deadliest, the 7 mm fixed line broke. John Harlin II, the first American to climb the legendary North Face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps four years earlier, fell 4,000 feet into the void.

A short time later his nine-year-old son, Johnny, heard the news from his sobbing mother. It was news he couldn’t fathom. His father was among the world’s greatest climbers, a pioneer of straight-up routes, a man almost mythically at home in the vertical world.

http://adventures.yahoo.com/b/adventures/adventures1185
Stunning video of the Eiger and the Alps!
 
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Daddy's last lesson to little Johnny doesn't seem to have gotten through.
 
tribdog said:
wasn't that an episode from the Simpson's?

Isn't that an episode from South Park?
 
Butters is maybe the coolest character in the history of television
 
One of my mates lost his father in a mountaineering accident in the Alps. For some reason, this only fuelled his own passion for climbing.

I think it's a personal challenge, coming face to face with the possibility of death. There's nothing quite like the feeling of complete isolation you have when you're a few hundred feet up a rock face, dangling by a few bits of string and steel, it's very humbling.

Astronuc, - book rec. 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson. He's a fellow Sheffielder. Barking mad, but very self motivated and driven, and a rather nice chap too.
 
tribdog said:
Butters is maybe the coolest character in the history of television

I thought I told you to stop making that face!
 
Somewhere there is a thread of top ten places, but it's way back there somewhere.

Anyway, here is a site with lots of cool pictures from around the world.

http://www.adventurephotographs.com/index.asp

If you love mountains, Karakoram, Nepal, and New Zealand have some awesome sites.
 
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