An evening pause: I haven’t posted a wingsuit video since 2012, so this clip is overdue, especially since the scenery is quite beautiful. My only complaint is that they cut just as one flyer releases his chute for landing. I would have preferred to see the whole flight, including its gentle end.
Hat tip tdub.
Link here.
Some of these are not that unbelievable, but numbers 4 and 9 are really cool. And number 1 was already reported here on BtB.
Link here.
Link here.
Switzerland is about to open the first suspension bridge ever built between two mountain peaks.
The bridge, suspended 9,700ft in the air, will also have a partial glass floor to allow visitors a once in a lifetime view of the 6,500ft drop between the Glacier 3000 and Scex Rouge.
It is scheduled to open in November, and is being built in an effort to attract more tourists to the Swiss Alps.
The link is here.
Just click on the link.
We exited the Grand Canyon on schedule at about 1:30 on Thursday. The hike out this year took one hour longer than last year, mostly because we took longer breaks.
As always, the Canyon is a sublime place, hard to describe to those who have never been there and unnecessary to describe for those who have. We hiked in, did an 11 mile hike the one day we were at the bottom, then hiked out today.
Posting will resume but will remain light until I return home on Sunday night.
37 amazing places you must visit before you die.
Great pictures. I am happy to say that I’ve seen most of the places listed that are in the U.S. And I’ve also seen other places in the U.S. quite comparable to international locations shown here.
A different look at 25 famous places that gives you a better idea of what it is really like to visit them.
I thought the images of the Mona Lisa and the Alamo were the most revealing.
Posting for the rest of February will be spotty. I am heading to New York to give a lecture the Long Island section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on Thursday night, then on to Israel for 10 days to visit family.
For an idea of what it was like to visit Israel last February, check out my earlier posts below, listed in chronological order. In each case, I think you will get a more accurate portrayal of the reality on the ground, in contrast to the political antisemitism of today’s modern intellectual culture.
Twenty places that are difficult to believe really exist.
The eerie, alien, and abstract World War II monuments of Yugoslavia.
Very strange. They all look like something out of the weird Yugoslavian science fiction animated film community of the 1960s. Somewhere I’ve seen the one listed as #1 (though it isn’t the first in the story), though I can’t remember where.
Posting for the two weeks shall sometimes be limited to the evening hours, as Diane and I are heading east for the first time in two years to visit the Smoky Mountains on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
We decided to drive, partly because it is cheaper, and partly to avoid the TSA (Airlines: Pay attention!). It also will give us a vehicle for driving north after our hiking vacation to visit friends and family in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
I intend to post about our trip. I should also do most of my appearances on the John Batchelor Show as well. The only negative is that I will be out in the real world when both Falcon 9 and Cygnus finally complete their next flights. I will only be able to post about it after the fact.
The one thing about the Grand Canyon that attracts hikers is its intimidating nature. People feel challenged by its large size and depth, and want to prove to themselves that they can do it.
The irony of this to me is that it is that intimidating nature that generally causes most people the most problems. People worry about the climb out. They worry about the heat. They worry about the lack of water. And they worry about vastness around them.
All of these things — the climb, the heat, the lack of water, and the vastness — must be dealt with. Each has caused the death of many visitors. Each could kill you if you are not prepared. In fact, one or all of these factors are probably the primary causes behind all of the approximately 300 rescues that occur each year at the Grand Canyon.
Yet, none of these factors is actually the biggest obstacle for most people trying to climb in and out of the Canyon. Instead, it is the worry about these things that causes people the most difficulties.
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We have returned from inside the Grand Canyon. We hiked out on Tuesday, doing the climb up in what is for us record time, arriving at the rim at 12:30 pm after 7 hours of hiking. We were down at Phantom Ranch for two full days and three nights, doing some really spectacular day hikes each day. I will post some further details, with pictures, once I get home.
We are still touring about here in northern Arizona and will be until Sunday. Right now I am sitting in the patio of the motel at Grand Canyon Caverns, about two hours west of the national park. This morning we drove down to the Colorado on the Hualapai Reservation, using the only road on the south rim that reaches the river. This weekend I will be participating in a long term cave dig project here at this somewhat famous commercial cave. The dig has been going on for years in cooperation with the cave’s owners. This will be the first time that I will contribute to the project.
After a 5.5 hour drive we arrived at the south rim of the Grand Canyon and checked into our hotel. You can see the view from the window on the right. Not very spectacular, but then, you don’t spend much time in a hotel room on trips like this.
Tomorrow we take the shuttle bus to the North Rim, where will spend another night in the lodge there. On Saturday, we hike down on North Bright Angel trail, and will stay in a cabin at Phantom Ranch for the next three nights, doing day hikes from the bottom of the canyon on Sunday and Monday. We will hike then up on Tuesday, coming up Bright Angel trail to the south rim, completing our first rim to rim hike. Once we check out of our hotel tomorrow, we will be out of contact with the internet until we return to the south rim. I hope the world doesn’t fall apart in the interim.
This will be Diane’s third trip to the bottom, and my fifth. I can’t express how happy I am to be back. This is truly one of the grandest spots on Earth.
Six places we like to go to right now.
Some of the Earth’s creepiest places.
Most of these aren’t natural places, but weird human ruins or artifacts of some kind.
Twelve of the world’s most spectacular gorges.
The illegal view from the top of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
Getting to the Window in the Santa Catalinas is a challenge, mostly because of the 4000 foot elevation gain. In the past two years Diane and I have made three previous attempts, all of which were aborted because we simply either ran out of time or energy.
Today, we left very early in the morning, and because we are right now in very good shape, made it with little trouble, completing the entire hike in just under eleven hours. Some pictures below the fold.
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