Better go while you can: The National Park Service is considering several plans to limit the number of hikers per day on the Half Dome hike in Yosemite.
An evening pause: Climbing those last few hundred feet and reaching the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain.
An evening pause: This zip line is clearly not as long a ride as this one, but who cares? And the finish is faster.
The view of Comet Lovejoy from ISS. With video.
An evening pause: They call it volcano boarding, but to me it looks like sledding on a volcano.
An evening pause: Time lapse photography by Mark “Indy” Kochte. At one point the time-lapse sequence shows Seneca Rocks near the end of the day, with the lights of the climbers visible as they rappel off the mountain.
Who says it was tougher in the old days? Four times a year eighty Chinese children walk two days to school by traversing 1000 ft cliffs and fording swollen rivers.
The most dangerous part of the route is a path, which narrows to just a few inches wide, that has been cut into a cliff face some 1,000ft above the valley beneath. Without safety harnesses, the teachers gingerly shepherd their charges along. Further along, there are four freezing rivers to wade across, a 600ft-long zip-line to slide down, and bridges that are just a single plank wide. Teachers often carry the younger children on their backs, but some have fallen in the rivers in the past, without serious injury.
An evening pause: In China they are building a tourist footpath on the side of Shifou Mountain. For additional information as well as video of the work, go here.
A plank path along cliffs is taking shape in a scenic spot in Yuyang city, South China’s Hunan Province. The path zigzags several hundred meters long but is only one meter wide along cliffs, without guardrail. The path builders walk on it as if in an ordinary street.
A random collection of awesome things. In pictures.
An evening pause: Taking a walk through the Wave in the Paria Vanyon Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area, Arizona.
An evening pause: A hike to Romero Pools in the Santa Catalina Mountains just outside Tucson, Arizona. The hiker in the video calls this one of the toughest hikes he’s ever done, but it is only 5.6 miles round trip, with only a thousand foot elevation gain. Compared to most of the other Santa Catalina hikes, which routinely require elevation gains of 3000 to 5000 feet, this one is easy.
An evening pause: From the youtube webpage:
This inclined shaft is located outside of Searchlight, NV. The shaft itself is about 350 feet deep with two extensive drift levels along its length. We found a winze [a vertical shaft] in the lowest drift level that went down to what appeared to be an additional level.
I must emphasize that mines are very dangerous, and should be approached with great care and caution. Unlike a cave, which has had eons to slowly establish its stable structure, a mine is cut into the rock instantly (compared to geological time), and is thus very unstable and prone to collapse.
An evening pause: Hiking Pu’u Kalena, the second highest peak on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
An evening pause: Climbing the Italian Dolomites on a via ferrata. No translation necessary.
The ten most wonderful canyons in the world. With pictures.
These canyons are beautiful, but I am baffled that the list excludes the Grand Canyon, even though they repeatedly compare these ten canyons to it.
An evening pause: Dirt biking in southern Utah.
An evening pause: The rope work makes me cringe and some of the narration is a bit over the top, but the camerawork is superb, giving you a real feel of what it is like to visit this unique place.
An evening pause:
Going to see the shuttle launch on Friday? The Space Walk of Fame Foundation Museum in Titusville, Florida needs volunteers to help organize the launch viewing at places like Space View Park.
A photo tour of Launch Complex 37B, level by level.
