Glendora woman plunges 1,000 feet to death in Utah's Zion National Park

[(vikm)]

Along with this kinda stuff, I always wondered about those that needed to climb Everest and the like. If it's a matter of pushing yourself whilst enduring pain, why not just see if you can have someone punch you in the face a couple of hundred times (and I'm not talking about boxing)? Some things I'll admittedly never understand.

[cbelt3]

the answer.... self actualization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, blah, blah, blah.

The real answer ?

Because you CAN.

[davester]

Geez, you guys are rigid fuddy duddys.

The point Ironmac is to get yourself up into a beautiful environment. There are many beautiful climbs on earth where ladders are installed on difficult sections (Half Dome in Yosemite for instance) If it's wrong to use a ladder is it also wrong to use ropes, crampons, and all the other paraphernalia mountain climbers use (and in fact on Everest ascents pro climbers use ladders to help get through the icefields near the base).

Vikm, no it is not just about pushing yourself while enduring pain. It is about challenge, accomplishment, immersing yourself in a unique and beautiful environment etc. If you don't understand things like that then how can you understand any kind of human challenge, competition or accomplishment?

[3d]

12 posts, 128 views, and not one mention of a Darwin Award yet?

[wowzer]

I believe she would not qualify as she already had children. Besides, it sounds like she was doing what a lot folks were already doing.

Really sad...

[3d]

wowzer wrote:
I believe she would not qualify as she already had children.

Damnit, you're right. I retract the nomination.
What an unbelievably terrible way to go.

[Buzz]

40+ years ago while on a Boy Scout camping trip in the Sierras, one of the scouts wandered off on his own, against troop policy to always, ALWAYS travel in at least pairs, and after no one had seen or heard from him in awhile, we started searching for him. I found some bloody hand/finger scrape prints on the side of the hill, and feared the worst; so we immediately sent a couple of kids back to get the adults, and contact the rangers, while we yelled the missing scout's name, hoping for a response. The missing scout was found dead a few hundred feet below the scrape marks. Needless to say, the camping trip was cut short, and the school yearbook was dedicated to the fallen scout at year's end. Best guess was that the kid suffered from vertigo, as there were scrapes on the uphill side of the path, and then some more gnarly looking ones just below the path on the downhill side. These stories are always heart wrenching, and it is truly a matter of always being as careful as possible to avoid having your number drawn prematurely, especially when checking the true beauty our planet has to offer.


cbelt3 & 3d... since Maslow & Darwin are mentioned in the same thread; a moderately interesting sub-note is in the 1970's I dated direct descendants of both (and would bet both are grandmothers now).

[maco]

3d wrote:
[quote=wowzer]
I believe she would not qualify as she already had children.

Damnit, you're right. I retract the nomination.
What an unbelievably terrible way to go.
I first started climbing Angel's Landing back in the 1970's. Couldn't believe the number of people up there the last time that I did it. But I guess that so many places have become much more crowded.

I am really surprised that they don't lose more people there.

Some people looked like they weren't in the best shape. Not the kind of place where you would want to get light headed or dizzy.

The choice of footwear wasn't the best in some cases.

Young kids climbing ahead of their parents......

[(vikm)]

I'd imagine climbs to Everest, etc. are in fact beautiful if you could see past ones nose half the time during the climb

I suppose it's more of a law of diminishing returns for me. I'm more than happy to see the beauty in far less complex things and am fortunate to escape to places here on the coast that are void of "noise" if need be.

Climbing a mountain with or without snow as some sort of an accomplishment or means of pushing oneself seems a bit cliched to me these days. I guess those people that sell those "inspirational" posters need something as a subject.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it. Their choice. I just don't I'd get the same sort of sense of accomplishment or feel better about myself having done it. Now if I could learn to hit a curveball over 400ft consistently, that's a different story!!

[Jim Williams]

pinkoos wrote:
Must have been horrible for the family to witness and horrible for the woman while she was falling. I can't even fathom the feelings one would have during those few seconds.

Not the same situation exactly, but I couldn't help but be reminded of James Dickey's poem, "Falling".

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/...?id=171431