Curious sport

I have long been an armchair enthusiastic for adventures in cold places - either at one or other of the poles or up very high mountains - and have accumulated about a metre of books about such. People like Nansen, Scott and Herzog, to name but three. Herzog, for example, being noticed at reference 2, in the context of a book by his daughter which I have yet to finish to my satisfaction.

So the lavishly illustrated piece in the FT this morning - reference 1 - about a star in the world of base jumping caught my eye. The snap above is taken from Greenland.

While this one is from the Eiger.

And this one from Scotland.

The current plan is to jump off Lhotse, the big mountain right next to Everest, the place with the famous faces. It seems that these jumps are difficult and require careful preparation & execution - notwithstanding which they are still dangerous.

Howell is married to a base jumper who appears to accompany him on at least some of his trips, so presumably they understand each others' needs.

With thanks to the Financial Times for the use of their photographs. And to Microsoft's Paint for dealing with the AVIF format which they came in, a format which has caused me trouble in the past - and for which see reference 3.

PS: an opportunity to get out my fine map of Everest - just the thing for an armchair, detailed at reference 4 and first noticed at reference 5, back at the tail end of 2018. And my copy of reference 6. Third impression. But I have yet to sort out the proper name of the fearsome Lhotse face used by the 1953 assault teams; the one which faces north & west and is accessed from the western cwm.

References

Reference 1: The man about to leap from an 8,000-metre peak: Tim Howell is preparing not just to climb one of the world’s tallest mountains, but to jump off it — and make wingsuiting history - Tom Wilson, Financial Times - 2024.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/herzog-ii.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIF.

Reference 4: Mount Everest 1:50,000 - Boston Museum of Science, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, National Geographic - 1991.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/festal-cheese.html.

Reference 6: The Ascent of Everest - Sir John Hunt - 1953.

Reference 7: https://inigoinsurance.com/risk-ambassadors/tim-howell/. The sponsor of the present adventure.