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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Feb 12, 2010 - 01:18pm PT
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Conrad,
Thanks.
And this is why I love the "SuperTaco," "the virtual camp-fire," warts and all.
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nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
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Feb 12, 2010 - 01:24pm PT
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I'm with Dingus on leaving him there. Though i think if he was spotted it should be confirmed.
Actually... our opinions on the latter really don't matter. "They" will go look.
As far as the camera goes if it's found bring it down. I'm all for a good mystery but there's controversy revolving around great legends and I think it doesn't their legacy justice to know what really happened.
But then... yes.. what do I know anyway...
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Feb 12, 2010 - 02:01pm PT
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Some mysteries may be solved and then we move on, but quite often, particularly in science more knowledge leaves to ever deeper mysteries. John Morton's post does how ever stir feelings in me.
I am as fascinated as the next guy by these discoveries. Right up there with the plan to clone Jesus from DNA on the Shroud of Turin.
But I have a very strong sense of loss each time I see the disappearance of another frontier. The advance of knowledge doesn't compensate for it. Imagine when there were truly blank spaces on the maps of most continents, and how that would stir the adventurous soul.
I too have have lamented the disappearance of vast unknown spaces. We humans have had these vast lands with us for thousands of generations. Our culture has developed in the midst of open space, but then so quickly, within the last several generations the last great wildernesses have all but disappeared. What is frightening about this is that the limit has become visible. An ever expanding population cannot continue to thrive on a finite planet with an economy based on consumption.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 12, 2010 - 02:06pm PT
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Mons Olympicus is next,..
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Feb 12, 2010 - 02:28pm PT
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Dick,
On the surface of things it does seem like we now know the Earth really well, but actually that isn't even really true. There are many unknowns and blank places on the map all over the Earth. Yea, maybe we have remotely sensed it, but that isn't the same as actually having been there.
We probably know more about the surface of the Moon than we known exactly what is at the bottom of our oceans. We have probably only seen with our own eyes perhaps 1/10,000 of the ocean floor, maybe even less.
The underworld is still full of unknowns. There are miles and miles of caves and caverns that have never been explored, and many are yet to be discovered.
We haven't climbed all summits or peaks on Earth. Not even close. There are a plethora of first ascents to do the world over. Every time we do a first acsent we are on virgin ground where no man has been before. That is pretty darn cool if you think about it.
There are many areas of the surface of the Earth that have seen very few people and small regions perhaps none at all. Yes, these areas are really, really remote.
Don't get me started on Space and other planetary bodies within our Solar System. Do you know just in our Solar System there are perhaps easily over 300+ planetary bodies: planetisimals, protoplanets, dwarf planets, moons, + 8 planets etc. And that is not even counting the thousands perhaps millions of asteriods within the Asteroid Belt and throughout the Solar System.
We have just really begun to explore. There is soooo much to do. It really is overwhelming to think about.
So, we just got to get out there and do it!
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Conrad
climber
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Feb 12, 2010 - 02:30pm PT
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Even if the camera is found it was cloudy on the afternoon of June 8th 1924. Photographic proof would be hard to substantiate as the summit pics would be the proverbial inside of a ping pong ball.
Descending climbers, injured with snowblindness being helped by Sherpas. '24
Camp three, '24. The ice towers are no longer present. Sen Inhofe: the proof is in the lack of ice.
Mallory's last communication.
To the shining memory of Mallory and Irvine.
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John Morton
climber
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Feb 12, 2010 - 10:29pm PT
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To follow on Dick's and my own personal feelings about frontiers ... I for one sometimes choose to go places in deliberate ignorance of I might encounter. The map might as well be blank if you don't look at it. Once there is a guidebook or a topo, for many it becomes a pursuit of every possible angle to optimize the undertaking. Of course the first ascencionist gets a taste of the unknown, and such things as canyoneering have attracted those with a taste for it.
It's a little embarrassing to play the nostalgic geezer here, but it was sort of fun when you had to ask around to locate Valley routes, and what information you got turned out to be wrong. (But there was no choice - I would have paid good money for a list of 5.8s so I could work on my crack and chimney skills.)
John
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Feb 13, 2010 - 05:31pm PT
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Conrad
Do you have a recent pic of Camp 3 ice to compare to the one you posted?
All the satellite photo enhancement and interpretation in the world will never substitute for going out there and looking some more. As much as I appreciate the mysteries of the mountains, we humans always crave filling in gaps in our history.
One interesting thing I gleaned from Conrad and Roberts' book was the clothing they were wearing in '24. On first reading: primitive and wholly inadequate. Yet it certainly did work.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Feb 13, 2010 - 05:45pm PT
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Jesus jstan!
That looks more like a genetic cross between Herbert and Becky? Better check your source.
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jstan
climber
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Feb 13, 2010 - 06:00pm PT
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Guido:
The text mentioned that the DNA did indicate their hair was red. They did not say that the DNA also suggested our common view that the Neabderthal had a prominently protruding skull at the eye sockets, was wrong. You are correct there may be some artistic license here.
I am happy to wait for them to be cloned. Last week a Japanese lab announced a new process wherein they could take any cell type and go directly to making nerve cells from it without going through a stem cell configuration. We need only have a Neanderthal specimen exposed by a receeding ice cap somewhere and we will be in business.
I do fear what we may do when the cloned individual tells us that they had indeed tried unregulated capitalism but, to their dismay, had found it not to be workable - long term.
In all probability, we would then either lynch him or crucify him.
Such an event would remind me of the best dialog Dennis Hopper was ever given. In Waterworld as the $100,000,000 set representing a huge ship was being blown up, Hopper with a frustrated look complains
"Not AGAIN."
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TomT
Trad climber
Aptos.
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The comments above about not using a guidebook to find adventure can work. I went to Peru in the 1970s to the Cordillera Blanca with Glen Garland, having done no research into guidebooks. We had the topo's and just picked out mountains to climb once we saw them. It was great. We did run into other expeditions and they told us what they were doing, but ignorance can be bliss.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Great! Now his widow can get that pension they have been withholding until there is positive proof he's dead.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Conrad
Great information. You did a superb job, as usual.
Jstan--AWESOME!!!!
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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The lump could be Irvine, it could be another body, it could be an abandoned pack or a lump of snow.
My wager would be on a lump of snow. Kind of expensive to find out, though.
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TwistedCrank
climber
Ideeho-dee-do-dah-day boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom
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I do a bit of digital image analysis as a day job so I read the article with interest.
The rule of thumb for resolving a feature based on its spatial characterics is that the sampling interval should be about 1/3 the minimum dimension of the feature being detected. Otherwise you get aliases, the most popular being Moire patterns. That being said, the sampling interval should be less than a foot in order to detect with confidence a human shape. I don't think they have that resolution.
Then again, when one looks hard enough for something, trying to snag the signal through the noise, and the image is very noisey, the minds eye will see what it want to see.
Some will see a human shape with an ice axe.
Some will see a lump of snow.
I see a duck and a kitty and a puppy.
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