Tuesday, March 4, 2008

More on Death Defying Feats

Well, since Geotripper and Highly Allochthonous already brought up what will a geologist do for fun I thought this would be a good time to post a link my sister sent me recently. (If you are afraid of falling from great heights, don't even click the link.)
A little background: My sister lives in Okinawa Japan and she is going to take a 3 week trip through northern China (if they finally get a decent ticketing agent who doesn't mess things up). Before she and her husband leave, my fiancee and I want to visit. Since the plane ticket is often the most expensive part of the trip, we are also considering making it an extended vacation and visiting China (maybe even Tibet) with them. Things are still in the preliminary stages, but hopefully it all works out. In planning for this trip, she sent me a link of a hike in China. She knows I love rocks, hiking, and rock climbing and she thought this would be right up my alley. Well, it is, in a scary sh**-your-pants sort of way.
I loved the personal account provided at the bottom of the page (if short on time, just skip down and look at their pictures). While I would be scared at times, I would love to do something like this. I am not worried that I wouldn't be able to do it, it's only a couple of hours, there are handholds and you can purchase a harness for $5, but I know that I would have moments of puckering. Now, I wouldn't be as stupid as some tourists described, I'd at least have proper footware, gloves, harness, etc. And most of the hikes are just stairs, up and up and up. After reading this account by someone who is more along my risk tolerance level, I know I would have fun doing this. The scenery, the rocks, and the hike itself are worth the risk to me. How about you?
(Some commenters on the web pages above have questioned the percieved risk, but in places it is fatal if you fall. So I'm still considering it a risky endeavor.)

5 comments:

Julia said...

Nnnggyaaahhh!! Now, I nearly cacked myself doing the McKittrick Canyon Death March - I mean Permian Reef Trail - in Guadalupe Mountains NP, but that is INSANE.

Chris R said...

That looks awesome! I now want to visit China more than ever...

Silver Fox said...

Mel, I couldn't get the links for some reason, but could see that other account about hiking Huashan. The countryside looks awesome. When you go, do report on it!

Anonymous said...

the link is broken, try
http://www.ssqq.com/ARCHIVE/vinlin27d.htm

Mel said...

Thanks for reporting the broken links guys. The links were working, since many of you saw what I was talking about. However, blogger decided to add a space after the link sometime after I had posted it and many of you had viewed it.
Does anyone know if this is a persistent problem with blogger? I will have to keep an eye on my old links. Thanks again.