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Thread: Humans Are Amazing

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    Default Humans Are Amazing

    Hello!

    A thread for amazing human feats of courage, strength, endurance, intellect, creativity, or whatever the case may be.

    Duration 2 minutes and 43 seconds

    Never give up on your silly, silly dreams.

    You mustn't be afraid to dream a little BIGGER, darling.

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Here's the true-life Lord of the Flies story. And it all worked out very differently.
    The Real Lord of the Flies

    Peter Warner, third from left, with his crew in 1968, including the survivors.

    Western culture tends to present people as innately selfish. This widely accepted view even has a name: It’s known as the Veneer Theory, and it states that human kindness and morality are just a thin veneer over an otherwise selfish and nasty human nature.

    Dutch historian Rutger Bregman takes a more optimistic view of humanity: He says that our species dominance has depended on human kindness and communication. He explores this idea in his latest book, Humankind: A Hopeful History.

    One of the starting points for his book was the true story of a group of boys who were stranded on a desert island for over a year. So far, it sounds like Lord of the Flies, but unlike William Golding’s literary classic, this group of real-life boys did not descend into savagery.

    Bregman tracked down their rescuer, Peter Warner, and one of the members of the shipwrecked group, Mano Totau. Their story is nothing short of amazing.

    In June 1965, six students aged 13 to 16 from a strict Catholic boarding school in Tonga, in the South Pacific, decided that they were so bored, they would run away. Their vague idea was to escape to an exciting new life in Fiji or New Zealand. As none of them owned a boat, they “borrowed” one from a local fisherman they disliked and set off.

    They didn’t exactly think their adventure through. No one thought to take a compass or map, they packed very little food and had no real plan. They also made a terrible mistake –- they all fell asleep.

    When they woke, they were in the middle of a storm. The wind shredded their sail, the rudder broke and they drifted for eight days. They survived by collecting rain water in hollowed-out coconut shells. They shared it equally; each allowed a mouthful in the morning, and another in the evening.

    On day eight of drifting aimlessly, they spotted an island. ‘Ata was more of a big rock sticking out of the ocean than a tropical paradise, but it was their only option.

    Today, it is considered uninhabitable, but Warner noted that by the time he had rescued the boys, they had “set up a small commune with a food garden, hollowed out tree trunks to store rain water, and had a gymnasium, badminton courts, a chicken pen and a permanent fire”. So far, their experience could not be more different from Lord of the Flies.

    A still from the film adaption of William Golding’s classic, Lord of the Flies.

    The six boys agreed to work in teams of two. They started and ended each day with song and prayer, imposed time-outs when quarrels arose and made a guitar out of driftwood and parts of their boat to lift their spirits.

    They initially survived on fish, coconuts, tame birds and seabird eggs. But when they reached the top of the island, they discovered a volcanic crater where inhabitants had lived a century before. Within it, chickens had been reproducing for last 100 years.

    During their year on the island, one boy broke his leg in a fall. They set it using sticks and leaves, and when they were rescued, a physician was amazed to see it has healed perfectly.

    Peter Warner was a well-off kid who worked for his father’s company, but he yearned for a life at sea and kept a fishing fleet in Tasmania, where he went as often as he could. It was on one of these trips in winter 1966 that he noticed through his binoculars burned patches on the cliffs of ‘Ata.

    For an uninhabited island, this was puzzling. He kept looking and to his amazement, he saw a naked boy, hair down to his shoulders, leaping from the cliffs into the water.

    More boys appeared and followed him into the sea, screaming and frantically swimming for his boat. When the first boy reached him, he cried out, “My name is Stephen, there are six of us and we think we’ve been here for 15 months.”

    Mano Totau.

    When Warner took them back home, almost the entire population of their island turned up to greet them. The boys had been gone for over a year and were presumed dead.
    Their funerals had been held. Everyone was overwhelmed with emotion.

    When he returned to Sydney, Warner resigned from his father’s company and bought a new ship –- he had found his new crew on ‘Ata. He offered them all the chance to see the world beyond Tonga — what they had been aiming for when they stole the fishing boat a few years earlier. Despite their experience at sea, they all accepted.

    While this is a story of loyalty, survival and friendship, showing the best side of human nature, one of the survivors, Mano Totau, now 73, admits that his memories of the island are far more harrowing. The six teenagers were stranded; they were not happy, they were terrified. He cautions everyone against thinking their experience was an enjoyable one.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Douglas Mawson (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic.He was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.The expedition explored thousands of kilometres of previously unexplored regions, collected geological and botanical samples, and made important scientific observations. Mawson was the sole survivor of the three-man Far Eastern Party, which travelled across the Mertz and Ninnis Glaciers named after his two deceased companions. Their deaths forced him to travel alone for over a month to return to the expedition's main base.



    People are really amazing, their endurance is immensely unexplored. Inner feelings, in conjunction with the expeditions of their lives, bring the power of human nature to a higher rank than any known degree.
    There are many extraordinary people who have performed the most graceful acts of dedication for the country, the planet, nature and people, and they all deserve to be mentioned forever.
    There are many documentaries, and I am grateful for the prestige with which he fulfilled his mission. The one below has a tragic-loyal allure with a temptation of irony against/ or for the situation itself.


    Alone on the Ice: The Best Survival Story You've Never Heard | Nat Geo Live (21:38)

    And all this to be just human.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Guardian Incidental angel


    A tweet (animated gif) showing a silent video of a guy trying to pluck the courage to put his arm round a girl, and get's help from a guardian angel behind them.

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    Damian Mander has sacrificed everything to concentrate his efforts on stopping the forces that track, hunt and sell animals, and animal parts.

    Damian created the International Anti-Poaching Foundation and a ranger training academy in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

    He had nine years in the military. In Iraq, he trained and deployed para-military forces to the front lines. Before that, he was an Australian Navy Clearance Diver and special operations sniper in the Army's Special Forces 2nd Commando Regiment.



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    "We are one of millions of species on this planet but we're the only one that determines what level of suffering and destruction is acceptable for all others," he said.




    https://www.ladbible.com/news/inspir...ghter-20191216

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    "We're all bozos on this bus"

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing



    Astronaut Bruce McCandless II floats untethered away from the safety of the space shuttle, with nothing but his Manned Maneuvering Unit keeping him alive. The first person in history to do so.

    https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/12102...rrer=EFOADRIAN
    "Your planet is forbidden for an open visit - extremely aggressive social environment,despite almost perfect climatic conditions.Almost 4 billion violent deaths for the last 5000 years and about 15000 major military conflicts in the same period."

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    The Extraordinary Case of Alex Lewis (Miracle Documentary) | Real Stories



    Alex Lewis, father of one, came down with a common cold in late 2013, which quickly developed into septicaemia and toxic shock syndrome. With less than a 3% chance of survival, doctors fought to save him. From arriving back at his family home and readjusting his relationships, to taking his first steps, this film delves into some of the raw moments that shape his days.

    Starting just days after he lost his last limb, the film follows Alex’s incredible journey as he seeks his purpose in life, rebuilds his relationships and reinvents himself.

    For updates on Alex's story please visit http://www.alex-lewis.co.uk/​


    Alex has now set up a trust.
    Here are some of his words from the trust website;

    When I was a boy I absolutely loved sport and I played as many sports as I could. Then became a horizontal teenager with a passion for golf, not the most active sport but I became proficient enough to be part of the Hampshire County Juniors. That was until I found alcohol and beautiful women and there ended my sporting life!

    When I became a quadruple amputee we were made aware of just how important it would be to maintain a level of fitness. Not just for my mental and physical wellbeing but for me to be an able user of prostheses.

    Through a chance meeting with an Invictus hand cyclist I thought maybe hand cycling could be the sport for me, after all it meant I could work out sitting down! I organised a meeting with Pace, a private prostheses provider who specialised in sports, where I explained my goal. It became apparent that there were no quadruple amputee hand cyclists as severely injured a I and that we would be breaking new ground. I loved the idea that I would be a trailblazer and, through the generosity of some good friends, I became the first man with no hands to purchase a hand cycle.

    Fast forward and I have successfully kayaked around the Southern tip of Greenland. I have jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. I have cage dived off the coast of South Africa with Great White sharks. I have kayaked along the Orange River, which separates South Africa and Namibia and I am training to become the first quad amp to successfully cycle to the summit of Ethiopia’s highest mountain in a solar assisted four wheeled hand cycle.

    My Mother summed me up perfectly in our documentary. She said “If you want a life, you need to go out and get it…” I now adopt a policy of taking anything on, whether it appeals or not, as life is too short for regretting what you didn’t try.

    Alex now.
    Have to add, his now wife played a huge part in his recovery.

    Last edited by Zirconian; 28th February 2021 at 15:53.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Quote Posted by EFO (here)


    Astronaut Bruce McCandless II floats untethered away from the safety of the space shuttle, with nothing but his Manned Maneuvering Unit keeping him alive. The first person in history to do so.

    https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/12102...rrer=EFOADRIAN
    Yes, that is an amazing photo, but excuse my skepticism, that is what I would expect to see at a cruising altitude of 35,000'/6.5 miles, not at the ISS altitude of 254 miles. The Earth would look flat from that height. Can anyone explain this?

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Quote Posted by Dreamer148 (here)

    Yes, that is an amazing photo, but excuse my skepticism, that is what I would expect to see at a cruising altitude of 35,000'/6.5 miles, not at the ISS altitude of 254 miles. The Earth would look flat from that height. Can anyone explain this?
    Yes, I might be able to!

    I can't identify those snow-capped mountains down there: I looked at the NASA source page, but there were no details of the landscape. But it's probably safe to assume they were something like 10,000 feet high. (Very minimum 5,000 ft, maximum 20,000-25,000 ft if over the Himalayas.) So that alone gives an idea of scale. If the mountains are 10,000 ft above sea level, how high is the camera viewpoint?

    And according to the article, it wasn't the ISS, but Space Shuttle mission STS-41-B. Details of that flight are here. The max-min altitude was 307—317 km, so we can take the average as 312 km, or 1,023,000 ft. Everest is 29,000 ft, so that's 35x the height of Everest. (Or, if the mountains below are 10,000 ft, that's 100x higher than those.) That all seems to fit reasonably well, though it maybe suggests that my guess for the height of the mountain range could be just a little low.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu or how to live a life of fighter,dodge Russian and Romanian armies,NKVD and Securitate for 29 years,being sentenced to death and live until 2006 and writing 3 books (I have the third volume) telling the story at it was and not as was related by others.In the artistic movie is presented his first 10 years.

    Young


    and old


    "Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu (January 1, 1923 – May 1, 2006) was a member of the fascist paramilitary organization the Iron Guard, who between 1948 and 1956, after the Soviet occupation of Romania and the establishment of the Romanian People's Republic, became the leader of an underground far-right anti-communist paramilitary group in the Făgăraș Mountains.

    Ogoranu was born in a Romanian family as one of three children, in Gura Văii, Făgăraș County, in the Țara Făgărașului region of southeastern Transylvania. He studied at Radu Negru High School [ro] in Făgăraș, where he was a member of the Frăția de Cruce [ro] "Negoiu" (The Brotherhood of the Cross), the youth wing of the Iron Guard. He attended classes at the Department of Agronomy, University of Cluj. Between 1941 and 1944, he was imprisoned for "forbidden activities" by the Ion Antonescu regime.

    After the end of World War II, Ogoranu was involved in fascist and anti-communist activities in Cluj. For 7 years (1948 – 1955), he led the resistance formation Grupul Carpatin Făgărășan. For his activities he was sentenced in absentia to 19 years in prison and, later, in 1951, to death. For 29 years, the Securitate were unable to capture him. He was caught in 1976, after 21 years on the run, at the house of the widow of a political prisoner, Ana Săbăduș, who later became his wife. He was reportedly spared execution at the direct intervention of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

    Ogoranu's life is the subject of the 2010 film, Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man. At the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, the movie attracted protests from organizations such as the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, which demanded that the film be pulled due to glorification of antisemitism. The Festival refused to pull it, arguing that they don't believe in censorship, but they are aware that Ogoranu made publicly "extremist, racist, and antidemocratic statements" and that they do not support such views, and that the movie did not support such views either."

    Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Gavril%C4%83_Ogoranu
    "Your planet is forbidden for an open visit - extremely aggressive social environment,despite almost perfect climatic conditions.Almost 4 billion violent deaths for the last 5000 years and about 15000 major military conflicts in the same period."

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Quote Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
    The Lykov Family Survives 40 Years in Siberia

    https://explorersweb.com/2021/02/27/...ars-in-siberia



    In 1936, fleeing Stalin’s Terror and religious persecution, in particular, Karp Lykov, his wife Akulina, and their two children, Savin (aged nine) and Natalia (aged two) walked more than 250km into the remote Siberian wilderness.

    For the next 50 years, they lived a remote, self-sufficient life. Two more children were born into their family. These two had never seen a human outside of their own group until the family was discovered by accident in 1978.

    The Lykovs were Old Believers, an Eastern Orthodox faith that practiced pre-16th century rituals. This sect was persecuted even more than ordinary Christians during the 1930s Soviet Union. Karp’s own brother was shot by a Communist patrol while Karp worked beside him.

    In response, he and his family fled to the taiga, or boreal forest, near a tributary of the Abakan River, about 160km from the Mongolian border. They carried only a few essential items on their arduous journey: a couple of kettles, seeds, a crude spinning wheel, and the components of a loom.

    They wore their clothes and shoes until they fell to pieces. Many of the original items proved impossible to duplicate in the wild. They replaced worn-out shoes with bark-soled versions and used hemp that they grew from seeds to replace threadbare clothing. Metal, however, was irreplaceable. Once the kettles wore away, food became a daily struggle.

    The family lived continuously on the verge of starvation, They mainly survived off potato patties mixed with hemp seeds and ground rye.

    Life was so precarious that they held an annual family meeting to discuss whether they should plant the seeds for the following year or eat them for sustenance now. In 1961, choosing to feed her children instead of herself, Kulina died of starvation.

    Each family member had his or her own strengths and resourcefulness. They’d each rule over part of their living environment. When Dimitri –- the youngest son, born in the wild –- was old enough, he’d hunt for meat.

    Sometimes he was gone for days at a time, sleeping without shelter in freezing temperatures. Without modern traps or weapons, he relied on hidden, self-dug ground traps or followed his prey until they eventually relented from exhaustion.

    The Lykov family’s terraced garden and modest dwelling, which a party of geologists accidentally spotted from an aircraft in 1978.

    Then one day in 1978, a group of geologists was flying over of the area, which had never been explored, when they noticed a clearing. Since there was no known record of human habitation near the area, they circled a few times. The evidence was compelling; a garden large enough to notice from the air could only have been made by humans.

    They found somewhere to land and set out on foot to investigate. What they found defied belief.

    They stumbled upon a dwelling which they later described as “not much more than a burrow, soot-blackened and cold as a cellar”. It was cramped, filthy, consisted of a single room, and the floor was covered with potato peels and pine nut cones. Cowering frightened in the corner were two girls.

    Sensitively, the geologists retreated from the home to give the girls time to adjust to the unfamiliar visitors. To improve the chances of a positive first contact, they waited for the family to come to them. There they learned the Lykovs’ astonishing story.

    The daughters spoke their own unique language, talking to one another in a “slow, blurred cooing.” They’d heard the concept of cities and countries through the stories their parents had shared with them, but their only reading material had been religious books and the Bible.

    When one of the geologists offered bread, one of the daughters replied, “We are not allowed that.” In fact, she’d never heard of such a food. The family’s chief entertainment was for everyone to recount their dreams.

    Although they were now known to the world, and the world was known to them, they refused to accept new items into their lifestyle. Shortly after their discovery, Savin and Natalia died of causes most likely related to their harsh diet.

    That same year, Dimitri died from pneumonia after refusing to be airlifted to a hospital. Karp, the old man, succumbed to heart failure in 1988. The sole survivor, Agafia, one of the daughters, continues to live alone in the wilderness, 2,000m up a mountainside.
    See this (short) thread
    Mod note from Bill:
    Thanks. Yes, we already have a thread about Agafia Lykova, here:
    Agafia's Taiga Life - Living Isolated in Siberia
    I just moved 3 posts there, as that thread absolutely deserves to be bumped.

    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 26th March 2021 at 20:26.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Another climbing story, playing out right now in real time. Two elite climbers have been trapped in a severe storm for over a week in desperate conditions high in the Himalayas, able to send out one text message each evening to their support crew (just two people) waiting at base camp. They will have been out of food and fuel for several days now.

    The whole mountaineering world is watching and waiting. If they make it down alive, it'll be one of the all-time epic survival stories in the mountains.

    This is what they climbed — the NW Face of Baruntse — which was a new route (never climbed before) in what is called "pure alpine style": no Sherpas, no oxygen, no fixed ropes, no helicopters, no nothing. Just two climbers with backpacks, a rope, ice axes, and all their skill and courage.

    Their route was basically straight up from bottom to top. The steep face is 2 (two) kilometers high. Very few climbs like this have ever been successfully attempted.



    The hero of the two-man team is the Czech climber Marek Holeček, one of the few holders of the annually-awarded Piolet D'Or ("Golden Ice Axe"), which is mountaineering's highest accolade for daring and skilled climbers. If he makes it down alive from this new climb, he'll be sure to win it again. (This would be the equivalent of an actor receiving a second Oscar.)



    When he announced his intentions for this climb, no-one would join him. That tells you something about the extreme challenge. Eventually, his friend Radoslav Groh agreed to go with him.

    Holeček's daily text messages read like this:

    Day 1:
    The weather was playing with us after we left base camp in the afternoon. We made a decision, and during a small snowfall, Rada and I huddled between cracks in the ice, under ominously hanging, house-sized blocks of ice.

    Six days later, they reached the top in the middle of a cyclone. Here's the photo from base camp:



    Day 7:
    Hell on top. Today, around four o’clock, Rada and I climbed a new route on the Northwest Wall and a few minutes later we reached the top of Baruntse. We didn’t even take pictures, no expressions of joy. Eventually the hellish weather allowed us to descend. We are at 7,000m, where we built the sixth bivouac. We pray that tomorrow we will have visibility at least for a while so we can descend. We are very tired!

    Day 8:
    White darkness
    . We are imprisoned here by the weather. Another bivouac on the ridge of Baruntse at 6,900m. It is snowing, it is blowing, and there is white darkness all around. We would need three hours of good visibility and we would be safely down. We will try to descend at night. It should snow until Saturday. I will send messages as long as the phone battery works.

    Day 9:
    It’s still snowing, blowing, and no visibility. We are waiting for a miracle that will hopefully arrive on Saturday.


    Day 10:
    We survived another hellish night under heavy snowfall. We had to constantly dig the tent out of the snow.

    Day 11:
    Again, a crazy, frozen night with a hurricane, but in the morning there is sun and no wind! Let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down!

    ~~~

    So now, frozen, exhausted, and with no food or fuel, they'll be inching their way down the steep face in very dangerous snow conditions. (Fresh snow means a high risk of avalanches.)

    There's zero hope of assistance or rescue. But I'm following this closely, and I feel very optimistic they'll make it. If so, it'll be one of the very great achievements in mountaineering history.

    This is in sharp contrast with what's been happening on Everest, where many paying, coddled clients reached the summit often with a ratio of two Sherpas escorting each climber and carrying their loads, with oxygen, fixed ropes to pull themselves up with, and clear conditions.

    And one team even decided to turn round and go home, having never left base camp, because they were worried about covid. Go figure. Mountaineers are meant to be hardy, risk-taking people, but some these days just aren't that at all.

    Fortunately, there are still some who hold the torch of the very highest degrees of independence, skill, tenacity and courage. I'll update this post tomorrow (I hope!) when Holeček and Groh finally make it back to safety.


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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Great news Bill. It seems like Marek and Radoslav are going to make it.

    http://explorersweb.com/2021/05/29/b...r-on-baruntse/

    I've been willing them on all day since reading your post. I've never mountaineered in my life, yet tales of high altitude derring-do have been favourite books of mine since childhood.

    From Bill:

    An update, reported only so far in Czech media, nothing in English yet. Holeček and Groh made it safely all the way down to base camp where a helicopter met them to take them to Kathmandu, the chopper being needed because of extremely heavy snow making it impossible to hike out. Full reports will trickle into the English-language media within a few hours. This really is one of the all-time exceptional mountaineering triumphs in more-than-extreme conditions.

    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 30th May 2021 at 10:47.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Thanks for the update Bill. I don't want to search for and post up any more news as I feel it's 'your story' and you're also able to give additional experienced insight in to it from a specialist's angle.

    It's a hugely inspirational story at the best of times, all the more so in current ones. Fighting spirit, true grit and the sheer will to overcome the most daunting of odds and situations, exactly what the general population needs reminding of right now.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Quote Posted by Hermoor (here)
    Thanks for the update Bill. I don't want to search for and post up any more news as I feel it's 'your story' and you're also able to give additional experienced insight in to it from a specialist's angle.

    It's a hugely inspirational story at the best of times, all the more so in current ones. Fighting spirit, true grit and the sheer will to overcome the most daunting of odds and situations, exactly what the general population needs reminding of right now.
    This whole story might deserve a thread of its own. I don't want to monopolize this one! But the epilogue has to be reported.

    These guys are as tough as nails. Tougher than that. Something very, very exceptional.

    They've just shared this photo. They lost a third of their bodyweight, but refused hospital treatment in Kathmandu. There's going to be a lot more about this in the media. This is a breaking report from https://explorersweb.com/2021/05/31/...han-baruntse/:



    Marek Holecek and Radoslav Groh have reappeared in Kathmandu, which they describe as “much worse than Baruntse”. After nine days on the wall, three of them trapped at 7,000m in a major storm and four days without food, they have lost a third of their body weight. But not their sense of humor.

    “The whole climb was nothing compared to returning to Kathmandu,” said Holecek.

    After assuring that he is perfectly fine, he jokes that surviving Kathmandu is more of a lottery than their recent precarious bivouac. First, he had to pay a compulsory visit to the city’s international hospital. “It is a procedural matter from which it is impossible to escape.”

    “They took my blood three times, so they bled me regularly,” he went on. “Then they X-rayed me and then concluded that I needed oxygen urgently. In the end I got about 1,000 different pills. I could have become a drug dealer right then.

    “When I refused to eat the pills… they came to the conclusion that I was not normal and that I would surely die. I took the risk anyway, and an ambulance took me through the deserted city back to my hotel.”

    No wonder the Czech climber’s state and attitude shocked the doctors at the CIWEK hospital (servicing foreigners in Nepal). After attending to hundreds of Everest climbers with COVID, AMS, and further ailments, they surely didn’t expect a man who had survived such an ordeal to refuse treatment.

    But then, Holecek and Groh are made of sterner stuff. They never asked for rescue during the days they spent in the blizzard at 7,000m. They just waited patiently and hungrily in their soaking sleeping bags and tiny bivouac tent until Cyclone Yaas passed by.

    Back in civilization, their climb’s worldwide impact has surprised them. They have not yet shared details or a route map, but they did reveal the name of their new line: Heavenly Trap.

    “The only thing that bothers us is that no planes are flying home yet,” Holecek said. “We’ll probably have to walk.”

    He might be joking — or not.

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    It's an amazing story with so many inspirational facets to it.

    As Bill mentioned they have borderline superhuman reserves of physical and mental strength.

    Touching The Void wowed me in both book and film formats. Jon Krakauer's 'In To Thin Air' lives long in the memory too. One hopes there is a truly riveting book now in the pipeline to share the story and details of Holecek's and Groh's epic accomplishment.

    In the photo they kinda look like bodybuilders morphing in to ultra distance runners or vice-versa. The size of Holecek's forearms even now, Popeye would be proud.

    Is it part of an extreme mountaineer's prep to use dietary measures to put on some extra fat just before a big expeditionary push?

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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Mod note from Bill:

    I moved the above 5 posts from the All Sports thread, as they really do better belong here. It was safe to do so, now that Marek Holecek and Radoslav Groh fully survived their extreme ordeal AND discharged themselves from the Kathmandu hospital, sense of humor intact, declining all medical treatment.

    As long as enough humans are as determined, strong and independent as this, our species has nothing to worry about.


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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    Marek Holecek, Radoslav Groh survive Baruntse NW Face ordeal
    31.05.2021 by Planetmountain

    Czech climbers Marek Holecek and Radoslav Groh are safe and sound after having established a new climb on the NW Face of Baruntse (7129m) in Nepal. After climbing the route alpine style the two Czech mountaineers endured an epic, 80-hour descent.
    Marek Holecek and Radoslav Groh from the Czech Republic are safely in Kathmandu after surviving what can only be described as an epic ordeal on the NW Face of Baruntse, the formidable 7129m peak in Nepal’s Himalaya.



    Last week Holecek, a two-times Piolet d’Or recipient, and Groh forged a new route up the mountain’s formidable NW Face in alpine style, i.e. no fixed ropes, no porters and no high altitude camps, encountering extremely difficult conditions and also bad weather on their way up.

    After five bivouacs and challenging, technical climbing, on Monday 24 May the pair were poised 50 meters below the summit when 46-year-old Holecek explained via satellite phone “We are tired like kittens, frozen, hungry and thirsty. God help us to climb up tomorrow and also to descend.” At four on Tuesday they summited but were soon forced to make their 6th bivouac at an altitude of about 7000 meters; Holeck stated “We didn’t even take pictures, no expressions of joy, and we immediately continued as soon as the hellish weather allowed us to descend.” 



    Terrible conditions continued however and the Czechs found themselves pinned down by a raging storm and high snowfall. On Wednesday Holecek communicated eerily “White darkness. We are imprisoned here by the weather. Another bivouac on the ridge of Baruntse at 6900 m. It is snowing, it is blowing and there is white darkness all around. We would need 3 hours of good visibility and we would be down safely. We will try to descend at night.” The weather did not improve and, with a window predicted for Saturday only, things began to look worrying. Furthermore, they were low on food, energy and batteries for their satellite phone.



    On Thursday Holecek reported they were still trapped at 7000m and were “waiting for a miracle that will hopefully arrive on Saturday” while on Friday he reported in much the same manner: “We survived another hellish night in a hurricane and under heavy snowfall. We had to constantly dig the tent out of the snow. All prayers now go to Saturday.”

    

The climbing world waiting with bated breath and then, on Saturday morning, Holecek broke the news everyone had been waiting for explaining jubilantly "in the morning there is sun and no wind! Let's go down, let's go down, let's go down.” The duo somehow managed to descend 1100m past “terrible snow” and after another night out in the cold, early on Sunday morning they were airlifted to hospital in Kathmandu for routine mediacl checks. Their 10-day ordeal on Baruntse had come to an end, in the best of all possible ways: “exhausted but alive”.




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    Default Re: Humans Are Amazing

    An amazing survival story, from 1971. This is 17-year old Juliane Koepcke. Her wiki page is here.



    You don't have to look too far here to see that this is one tough kid. And so she was.

    She and her mother were in a plane that disintegrated over Peru after the fuel tank was struck by lightning. As the plane broke into pieces she was hurtled out into space, still strapped to her seat.

    She fell through the air over 3000 meters (10,000 ft) — and landed in the Amazon jungle with a broken collarbone, her right eye swollen shut, deep cuts in her arms and legs (one of which became infested with maggots), and a torn knee ligament. But she could still walk.

    She made her way to the remains of the crashed plane, where she saw (a) she was the only survivor (her mother had been killed), and (b) discovered a little candy to eat. She poured gasoline into her wound to kill the maggots, and then found a tiny creek which she followed downstream knowing that she'd eventually find a big river and the possibility of other humans.

    She survived on her own for 10 days, starving and exhausted, until she found a little boat and a hut by the river. She rested there, and the next day some Peruvian lumberjacks found her and brought her to the nearest small town.

    She became known as "the miracle girl", and was hounded by Peruvian media, receiving hundreds of letters from people she had never met before. "It was so strange," she said, smiling. "Some of the letters were simply addressed 'Juliane -- Peru' but they still all found their way to me."



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