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Arnie Schwarzenegger once famously pronounced ‘I’ll be back’ in one of his Terminator movies – well I am back and this leaves me with a dilemma – my co editor and family have fulfilled their part of our ‘deal’ – they bungee jumped at Victoria Falls! Congratulations – and I am pleased to say they are all fit and well and smiling.

You must understand that as a blog which writes, reports and does all things about extreme sports we feel we are somewhat obliged to have experienced as many of the extremes about which we write as possible. My co-editor and her family, having agreed to the bungee jump, then helpfully pronounced that my part of the ‘deal’ would be to wingsuit fly! Here you should note that I was not allowed to comment and have steadfastly refused to be a party to the deal.

However in understanding that to get even close to becoming a wingsuit flyer you have to have many hours of tuition, training, practicing, parachuting and free diving I thought I could at least do a little research – please note that this in no way suggests that I accept the deal.

And the results – well it seems that we can date back the first wingsuit flyer to 1928 when Captain Anthony Rogers – otherwise known as Buck Rogers – first appeared in a sci-fi story in a popular pulp magazine. Manned flight has long been in mind – the legend of Icarus, Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopter – but it was Buck who really fired up the imagination.

Steve Kramer of the Wall Street Journal reports on a book just published called Jetpack Dreams by Mac Montandon:

‘Nevertheless, a few obsessed engineers and enthusiasts keep trying to achieve lift-off. In “Jetpack Dreams,” Mac Montandon tours this wreckage-strewn territory and sketches some of its fanatical inhabitants………

At the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Thiokol Chemical and, most notably, Bell Aerospace, engineers inspired by Buck Rogers spent years and fortunes designing jetpacks. Then as now, the contraptions featured strap-on tanks filled with volatile fuel, usually hydrogen peroxide, that powered thrusters for propelling the pilot skyward. Then as now, most of the jetpacks flew about as well as ostriches.

The partial exception was the Rocket Belt, developed by an appealingly monomaniacal engineer at Bell Aerospace named Wendell Moore. Mr. Montandon tells this part of the story well. After Mr. Moore shattered his kneecap in a crash, he surrendered the throttle to other test pilots but kept refining the Rocket Belt. Success, when it finally arrived, was modest: In April 1961, a pilot scudded 112 feet in 21 seconds. Mr. Moore and others improved the device’s maneuverability but couldn’t extend that 21-second duration. Funding dried up.

Mr. Montandon earnestly recounts the Rocket Belt’s high points: an exhibition for President Kennedy, cameos on the TV show “Lost in Space” and in the 1965 James Bond movie “Thunderball” (“one of the most profound pop culture touchstones for jetpack junkies,” Mr. Montandon writes), and a flight at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The device was also popular at state fairs and sporting events.

Mr. Montandon strains to portray these 21-second displays as triumphs and the use of jetpacks in ads and videogames as significant cultural markers. But in truth his examples show the jetpack dwindling from a potentially world-shaking invention into a high-tech toy for entertaining but irrelevant stunts.’

So you see – when I read words such as ‘ostrich, shattered knee cap and wreckage strewn territory’ you will understand why I might spend quite a long time in the research department!

Of course on my return to Europe I was greeted by the very exciting news of Yves Rossy’s successful powered wingsuit flight over the English Channel – La Manche – and to keep up the spirits I have added a very good video by Atika Shubert CNN’s NewsRevue who interviews Rossy before his successful Channel crossing.

this video from glebfn is entitled extreme weekend and shows dudes skate boarding which is maybe not quite so extreme in terms of skate boarding – but it is a well made video and certainly the language from the music score is very extreme – apologies if it offends you.

Next week, up to 20,000 spectators will watch the Gorge Games 2008 (July 17-20), in which extreme and weekend jocks take on the Hood River terrain in various sports from kayaking to mountain biking. The first Winter Gorge Games will take place in February. Fox Sports will televise both events.

An hour’s drive east of Portland, Hood River has long been known for fishing, hiking, kayaking and climbing. But windsurfing helped introduce the rest of America to one of the country’s most diverse playgrounds.

On any day, it’s common to see SUVs and station wagons loaded with mountain bikes, surfboards, kayaks and climbing equipment, often all in the same vehicle. National Geographic Adventure magazine calls Hood River the “coolest town ever.”

“Maybe Jackson Hole and Aspen have better mountains, but we have more recreation opportunities,” said John Hart, owner of Kayak Shed, a popular downtown shop for professional kayakers.

“There are other places you can do wind events, land events or water events, but this is one of the few places on Earth where you can do all that in one location,” said Joshua Ryan, CEO of the Gorge Games.

About 1,200 athletes from as far away as Japan and England will compete for $100,000 in cash and prizes in 10 extreme sports, including a 24-hour “Adventure Race” and riverboarding, where athletes on a boogie-like board take on Class 4 and 5 rapids and waterfalls, with 15- to 20-foot drops.

“The river levels are very high, which make it very challenging this year. It makes it tougher. It’s bad, but in a good way,” Ryan said, mischievously.

The highlights of this recreation area, many of which will be featured in the Gorge Games, include:

• Seventeen white-water runs within an hour’s drive of town, including Class 5 rapids with 20-foot drops on the White Salmon River, where the kayaking and riverboarding competitions take place.

• Three dozen launch sites for windsurfing, including the Port of Hood River, where windsurfing and kiteboarding competitions will take place.

• A wide range of bike trails, from the leisurely Fruit Loop agri-tour and the Historic Columbia River Highway Trail, to the treacherous eight-mile Post Canyon, where the mountain-bike competition takes place. With 3,600 feet of vertical descent on a narrow trail with large rocks and logs, “it’s one of the top three courses in the country,” Ryan said.

Sure looks a lot of fun, I just hope the weather stays fine for them and there are no accidents. My thanks for this article go to Tan Vinh of the Seattle Times.

Whilst we reported the other day that mountain biking’s claim to be an extreme sport was in jeopardy – thanks largely to the good safety record, we cannot say the same for snowboarding as research from the US’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) has demonstrated. Thanks to Mark Watson of the Black Hills Pioneer for this information.

The CDCP released a report stating that snowboarding leads the list for outdoor related injuries – area hospitals agree. Snowboarders account for approximately 25 percent of emergency room visits nationwide, according to the report, and about 20 percent year-round at the Lead-Deadwood Regional Hospital.
That number jumps up to about 75 percent of all local ER visits in the winter, said Dr. Thom Groeger, medical director for emergency at the Lead-Deadwood Regional Hospital.

“We see a lot of wrist and shoulder injuries. A lot of fractured wrists,” Groeger said. “We also see dislocated shoulders, broken collar bones and some head injuries.”
When a skier or snowboarder is injured seriously on the area slopes the local ski patrol is called in right away.

“We act as first responders. We are the first care they receive,” said T.J Evans, Terry Peak’s ski patrol director. “From there, we get them off the hill. Generally the weather is kind of an issue and the quicker we can get them out of the weather and into a patrol room the better.

“From there we go into a deeper assessment into what the problem may be and to see if there are other problems. We make an assessment on whether they are going back out to ski, heading to the lodge, to the hospital with parents or if they need an ambulance to get to the hospital.”

The vast majority of injuries consist of broken bones and strains while the Deadwood hospital receives one or two critical cases a year, he said. “We see, in the winter, the majority of critical cases coming from snowmobile accidents,” he said.
Skiers do not account for as many injuries.

Other emergency room visits come from ATV accidents, mountain bike and road bike crashes, rock climbing falls, but they are vastly outnumbered by snowboarding accidents.

“ In the past couple years I’ve seen people with fractured backs and paralysis. That’s the worst I’ve seen, Gilbert said.

Groeger said that the majority of injured snowboarders are male, between 10 and 25 years old and are injured while jumping, but added that it does depend on the level of experience.
Doctors encouraged all downhillers to wear protective gear.

I think the YouTube clip below from zayl1315 clearly demonstrates why there are so many accidents – too many nutcakes!! Personally though I have great respect for those amongst us who push themselves to the limit.

I think when you book an extreme vacation you should be thinking more along the lines of what amazing adventure sport you can get up to, mountain you can climb, ocean you can conquer – rather than taking this vacation in a country in the midst of proabably its worst political crisis ever!

You got a fairly good breakdown several days ago as to what things are like here in Zim. It is scary. It is frightening. It is probably the last place anyone should have gone on holiday! But being a Zimbabwean this is our annual pilgrimage to see family and friends, to give ourselves that dose of the bush that we need so badly and miss so desperately in the civilised first world, and to revel in the wide-open spaces and endless horizons. When we booked the tickets way back last year, the elections were meant to be in March and well and truly over by now…

But the reality here is something else. Deciding that it would be better to err on the side of caution we have elected to remain in Harare over the next few days. The thought of heading for one of our favourite places like Kariba on the northern border or Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands would entail a 5-hour journey through the fabled rural areas where a lot of the worst atrocities are occurring. To everybody’s horror though, these atrocities are now occurring on a daily basis right here in the heart of Harare.

We arrived on Wednesday18th June and were able to change our money at ZW$6 billion to one. 2 days ago we changed again at ZW$15.2 billion to one US. Today it would probably be 20. The freefall is out of control. I have just heard on the BBC (from John Simpson who is here in the country and reporting on this election) that he was with a friend shopping in one of the supermarkets – which have very little in them anyway apart from fresh produce, and that the price of a bag of apples changed from the moment of taking them off the rack – to getting them to the till! This is no exaggeration. We had to return one 4-pack of loo paper because the same thing happened with us! You do NOT want excess zim dollars on you because within hours they have devalued by half if not more.

The largest note here at the moment is ZW$25 billion. This was worth about US$3.00 two days ago. Today it is worth US$1.50.

My mind blanks when presented with figures like this. A meal in a restaurant can cost you trillions. Imagine that?!

But that’s not the worst of it. Actually being able to find the necessities you need is an art. We call it “foraging” and I must say you do get good at it pretty quickly! You have a contact for meat here, sugar over there, maize meal (the staple diet) behind that house, wine (VERY necessary!) over the other side of town… and so it goes on.

So not only an extreme vacation but also an extreme shopping experience.

However, this is the lighter side of the country and one that you quickly adapt to. It’s the fear on the faces of everyone that is so tragic. And you find yourselves constantly fearful too, watching everything out of the corner of your eye, never directly looking at a young youth on the street, stopping for no-one (no matter how guilty you feel about this), and hurrying back within your security gates as quickly as you can.

Bush telegraph works well here. The moment there is trouble somewhere: a riot, stone throwing, plastering government posters on cars at intersections, axe wielding youths or anything along those lines someone from somewhere will sms you saying “don’t go in this direction…” There is a 9p.m. curfew on travelling at night.

The staff houses are filling up with relatives from the country who are coming in with horrendous tales of beatings, rape and torture – even children aren’t spared. Houses are being burned down – and this is winter. Everything inside the house is lost – blankets, clothing, pots and pans, what little food that might be stashed there.

This is despotism with impunity.

And the world mulls over it all talking about sanctions and that things must be left to the regional countries. Well, this poor country has been waiting for regional intervention for 8 years – why the west thinks they might do something this time I don’t know. Smaller countries surrounding Zimbabwe are now voicing disapproval – but Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is the man everyone is waiting for and he does nothing – despite the fact that his own ANC party is now vociferously against the situation here.

And this is an extreme sport site – not an extreme politics site! The next time I give you news on this beautiful country it will be more light-hearted I assure you! There is so much to do here. So many exciting things to do and see. And as soon as we are able to leave town I shall start documenting them!

Watch this space….

The ski season hasn’t ended at Whistler with the summer glacier skiing and snowboarding starting today.

Spring skiing and snowboarding on Blackcomb Mountain continue into the summer season with hardcore winter enthusiasts happy: bikes, snowboards and skis load on the wizard chair and solar coaster.
The Horstman Glacier is open for snow sports from noon to 3pm daily until July 27th. The summer glacier experience is recommended for intermediate to advanced skiers and riders and offers the opportunity to improve park and bump skills with the chance to visit independently (day tickets cost $52 Canadian) or join one of the private camps.