This photo of a climber doing pushups on a rock in front of K2 is one of my favorites, it really signifies what it takes, you have to be in top physical shape to even think about attempting to climb a mountain, especially K2.
K2 is one of the most dangerous mountains in the world, maybe the most dangerous, it is known as the "Savage Mountain" for a reason. Its extreme altitude, unpredictable weather, steep and exposed terrain, and technical difficulties make it one of the most dangerous mountains to climb. I actually met a guy in Boulder Colorado that tried to climb K2, the weather forced his expedition off the mountain, he said it was the harshest environment he's ever experienced, it just chews you up and spits you out. The mountain was conquered in 1954, but before that, the last attempt to climb it had been in 1939, some 15 years prior, that's when the mountain first earned it's fearsome reputation. The story of Dudley Wolfe is well known in the mountain climbing community, how he was allegedly abandoned on K2 by the expedition leader, Fritz Weissner, never to be seen again, until he was shockingly discovered in 2002 by a journalist living at the base of the mountain. Dudley Wolfe was a noted adventurer and heir to a vast fortune. He was a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy, class of 1916. His alpine experiences in Switzerland led to an interest in mountaineering. In 1939 he joined and largely financed the American expedition to K2. This expedition, led by Fritz Weissner, hoped to be the first to successfully summit K2, and to do so without the use supplemental oxygen. Wolfe is believed to have been the 1st man to die on K2. He perished high on the mountain where weakened by almost 2 months on the mountain, most of it above 20,000 feet, he was allegedly abandoned by the expedition leader. The circumstances surrounding his abandonment and eventual death are to this day very controversial. Several books have been written on the subject. Nobody has ever survived in the oxygen starved area known as the Death Zone longer than Dudley Wolfe did, which is a testament to his courage and strength. In 2002 his body was discovered on the Godwin-Austen Glacier after an avalanche had carried it down the mountain. Wolfe's remains were buried at the Art Gilkey Memorial at the base of K2.
Inside The Failed Mountain Rescue Of Dudley Wolfe On The Side Of K2
BY DIANA BOCCO
You're probably familiar with the challenges of climbing Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain at 29,032 feet above sea level. But mountaineering experts agree that K2 (or Mount Godwin-Austen), the world's second highest peak at 28,251 feet, is a lot harder to climb. According to The New York Times, one in 34 people die trying to reach the summit of Everest; in K2, the death toll goes up to a very scary 1 in 4 people. That's a 4% versus a 29% fatality rate.
K2 is a tricky mountain to climb for many reasons. Even getting to Base Camp is no walk in the park. On Everest, Base Camp can be reached via a long but relatively easy hike, while K2's Base Camp requires a climb/trek over a glacier from difficult-to-access Pakistan. Things only get harder from there. K2's weather is more unpredictable, the climbing is more technical, and there are fewer groups going up the mountain, so help is less likely to be available if you run into trouble. Overall, Insider points out, there's a 40% chance nobody will reach the summit of K2 in any given year, but there are climbers who summit almost every year on Everest.
And while Everest has a higher fatality count, that's only because more people attempt the climb. National Geographic reports that as of 2018, more than 4,000 have reached the summit of Everest, but fewer than 400 can say the same about K2.
Attempting to reach the summit
In 1954, an Italian expedition was the first ever to reach the summit of K2, just a year after Everest had also been conquered. By then, climbers had been trying to climb K2 for half a century without luck. It wasn't until 1938, however, that the first proper reconnaissance of the mountain was completed, when the First American Karakoram Expedition managed to establish Base Camp at 16,600 feet, surveying different routes, and placing ropes, but eventually turning back just 2,250 feet shy of the summit because of lack of supplies and poor weather.
When the Second American Karakoram Expedition, led by German climber Fritz Wiessner, arrived in 1939, things were looking promising, but it all changed very quickly. The 1939 party was originally supposed to include 10 people, including returning climbers from the year before, but the number soon dwindled to only six, most of whom had very limited climbing experience. One of the climbers was American socialite Dudley Wolfe, who would eventually become known as "K2's first victim".
Despite the team's inexperience, they could have potentially made it to the summit if not for a series of events that started before the team even left Base Camp, and eventually resulted in tragedy. One significant problem was the lack of certain equipment; at least one of the climbers didn't have the proper footwear, and the team didn't have enough snow goggles, which led to snow blindness for some of the porters (Sherpas), forcing them to turn back .
Tragedy strikes
The remaining members of the expedition soon started to lose hope for a successful summit. Eventually, only three members of the expedition reached Camp VII at 24,000 feet, including Wolfe. To their dismay, they found the camp almost empty, with no supplies waiting for them and nothing to eat or warm up. Confused and exhausted, the trio separated, with Wolfe remaining at Camp VII while the other two team members attempted to reach the summit. After two failed attempts to summit, the pair gave up, but by then a week had passed and Wolfe was too weak to join them in the descent.
A deal was made that Wolfe would remain at Camp VII while the other two team members reached the next camp for supplies, but they soon discovered all camps below were also empty or dismantled. There's much discussion regarding why this happened, but historians speculate some kind of miscommunication resulted in the Sherpas not bringing enough supplies to the camps.
Regardless of why, the two explorers soon reached Base Camp while Wolfe remained up the mountain, alone. It would be almost another full week before a team would reach Wolfe on July 29, but by that point he was too weak to climb down. Provisions were left with a promise to return for him, according to the American Alpine Club.
The aftermath
Rescuers tried again on July 31, but the bad weather made the climb impossible and of the three climbers attempting the rescue, only one made it back down; the two Sherpas in the group disappeared on the mountain and have never been found. As reported by the American Alpine Club, a third rescue attempt was made in early August, with similar results, and by August 9, everybody still on the mountain was presumed dead. The expedition left K2. No more attempts would be made to summit K2 until 1953, which also ended in tragedy, with no one reaching the summit and no signs of Wolfe's or the Sherpas' remains.
For years after, the survivors blamed each other for the failed expedition and the death of Wolfe. Leader Fritz Wiessner blamed Jack Durrance, a pre-medical student who had joined the expedition at the last minute and taken over the responsibility to supply the camps, while others said Wiessner, as the team leader, should have been better prepared. But the truth is that in the 1930s, the understanding of what happens to the human body at high altitudes was poor at best. Add to that the fact that Wolfe had only been allowed to join the expedition because he was the main financial supporter of it, and this despite him being obviously too inexperienced and out of shape to attempt such a climb. Regardless of who was at fault, Wiessner's reputation never recovered, says Suburban Mountaineer.
A mystery is solved
While K2 was finally conquered in 1954 when an Italian team reached the summit, the mystery of what happened to Wolfe wouldn't be solved until much later. It wasn't until 2002 that author and filmmaker Jennifer Jordan and award-winning independent filmmaker Jeff Rhoads accidentally stumbled upon Wolfe's remains
The pair was walking around the base of the mountain with a group of small people when Jordan found a number of objects on the ground. As she reported to Outside Magazine, this included hemp rope and "double-layer pants and Primus stove burners — stuff that hadn't been used in decades." Just a few steps away, she also found a series of bones, which The Guardian describes as belonging to the waist and legs, as well as pieces of a canvas tent. If there was any doubt about who the remains belonged to, Rhoads then discovered a mitten with the name Wolfe on it. The first man to die on K2 had finally been found.
While Jordan certainly wasn't looking for Wolfe that day, she says it wasn't the first time she'd found debris from historical expeditions, as things on K2 tend to slide down the mountain during storms, avalanches, or are simply pushed down by the wind. But this had certainly been one of the most important discoveries ever at the foot of the second tallest mountain in the world.
The last goodbye
There has never been a clear explanation of how Wolfe ultimately died, but spending time at such altitude without oxygen tanks, without food, and without proper insulation likely proved a deadly combination. According to the climbers walking with Jordan in 2002, it's likely that "Wolfe died alone in his tent or near to it" and that none of the three Sherpas who went missing ever reached him.
Wolfe's remains were buried at the Gilkey Memorial, a man-made pile of stones located on K2's base camp. Built as a memorial to those who lost their lives on the mountain and named after the American climber who lost his life there in 1953, the Gilkey Memorial is a long and tiring walk over the Godwin-Austen Glacier. Only those who make a real effort get to see the stones and the metal plaques that have been added to remember those who dared challenge K2.
When Wolfe died in 1939, The Boston Globe published a piece that started with the words "Boston sportsman died July 30 on Mt. Godwin Austen, India, with guide." It described Wolfe as "one of the best mountain climbers in Switzerland." But whether that's true or he had just joined the group to try to impress his ex-wife (as the rumor goes), Wolfe will forever be one of those claimed by K2.
This is the first photo ever taken of K2, snapped in 1902 by Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod. He joined the 1902 K2 expedition and later led a tragic attempt on Kangchenjunga in 1905, which ended in the deaths of several climbers. But it's fascinating to think that K2 sat there for hundreds of thousands of years before someone finally came along in 1902 and took a picture of it, showing it to the world.
This is a photo of the first people to ever summit K2, the Italians in 1954, and you can see what K2 put them through, just look at their faces. The photo on the bottom is the famous photo from that expedition of one of the Italian climbers, Lino Lacedelli, on the summit of K2, it was the first time K2 had been successfully conquered.
The largest mountain in our solar system is actually Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars, it's 72,000 feet high, almost three times as high as our tallest mountain, Mt. Everest.
This is Dean Potter on a high wire thousands of feet in the air in Yosemite, he was one of the gutsiest thrill seekers in history, maybe the gutsiest, there isn't anything he wouldn't do, climbing without ropes, base jumping, wingsuit jumping, high wire walking, you name it, he did it. Tragically it cost him his life, he died on a wingsuit jump in Yosemite in 2015. Thrill seeking is dangerous, it's extremely, extremely risky, I would compare it to playing Russian roulette.
Check out these photos, rock climbers will nail sleeping cots and small tents to the wall or rock they are climbing and actually sleep overnight, thousands of feet in the air. They do this to get rest if they are climbing a particularly big wall or rock face, and rock climbing is extremely exhausting, every muscle in the human body is used when you climb.
And check this out, this is Dean Potter free climbing with a parachute, it's basically climbing without ropes but you have a parachute on your back, so if you do fall, you can open the parachute. It's just insane to watch something like this.
God, Jack Youngblood was a bad a$$, played in multiple playoff games, Super Bowl XIV, and the Pro Bowl with a broken leg in 1979, and once during a dispute in a bar in Logan, Utah, a man stuck a loaded gun in Jack Youngblood's eye and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't fire. Youngblood took the gun away, knocked the man to the ground and walked off. That was Jack freakin' Youngblood.
Conrad Dobler, he had a fearsome reputation, one of the meanest players in NFL history, in 1977 Sports Illustrated called him the dirtiest player in the NFL, check out that hand wrap, his left arm looks like a freakin' club.
Tommy Nobis, "Mr. Falcon", had 294 tackles his rookie season, just a damn good fundamentally sound football player that many argue should be in the hall of fame. The ultimate compliment for Nobis came from Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka, who remarked, "I'd rather play against Dick Butkus than Tommy Nobis."
Bob Lilly, he played 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and never missed a game. Bob Lilly was not a guy you wanted to see running towards you, and he was tough as a $2 steak. He played through torn-up knees, broken hands, broken ribs, and a hamstring tear. He was frequently double-and-triple teamed throughout his career. In Super Bowl VI, he recorded a 29-yard sack of future Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese, the longest sack in Super Bowl history. Lilly earned 11 Pro Bowl selections and is one of the greatest players in Cowboys history.
Check this out, some scientists were down in South America doing some research when they happened upon a Goliath Birdeater Tarantula, the largest spider on this planet, the dang thing was walking around carrying a small possum it had just killed to eat.
Let me tell you, I wouldn't step foot in the rain forests of South America for nothing, the Amazon, diseases, giant Tarantulas, snakes, hostile tribes, there are many ways to get taken out down there. It's a beautiful place, but it's deadly. Seen from space, the Amazon covers a ridiculous amount of land, it covers about 2.7 million square miles.
This is the kind of stuff you face when you go into the Amazon, this is the Golden Poison Dart Frog, it's skin is extremely poisonous, one of the tiniest animals in the Amazon, it carries highly toxic venom strong enough to kill 10 adult humans. Indigenous tribes in the Amazon have used this frog's potent toxins on blow darts to hunt. My goodness, what a beast of a Frog.
The Amazonian giant centipede possesses a venomous bite that is painful and can cause swelling and infection, but is rarely fatal to adults, although it has been lethal to children before. The venom is injected via specialized front legs called forcipules. They like to hang out in moist places, wet leaves, under rocks, they also crawl on the ceilings of the caves down in the Amazon. Nasty looking thing.
The bullet ant, known for its incredibly painful sting, the bullet ant delivers venom that triggers bullet ant stings — a throbbing pain described as the worst in the insect world. The pain can last for 12 to 36 hours, making this insect feared by locals and researchers alike.
This thing is called the Assassin Bug, these insects can spread Chagas disease through poisonous saliva and feces. Often found near human dwellings, assassin bugs are small but incredibly dangerous.
And here's an up close shot of the Goliath Birdeater Tarantula that lives down in the rainforests of South America, the granddaddy of all spiders on this planet.
This is the Green Anaconda, native to the Amazon, these snakes can grow to be 30 feet in length, and weight over 550 lbs. You know, it's insane, the man pictured in this photo holding the Anaconda, he was actually going to let this Anaconda eat him, swallow him, and regurgitate him, it was part of an effort to draw attention to the Amazon situation. Here's the story, it's pure insanity.
10 Years Ago, A Man Was Nearly ‘Eaten Alive’ by an Anaconda on Discovery Channel
On December 7, 2014, Discovery Channel was ready to show a 20-foot anaconda devour conservationist Paul Rosolie whole. The special was titled Eaten Alive, which certainly made it seem like Rosolie would end up in the belly of the beast.
The idea was that Rosolie would wear a protective carbon-fiber suit, slather himself in pig blood, and let the snake eat him and then regurgitate him. Rosolie claimed the point of the stunt was to bring attention to habitat loss in the Amazon.
“I’ve seen firsthand how the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed,” he said, per Deadline. “It is so rampant that we may be the last generation with the opportunity to save it. People need to wake up to what is going on. What better way is there to shock people than to put my life on the line with the largest snake on the planet, the green anaconda?”
Discovery was already feeling the squeeze before Eaten Alive even aired. More than 38,000 people signed a petition demanding the cancellation of the special and a boycott of the channel. “This is animal abuse to the highest degree and absolutely disgusting,” the petition reads.
PETA also spoke out about the special, calling it a “blatant publicity stunt” that, judging from the description, sounded like “the snake was tormented and suffered for the sake of ratings.”
In the lead-up to Eaten Alive’s airing, Rosolie made the press rounds to hype up the special. “The last thing I remember is seeing the snake’s mouth open straight at my face. Everything went black,” he said on Today. “It was like being caught in a wave. It was just wrapped up, and you feel that crush. For over an hour, I was being constricted, and then…”
And then…? Well, Rosolie wouldn’t say. “They don’t tell you how the tightrope walker makes it across,” he told the baffled TODAY hosts.
What Rosolie wouldn’t say — or couldn’t say — is that he never ended up in the belly of the beast. Out of the Eaten Alive’s two-hour runtime, 90 minutes were devoted to the mythical, 25-foot anaconda Rosolie purportedly found on a prior expedition, as The Washington Post reported. Rosolie had no luck finding that snake while the Eaten Alive cameras rolled, so he had to face off against a backup.
And in the last 15 minutes of the special, viewers finally saw Rosolie grappling with the snake… and then tapping out when it felt like the snake would break his arm. “I felt her jaws lock onto my helmet,” he said later, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I felt her gurgling and wheezing, but then I felt her let go. She got my arm into a position where her force was fully on my exposed arm. I started to feel the blood drain out of my hand, and I felt the bone flex. And when I got to the point where I felt like it was going to snap, I had to tap out.”
It was an anticlimactic result for a special the Discovery website promised would show Rosolie “enter[ing] the belly of an anaconda,” per the Daily Mirror. And viewers felt conned.
“Calling it #EatenAlive is like having a show on the Food Network about cooking a turkey and all they do after two hours is preheat the oven,” wrote one Twitter user.
“I guess calling this ‘Getting Squeezed Really Hard’ didn’t sound as enticing,” another person wrote.
PETA condemned the special in another statement after the airing, saying that viewers weren’t the only ones deceived. “The chosen snake was deceived into using her precious energy reserves to constrict a human being pretending to be a pig, all for a publicity stunt,” the organization said in part, per Post. “Under natural conditions, anacondas go weeks and even months between meals, eating only when necessary for survival and expending the tremendous amount of energy required to attack, constrict, and consume large prey only when the payoff outweighs the risk. Paul Rosolie and his crew put this snake through undeniable stress and robbed her of essential bodily resources.”
Casting even more skepticism on the whole endeavor, Vox reported that Rosolie’s credentials as a herpetologist were hard to track down and that it seemed like Rosolie was provoking the snake into attacking him.
“I was extremely disappointed that when given an opportunity to produce a show that would highlight the amazing biology of this animal, that Discovery went with a production that is only based on fear and sensationalism,” Dr. Stephen Secor, then a biological science professor at the University of Alabama, told Business Insider.
At first, Discovery — a channel that had aired “docufiction” like Mermaids: The Body Found and Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives — defended the special.
“Paul created this challenge to get maximum attention for one of the most beautiful and threatened parts of the world, the Amazon rainforest, and its wildlife,” the channel said in a statement to ABC News. “He went to great lengths to send this message and it was his absolute intention to be eaten alive. Ultimately, after the snake constricted Paul for over an hour and went for his head, the experiment had to be called when it became clear that Paul would be very seriously injured if he continued on. The safety of Paul, as well as the anaconda, was always our number one priority.”
In comments at a Television Critics Association press tour a month later, however, incoming Discovery boss Rich Ross said the show had “the right intention with a packaging that was misleading,” per TheWrap.
And Ross, who was president of Discovery for another three years, tempered hopes (or fears) of an Eaten Alive sequel, saying, “I don’t believe you’ll be seeing a person being eaten by a snake in my time [at the channel].”
Here's the video of Paul Rosolie wearing his specially designed suit with armour and attempting to let the Anaconda eat him, it's just bat$hit insanity. This guy is legit crazy to even consider doing something like this. The Anaconda is the biggest and most powerful snake on this planet, and it was starting to break Paul's arm and he eventually tapped out, the video cuts off at the end because the Discovery channel didn't want to show Paul tapping out.
The Amazon Jaguar, South America’s largest big cat, the jaguar is both stealthy and lethal. It uses its powerful jaws to crush skulls and frequently hunts along riverbanks for prey. It’s revered and feared across the Amazon basin.
Comments
This photo of a climber doing pushups on a rock in front of K2 is one of my favorites, it really signifies what it takes, you have to be in top physical shape to even think about attempting to climb a mountain, especially K2.
K2 is one of the most dangerous mountains in the world, maybe the most dangerous, it is known as the "Savage Mountain" for a reason. Its extreme altitude, unpredictable weather, steep and exposed terrain, and technical difficulties make it one of the most dangerous mountains to climb. I actually met a guy in Boulder Colorado that tried to climb K2, the weather forced his expedition off the mountain, he said it was the harshest environment he's ever experienced, it just chews you up and spits you out. The mountain was conquered in 1954, but before that, the last attempt to climb it had been in 1939, some 15 years prior, that's when the mountain first earned it's fearsome reputation. The story of Dudley Wolfe is well known in the mountain climbing community, how he was allegedly abandoned on K2 by the expedition leader, Fritz Weissner, never to be seen again, until he was shockingly discovered in 2002 by a journalist living at the base of the mountain. Dudley Wolfe was a noted adventurer and heir to a vast fortune. He was a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy, class of 1916. His alpine experiences in Switzerland led to an interest in mountaineering. In 1939 he joined and largely financed the American expedition to K2. This expedition, led by Fritz Weissner, hoped to be the first to successfully summit K2, and to do so without the use supplemental oxygen. Wolfe is believed to have been the 1st man to die on K2. He perished high on the mountain where weakened by almost 2 months on the mountain, most of it above 20,000 feet, he was allegedly abandoned by the expedition leader. The circumstances surrounding his abandonment and eventual death are to this day very controversial. Several books have been written on the subject. Nobody has ever survived in the oxygen starved area known as the Death Zone longer than Dudley Wolfe did, which is a testament to his courage and strength. In 2002 his body was discovered on the Godwin-Austen Glacier after an avalanche had carried it down the mountain. Wolfe's remains were buried at the Art Gilkey Memorial at the base of K2.
Inside The Failed Mountain Rescue Of Dudley Wolfe On The Side Of K2
BY DIANA BOCCO
You're probably familiar with the challenges of climbing Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain at 29,032 feet above sea level. But mountaineering experts agree that K2 (or Mount Godwin-Austen), the world's second highest peak at 28,251 feet, is a lot harder to climb. According to The New York Times, one in 34 people die trying to reach the summit of Everest; in K2, the death toll goes up to a very scary 1 in 4 people. That's a 4% versus a 29% fatality rate.
K2 is a tricky mountain to climb for many reasons. Even getting to Base Camp is no walk in the park. On Everest, Base Camp can be reached via a long but relatively easy hike, while K2's Base Camp requires a climb/trek over a glacier from difficult-to-access Pakistan. Things only get harder from there. K2's weather is more unpredictable, the climbing is more technical, and there are fewer groups going up the mountain, so help is less likely to be available if you run into trouble. Overall, Insider points out, there's a 40% chance nobody will reach the summit of K2 in any given year, but there are climbers who summit almost every year on Everest.
And while Everest has a higher fatality count, that's only because more people attempt the climb. National Geographic reports that as of 2018, more than 4,000 have reached the summit of Everest, but fewer than 400 can say the same about K2.
Attempting to reach the summit
In 1954, an Italian expedition was the first ever to reach the summit of K2, just a year after Everest had also been conquered. By then, climbers had been trying to climb K2 for half a century without luck. It wasn't until 1938, however, that the first proper reconnaissance of the mountain was completed, when the First American Karakoram Expedition managed to establish Base Camp at 16,600 feet, surveying different routes, and placing ropes, but eventually turning back just 2,250 feet shy of the summit because of lack of supplies and poor weather.
When the Second American Karakoram Expedition, led by German climber Fritz Wiessner, arrived in 1939, things were looking promising, but it all changed very quickly. The 1939 party was originally supposed to include 10 people, including returning climbers from the year before, but the number soon dwindled to only six, most of whom had very limited climbing experience. One of the climbers was American socialite Dudley Wolfe, who would eventually become known as "K2's first victim".
Despite the team's inexperience, they could have potentially made it to the summit if not for a series of events that started before the team even left Base Camp, and eventually resulted in tragedy. One significant problem was the lack of certain equipment; at least one of the climbers didn't have the proper footwear, and the team didn't have enough snow goggles, which led to snow blindness for some of the porters (Sherpas), forcing them to turn back .
Tragedy strikes
The remaining members of the expedition soon started to lose hope for a successful summit. Eventually, only three members of the expedition reached Camp VII at 24,000 feet, including Wolfe. To their dismay, they found the camp almost empty, with no supplies waiting for them and nothing to eat or warm up. Confused and exhausted, the trio separated, with Wolfe remaining at Camp VII while the other two team members attempted to reach the summit. After two failed attempts to summit, the pair gave up, but by then a week had passed and Wolfe was too weak to join them in the descent.
A deal was made that Wolfe would remain at Camp VII while the other two team members reached the next camp for supplies, but they soon discovered all camps below were also empty or dismantled. There's much discussion regarding why this happened, but historians speculate some kind of miscommunication resulted in the Sherpas not bringing enough supplies to the camps.
Regardless of why, the two explorers soon reached Base Camp while Wolfe remained up the mountain, alone. It would be almost another full week before a team would reach Wolfe on July 29, but by that point he was too weak to climb down. Provisions were left with a promise to return for him, according to the American Alpine Club.
The aftermath
Rescuers tried again on July 31, but the bad weather made the climb impossible and of the three climbers attempting the rescue, only one made it back down; the two Sherpas in the group disappeared on the mountain and have never been found. As reported by the American Alpine Club, a third rescue attempt was made in early August, with similar results, and by August 9, everybody still on the mountain was presumed dead. The expedition left K2. No more attempts would be made to summit K2 until 1953, which also ended in tragedy, with no one reaching the summit and no signs of Wolfe's or the Sherpas' remains.
For years after, the survivors blamed each other for the failed expedition and the death of Wolfe. Leader Fritz Wiessner blamed Jack Durrance, a pre-medical student who had joined the expedition at the last minute and taken over the responsibility to supply the camps, while others said Wiessner, as the team leader, should have been better prepared. But the truth is that in the 1930s, the understanding of what happens to the human body at high altitudes was poor at best. Add to that the fact that Wolfe had only been allowed to join the expedition because he was the main financial supporter of it, and this despite him being obviously too inexperienced and out of shape to attempt such a climb. Regardless of who was at fault, Wiessner's reputation never recovered, says Suburban Mountaineer.
A mystery is solved
While K2 was finally conquered in 1954 when an Italian team reached the summit, the mystery of what happened to Wolfe wouldn't be solved until much later. It wasn't until 2002 that author and filmmaker Jennifer Jordan and award-winning independent filmmaker Jeff Rhoads accidentally stumbled upon Wolfe's remains
The pair was walking around the base of the mountain with a group of small people when Jordan found a number of objects on the ground. As she reported to Outside Magazine, this included hemp rope and "double-layer pants and Primus stove burners — stuff that hadn't been used in decades." Just a few steps away, she also found a series of bones, which The Guardian describes as belonging to the waist and legs, as well as pieces of a canvas tent. If there was any doubt about who the remains belonged to, Rhoads then discovered a mitten with the name Wolfe on it. The first man to die on K2 had finally been found.
While Jordan certainly wasn't looking for Wolfe that day, she says it wasn't the first time she'd found debris from historical expeditions, as things on K2 tend to slide down the mountain during storms, avalanches, or are simply pushed down by the wind. But this had certainly been one of the most important discoveries ever at the foot of the second tallest mountain in the world.
The last goodbye
There has never been a clear explanation of how Wolfe ultimately died, but spending time at such altitude without oxygen tanks, without food, and without proper insulation likely proved a deadly combination. According to the climbers walking with Jordan in 2002, it's likely that "Wolfe died alone in his tent or near to it" and that none of the three Sherpas who went missing ever reached him.
Wolfe's remains were buried at the Gilkey Memorial, a man-made pile of stones located on K2's base camp. Built as a memorial to those who lost their lives on the mountain and named after the American climber who lost his life there in 1953, the Gilkey Memorial is a long and tiring walk over the Godwin-Austen Glacier. Only those who make a real effort get to see the stones and the metal plaques that have been added to remember those who dared challenge K2.
When Wolfe died in 1939, The Boston Globe published a piece that started with the words "Boston sportsman died July 30 on Mt. Godwin Austen, India, with guide." It described Wolfe as "one of the best mountain climbers in Switzerland." But whether that's true or he had just joined the group to try to impress his ex-wife (as the rumor goes), Wolfe will forever be one of those claimed by K2.
This is a photo of Dudley Wolfe, the man is a legend.
This is the first photo ever taken of K2, snapped in 1902 by Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod. He joined the 1902 K2 expedition and later led a tragic attempt on Kangchenjunga in 1905, which ended in the deaths of several climbers. But it's fascinating to think that K2 sat there for hundreds of thousands of years before someone finally came along in 1902 and took a picture of it, showing it to the world.
This is a photo of the first people to ever summit K2, the Italians in 1954, and you can see what K2 put them through, just look at their faces. The photo on the bottom is the famous photo from that expedition of one of the Italian climbers, Lino Lacedelli, on the summit of K2, it was the first time K2 had been successfully conquered.
The largest mountain in our solar system is actually Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars, it's 72,000 feet high, almost three times as high as our tallest mountain, Mt. Everest.
Up close shots of Olympus Mons from space.
Thrill seekers, adrenaline junkies, whatever you want to call them. These photos were taken on the Eiger Magic Mushroom.
Base jumpers. Check out the guy in the wheelchair.
Awesome view. This jump was from the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
This is Dean Potter on a high wire thousands of feet in the air in Yosemite, he was one of the gutsiest thrill seekers in history, maybe the gutsiest, there isn't anything he wouldn't do, climbing without ropes, base jumping, wingsuit jumping, high wire walking, you name it, he did it. Tragically it cost him his life, he died on a wingsuit jump in Yosemite in 2015. Thrill seeking is dangerous, it's extremely, extremely risky, I would compare it to playing Russian roulette.
Free climbing without ropes never ceases to amaze me. There is absolutely no room for error.
Check out these photos, rock climbers will nail sleeping cots and small tents to the wall or rock they are climbing and actually sleep overnight, thousands of feet in the air. They do this to get rest if they are climbing a particularly big wall or rock face, and rock climbing is extremely exhausting, every muscle in the human body is used when you climb.
Some of them just say to heck with the cot and just find a convenient spot.
Gosh you have to have some serious nerves to do this stuff.
How the heck can you sleep like that? I wouldn't get a wink of sleep, not a wink!
I mentioned Dean Potter earlier, this is Dean Potter jumping from the North Face of the Eiger, the guy was absolutely fearless.
And check this out, this is Dean Potter free climbing with a parachute, it's basically climbing without ropes but you have a parachute on your back, so if you do fall, you can open the parachute. It's just insane to watch something like this.
Iconic photo of Gene Upshaw and Jack Youngblood, old school football at it's finest right here.
God, Jack Youngblood was a bad a$$, played in multiple playoff games, Super Bowl XIV, and the Pro Bowl with a broken leg in 1979, and once during a dispute in a bar in Logan, Utah, a man stuck a loaded gun in Jack Youngblood's eye and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't fire. Youngblood took the gun away, knocked the man to the ground and walked off. That was Jack freakin' Youngblood.
And Gene Upshaw was a beast.
Conrad Dobler, he had a fearsome reputation, one of the meanest players in NFL history, in 1977 Sports Illustrated called him the dirtiest player in the NFL, check out that hand wrap, his left arm looks like a freakin' club.
Tommy Nobis, "Mr. Falcon", had 294 tackles his rookie season, just a damn good fundamentally sound football player that many argue should be in the hall of fame. The ultimate compliment for Nobis came from Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka, who remarked, "I'd rather play against Dick Butkus than Tommy Nobis."
Bob Lilly, he played 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and never missed a game. Bob Lilly was not a guy you wanted to see running towards you, and he was tough as a $2 steak. He played through torn-up knees, broken hands, broken ribs, and a hamstring tear. He was frequently double-and-triple teamed throughout his career. In Super Bowl VI, he recorded a 29-yard sack of future Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese, the longest sack in Super Bowl history. Lilly earned 11 Pro Bowl selections and is one of the greatest players in Cowboys history.
Check this out, some scientists were down in South America doing some research when they happened upon a Goliath Birdeater Tarantula, the largest spider on this planet, the dang thing was walking around carrying a small possum it had just killed to eat.
Let me tell you, I wouldn't step foot in the rain forests of South America for nothing, the Amazon, diseases, giant Tarantulas, snakes, hostile tribes, there are many ways to get taken out down there. It's a beautiful place, but it's deadly. Seen from space, the Amazon covers a ridiculous amount of land, it covers about 2.7 million square miles.
This is the kind of stuff you face when you go into the Amazon, this is the Golden Poison Dart Frog, it's skin is extremely poisonous, one of the tiniest animals in the Amazon, it carries highly toxic venom strong enough to kill 10 adult humans. Indigenous tribes in the Amazon have used this frog's potent toxins on blow darts to hunt. My goodness, what a beast of a Frog.
The Amazonian giant centipede possesses a venomous bite that is painful and can cause swelling and infection, but is rarely fatal to adults, although it has been lethal to children before. The venom is injected via specialized front legs called forcipules. They like to hang out in moist places, wet leaves, under rocks, they also crawl on the ceilings of the caves down in the Amazon. Nasty looking thing.
The bullet ant, known for its incredibly painful sting, the bullet ant delivers venom that triggers bullet ant stings — a throbbing pain described as the worst in the insect world. The pain can last for 12 to 36 hours, making this insect feared by locals and researchers alike.
Another shot of the bullet ant.
The Red-bellied Piranha. I don't need to explain why you want to steer clear of this fish.
The Electrophorus Voltai species of the electric eel, found in the Amazon, this thing can deliver 860 volts.
This thing is called the Assassin Bug, these insects can spread Chagas disease through poisonous saliva and feces. Often found near human dwellings, assassin bugs are small but incredibly dangerous.
And here's an up close shot of the Goliath Birdeater Tarantula that lives down in the rainforests of South America, the granddaddy of all spiders on this planet.
This is the Green Anaconda, native to the Amazon, these snakes can grow to be 30 feet in length, and weight over 550 lbs. You know, it's insane, the man pictured in this photo holding the Anaconda, he was actually going to let this Anaconda eat him, swallow him, and regurgitate him, it was part of an effort to draw attention to the Amazon situation. Here's the story, it's pure insanity.
10 Years Ago, A Man Was Nearly ‘Eaten Alive’ by an Anaconda on Discovery Channel
On December 7, 2014, Discovery Channel was ready to show a 20-foot anaconda devour conservationist Paul Rosolie whole. The special was titled Eaten Alive, which certainly made it seem like Rosolie would end up in the belly of the beast.
The idea was that Rosolie would wear a protective carbon-fiber suit, slather himself in pig blood, and let the snake eat him and then regurgitate him. Rosolie claimed the point of the stunt was to bring attention to habitat loss in the Amazon.
“I’ve seen firsthand how the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed,” he said, per Deadline. “It is so rampant that we may be the last generation with the opportunity to save it. People need to wake up to what is going on. What better way is there to shock people than to put my life on the line with the largest snake on the planet, the green anaconda?”
Discovery was already feeling the squeeze before Eaten Alive even aired. More than 38,000 people signed a petition demanding the cancellation of the special and a boycott of the channel. “This is animal abuse to the highest degree and absolutely disgusting,” the petition reads.
PETA also spoke out about the special, calling it a “blatant publicity stunt” that, judging from the description, sounded like “the snake was tormented and suffered for the sake of ratings.”
In the lead-up to Eaten Alive’s airing, Rosolie made the press rounds to hype up the special. “The last thing I remember is seeing the snake’s mouth open straight at my face. Everything went black,” he said on Today. “It was like being caught in a wave. It was just wrapped up, and you feel that crush. For over an hour, I was being constricted, and then…”
And then…? Well, Rosolie wouldn’t say. “They don’t tell you how the tightrope walker makes it across,” he told the baffled TODAY hosts.
What Rosolie wouldn’t say — or couldn’t say — is that he never ended up in the belly of the beast. Out of the Eaten Alive’s two-hour runtime, 90 minutes were devoted to the mythical, 25-foot anaconda Rosolie purportedly found on a prior expedition, as The Washington Post reported. Rosolie had no luck finding that snake while the Eaten Alive cameras rolled, so he had to face off against a backup.
And in the last 15 minutes of the special, viewers finally saw Rosolie grappling with the snake… and then tapping out when it felt like the snake would break his arm. “I felt her jaws lock onto my helmet,” he said later, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I felt her gurgling and wheezing, but then I felt her let go. She got my arm into a position where her force was fully on my exposed arm. I started to feel the blood drain out of my hand, and I felt the bone flex. And when I got to the point where I felt like it was going to snap, I had to tap out.”
It was an anticlimactic result for a special the Discovery website promised would show Rosolie “enter[ing] the belly of an anaconda,” per the Daily Mirror. And viewers felt conned.
“Calling it #EatenAlive is like having a show on the Food Network about cooking a turkey and all they do after two hours is preheat the oven,” wrote one Twitter user.
“I guess calling this ‘Getting Squeezed Really Hard’ didn’t sound as enticing,” another person wrote.
PETA condemned the special in another statement after the airing, saying that viewers weren’t the only ones deceived. “The chosen snake was deceived into using her precious energy reserves to constrict a human being pretending to be a pig, all for a publicity stunt,” the organization said in part, per Post. “Under natural conditions, anacondas go weeks and even months between meals, eating only when necessary for survival and expending the tremendous amount of energy required to attack, constrict, and consume large prey only when the payoff outweighs the risk. Paul Rosolie and his crew put this snake through undeniable stress and robbed her of essential bodily resources.”
Casting even more skepticism on the whole endeavor, Vox reported that Rosolie’s credentials as a herpetologist were hard to track down and that it seemed like Rosolie was provoking the snake into attacking him.
“I was extremely disappointed that when given an opportunity to produce a show that would highlight the amazing biology of this animal, that Discovery went with a production that is only based on fear and sensationalism,” Dr. Stephen Secor, then a biological science professor at the University of Alabama, told Business Insider.
At first, Discovery — a channel that had aired “docufiction” like Mermaids: The Body Found and Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives — defended the special.
“Paul created this challenge to get maximum attention for one of the most beautiful and threatened parts of the world, the Amazon rainforest, and its wildlife,” the channel said in a statement to ABC News. “He went to great lengths to send this message and it was his absolute intention to be eaten alive. Ultimately, after the snake constricted Paul for over an hour and went for his head, the experiment had to be called when it became clear that Paul would be very seriously injured if he continued on. The safety of Paul, as well as the anaconda, was always our number one priority.”
In comments at a Television Critics Association press tour a month later, however, incoming Discovery boss Rich Ross said the show had “the right intention with a packaging that was misleading,” per TheWrap.
And Ross, who was president of Discovery for another three years, tempered hopes (or fears) of an Eaten Alive sequel, saying, “I don’t believe you’ll be seeing a person being eaten by a snake in my time [at the channel].”
Here's the video of Paul Rosolie wearing his specially designed suit with armour and attempting to let the Anaconda eat him, it's just bat$hit insanity. This guy is legit crazy to even consider doing something like this. The Anaconda is the biggest and most powerful snake on this planet, and it was starting to break Paul's arm and he eventually tapped out, the video cuts off at the end because the Discovery channel didn't want to show Paul tapping out.
The Amazon Jaguar, South America’s largest big cat, the jaguar is both stealthy and lethal. It uses its powerful jaws to crush skulls and frequently hunts along riverbanks for prey. It’s revered and feared across the Amazon basin.
How about a Amazon rainforest music.