Random picture thread for Friday

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My Honda 500 that Appeared in "Banacek:"

"My" [Borrowed] Mercedes that Appeared in "Hawaii Five-0:"

My Character at the Party in Hawaii Five-0

My Character Exiting the Party Bus:

15 days until.......
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@johnny9434 said:

@JWP said:

Im not really liking father time 😕

Growing old sure beats the alternative.

Acquired a couple Hemingray CD 196's a few weeks ago.............and seeing they reminded me of spaceships......
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A NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN & DISCOVERING HYPOTHERMIA

Seven members of a Lithuanian Mountain Climbing Team had come to Alaska to Climb North America’s tallest peak, Mt. McKinley a/k/a Denali. Three of those members spent last night on the mountain after having reached the summit. One of the team was airlifted off the mountain after being injured in a fall close to the summit in a saddle between two peaks. With a break in the weather a high altitude helicopter was able to dangle a life line. The remaining three members died in that fall with their recovery effort ongoing.

Near one-third of the hundreds of climbers who attempt to climb the 20,310 foot high Mt. McKinley each year similarly come from foreign countries. More than 130 people have died climbing Mt. McKinley.

By comparison, the world’s tallest mountain, 29,031 foot high Mt Everest has had over 346 people die climbing it. One of those climbers was Ray Genet who was the first mountain guide on Mt. McKinley and had set a record of climbing McKinley 25 times. In 1979, in my fourth year as a new lawyer, I had interviewed Ray in a deposition just shortly before he left Alaska for that fatal climb. He was a witness in a case I was handling and his testimony was being preserved for an upcoming trial. As I recall he had lamented off the record how he hadn’t been able to do the full extent of training he had desired to do before tackling Everest.

Ray had made it to the summit of Everest but despite the pleadings of the Sherpa guides felt too tired to descend to a base camp. He spent the night on Mt. Everest and never woke. Hypothermia was the cause of death.

A little over a dozen years prior to Ray Genet’s death from hypothermia, I had spent an unintended night on a mountain.
It was in 1966 just after I had just graduated from high school when I found myself spending a month on Sugarloaf Island, one of Alaska’s Barren Islands located between Homer and Kodiak. Two school teachers, myself and another teenager were on Sugarloaf hunting and skinning sea animals for pelts that would be sold to Russia for making fur hats.

Late one day after our hunting and skinning had been completed, we two youths decided to climb to the top of the island’s mountain. While its elevation was less than 1,000 feet, it took us longer than expected to reach the summit. At that point we realized there was insufficient light to safely find our way down the mountain and the only option was to stay the night on the mountain until the morning light.

The word hypothermia was not in our vocabulary and it only after 1966 that the general public became aware of hypothermia as a danger to hikers and campers in the wild. In that year a widely distributed medical journal article popularized the risk to persons in circumstances as we found ourselves in on the night we were on the mountain.

Today it is recognized that Hypothermia becomes a dangerous medical condition once the body temperature falls to 95 degrees F. At even that relatively high temperature the body already is beginning to lose heat at a rate greater than it can produce it. This was not appreciated prior to the studies outlined in the 1966 medical journal reporting. Once hypothermia begins to set in there is impaired brain and organ function.

Fortuitously we took steps to protect ourselves from the falling night temperatures by locating a small cave like depression in which we could huddle ourselves until the sun came out in the early morning.

Mt. Fuji, another mountain that I have attempted to climb, has had its measure of fatalities. Although only reaching 12,388 feet in height, 4-10 people die each year climbing it. Hypothermia is listed as one of the causes of death on Mt. Fuji.

While I (along with my son Curtis) spent the night on Mt. Fuji, we were protected from the falling night temperatures by staying in a shelter approximately two-thirds of the way up. To watch the Rising Sun in the Land of the Rising Sun while high up on the side of Mt Fuji is held to be an experience as cherished as that of reaching the summit.

This below linked video from Friday begins with a US Air Force F-22 Raptor Fighter Jet as it returns to Anchorage Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER).

Then seen is a misted over Mt McKinley and the scenic shore of Cook Inlet,

Link to Video including a Zoom in on Friday's Cloud-Covered Mt. McKinley as the three remaining Lithuanian Climbers descend from their climb to its summit:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OEAm-JRoekU

Related Photos:

Pictured while on Sugarloaf Island in 1966:

The peaks of Mt. McKinley as I photgraphed them while flying above Mt. McKinley circa 1965:

Friday's Cloud-Covered Mt. McKinley as I photographed it Friday from Anchorage Alaska:

The Rising Sun in the Land of the Rising Sun as recently photographed it lighting Mt. Fuji: