Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 02. 2.07
Everything is topsy turvy at the moment. Austria, France and Switzerland cancelled their ski championships this winter due to lack of snow. Norway operates a powered ski lift style thingamee to assist human-powered cyclists. In keeping with such weirdness we duly make note of the 24 Hours of Sunlight 2007 event occurring in Colorado this weekend. Participants will be competiting in a ski race that eschews use of chairlifts. Instead they ski up the mountain (on alpine touring or telemark gear) so they can then schuss down. But it doesn’t stop there. They do this, as the name suggests, for 24 hours. Last year Greg Hill (aka ‘3 Lung Hill’), who it would appear is the backcountry ski mad sibling of our fearless founder, Graham, tied for a world record with Jimmy Faust. Each managing the amazing feat of the most human-powered vertical feet (50,100 ft or 15,270 m) skied in 24 hours. To put that in perspective, Everest is 29,035 ft (8,850 m). And Greg is back again in 2007 to try harder! Polly Samuels-McLean scored the 2006 women’s record with 31,110 ft while Jonathan Baker put 20,215 under his snowboard. Ain’t it crazy what humans can achieve when they set their minds to it? Now, if we channel some of that same energy and determination to the problems at hand, anything is possible. Like the Hill brothers we simply need to set ourselves hills to climb, and just go for it. ::24 Hours of Sunlight.
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