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Michael Pelkey
Michael Pelkey (born March 28, 1940) is considered one of the first individuals to influence the mass practice of BASE jumping as a sport, together with fellow skydiver Brian Schubert. Pelkey and Schubert's first jump was made on July 24, 1966, from the summit of El Capitan mountain. Pelkey made his second jump on October 15, 2005, at the 26th annual Bridge Day event where he and Shubert were attending as guest speakers. Pelkey's planned third jump at the 27th annual Bridge Day in 2006 was unperformed due to the death of Schubert, from a parachute malfunction, moments before Pelkey's jump. BASE jumping On July 24, 1966, Pelkey and Brian Schubert made the first parachute jumps from the top of the El Capitan mountain in Yosemite National Park. El Capitan is among the world's tallest sheer monoliths, ascending more than straight up from Yosemite Valley. It is the second-highest unbroken cliff in the world, the highest being Mount Thor on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Capitan
El Capitan ( es, El Capitán; "the Captain" or "the Chief") is a vertical Rock formations in the United States, rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The El Capitan Granite, granite monolith is about from base to summit along its tallest face and is a popular objective for rock climbers. Naming The formation was named "El Capitan" by the Mariposa Battalion when they explored the valley in 1851. ''El Capitán'' ("the captain", "the chief") was taken to be a loose Spanish translation of the local Native Americans in the United States, Native American name for the cliff, “Tutokanula” or "Rock Chief" (the exact spelling of Tutokanula varies in different accounts as it is a phonetic transcription of the Miwok, Miwok language). The "Rock Chief" etymology is based on the written account of Mariposa Battalion doctor Lafayette Bunnell in his 1892 book. Bunnell reports that Ahwahneechee Chief Tenaya explained to him, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridge Day
Bridge Day is an annual one-day festival in Fayetteville, Fayette County, West Virginia, United States The event is coordinated by the New River Gorge Bridge Day Commission, and is sponsored by numerous companies of both local and international significance. The event, held on the third Saturday every October, commemorates the 1977 completion of the New River Gorge Bridge.Sullivan 82 On this day, all four lanes of the bridge are closed to automobiles and opened to pedestrians. Estimates have 100,000 people attending the overall event. The first Bridge Day was held in 1980 and drew a crowd of roughly 40,000. It has been held every year since except for those years: 2001, when it was cancelled because of recent events of 9/11 and the possibility of terrorist attacks; it was also cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. History United States Army veteran Burton Ervin, considered the father of Bridge Day, jumped from the New River Gorge Bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an area of and sits in four County, countiescentered in Tuolumne County, California, Tuolumne and Mariposa County, California, Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono County, California, Mono and south to Madera County, California, Madera County. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Sequoiadendron giganteum, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and Biodiversity, biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated National Wilderness Preservation System, wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a U-shaped valley, glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines. The valley is drained by the Merced River, and a multitude of streams and waterfalls flow into it, including Tenaya Creek, Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite Creek, Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks. Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America and is a big attraction especially in the spring, when the water flow is at its peak. The valley is renowned for its natural environment and is regarded as the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park. The valley is the main attraction in the park for the majority of visitors and a bustling hub of activity during tourist season in the summer months. Most visitors enter the valley from roads to the west an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Thor
Mount Thor, officially gazetted as Thor Peak ( iu, ᙯᕐᓱᐊᓗᒃ ''Qaisualuk'' "huge bedrock" or iu, ᑭᒍᑎᙳᐊᖅ ''Kigutinnguaq'' "tooth-like"), is a mountain with an elevation of located in Auyuittuq National Park, on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. The mountain is located northeast of Pangnirtung and features Earth's greatest vertical drop of , with the cliff overhanging at an average angle of 15 degrees from vertical. Despite its remoteness, this feature makes the mountain a popular rock climbing site. Camping is allowed, with several designated campsites located throughout the length of Akshayuk Pass. For climbers looking to scale Mount Thor, there is an established campsite a few kilometres north of its base, complete with windbreaks and emergency shelters. The English naming of the mountain originates from Thor, the Norse thunder god. Geography Mount Thor is part of the Baffin Mountains which in turn form part of the Arctic Cordillera mountain range. The mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baffin Island
Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at . It also contains the city of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. Name The Inuktitut name for the island is , which means "very big island" ( "island" + "very big") and in Inuktitut syllabics is written as . This name is used for the administrative region the island is part of ( Qikiqtaaluk Region), as well as in multiple places in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, such as some smaller islands: Qikiqtaaluk in Baffin Bay and Qikiqtaaluk in Foxe Basin. Norse explorers referred to it as ("stone land"). In 1576, English seaman Martin Frobisher made landfall on the island, naming it "Queen Elizabeth's Foreland" and Frobisher Bay is named after him. The island is named after English explorer William Baff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Arctic
Northern Canada, colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. This area covers about 48 per cent of Canada's total land area, but has less than 1 per cent of Canada's population. The terms "northern Canada" or "the North" may be used in contrast with ''the far north'', which may refer to the Canadian Arctic, the portion of Canada that lies north of the Arctic Circle, east of Alaska and west of Greenland. However, in many other uses the two areas are treated as a single unit. __TOC__ Definitions Subdivisions As a social rather than political region, the Canadian North is often subdivided into two distinct regions based on climate, the ''near north'' and the ''far north''. The different climates of these two regions result in vastly different vegetation, and therefore very different econ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Boenish
Carl Ronald Boenish ( ; April 3, 1941 – July 7, 1984), considered the father of modern BASE jumping, was an American freefall cinematographer, who in 1978 filmed the first jumps from El Capitan using ram-air parachutes. Biography Boenish repeated his jumps, not as a publicity exercise or as a movie stunt, but as part of the development and popularization of BASE jumping as recreational activity, distinct from other disciplines of parachuting. This approach defined the modern sport of BASE jumping. Boenish helped popularize this sport by filming and presenting the footage. Boenish also published ''BASE Magazine'' to promote safety in this new sport. Boenish's cinematography work included the 1969 John Frankenheimer parachuting film classic ''The Gypsy Moths'', starring Burt Lancaster and Gene Hackman, and a ''National Geographic Explorer'' segment on jumps from El Capitan. His life and death is the subject of the 2015 documentary film by Marah Strauch, '' Sunshine Superman''. Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fayetteville, West Virginia
Fayetteville is a town in and the county seat of Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,892 at the 2010 census. Fayetteville was listed as one of the 2006 "Top 10 Coolest Small Towns in America" by Budget Travel Magazine, and as "Best River Town 2013" by Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine. History Fayetteville was founded as Vandalia by Abraham Vandall, a Revolutionary War veteran and local farmer, on farmland that Vandall owned. In 1837, the county seat of government was moved from New Haven in the Mountain Cove District to Vandalia. Later, the town's name was changed to Fayetteville after the Revolutionary War hero, Marquis de Lafayette who toured the US in 1824–25. During the Civil War, the majority of the people in Fayetteville were in sympathy with the Confederacy. With neighboring counties being predominantly Unionist, however, Fayetteville changed hands several times during the war and was partially destroyed during the fighting. In 1897, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New River Gorge Bridge
The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel arch bridge long over the New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. With an arch long, the New River Gorge Bridge was the world's longest single-span arch bridge for 26 years; it is now the fifth longest; the longest outside of China. Part of U.S. Route 19, its construction marked the completion of Corridor L of the Appalachian Development Highway System. An average of 16,200 motor vehicles cross the bridge each day. The roadway of the New River Gorge Bridge is above the New River, making the bridge one of the highest vehicular bridges in the world; it is the third highest in the United States. When completed in 1977, it was the world's highest bridge carrying a regular roadway, a title it held until the 2001 opening of the Liuguanghe Bridge in China. Because of its height, the bridge has attracted daredevils since its construction. It is now the centerpiece of the ann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and "the most widely-read masthead in the country." The newspaper is published in compact print form from Monday to Saturday as ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, ''The Sun-Herald'' and digitally as an online site and app, seven days a week. It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia. The print edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland. Overview ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines ''Good Weekend'' (included in the Saturday edition of ''The Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
