I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock IN the Grand Canyon.
The canyon's depth is 900 meters here.The rock on the right is next to the canyon and safe. Watching this guy on his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod I asked myself 3 questions:
1. How did he climb that rock?
2. Why not take that sunset picture on that rock to the right, which is perfectly safe?
3. How will he get back?
Posted by Lon Overacker on January 9, 2007 at 7:20 PM
That is just bleepin' amazing. A certain candidate for the Darwin award.
I was initially quite skeptical. You'll see in his photostream the previous thumbnail of a vuluptious maiden pouring milk on herself - which clearly looks like a composite to me. Without giving it away - you'll have to look for yourself... I felt like the second image was a fake/composite image. But in reading the thread further from some of the links embedded in the photos, there was another photographer who had shots of this guy from different vantage points. Which makes it all a little bit more believable to me.
If it's true or even if it's not, it gives me the heebee-jeebees... I'm scared of heights!
Thanks Dan - I think.
Lon
Posted by David Senesac on January 13, 2007 at 3:34 AM
All the gushing commenters seem to assume the area between the rock that guy is standing on and the camera is some kind of pinnacle with hundreds of feet of air on all sides. Since only the top few feet are shown it might just be ten feet to the ground. Now if someone has a link to a pic that shows otherwise then he could be a climber and made a short Tyrolean traverse for a stunt image. Also there seems to be maybe a dim second person out in the front with just his head sticking up in view. Climbers takes images of themselves and friends atop all manner of pinnacles all the time.. Go over to www.summitpost.com and you'll see images like that. ...David
Posted by Dan Truong on January 15, 2007 at 4:29 PM
It's a series of a few shots with the guy jumping across. Check out the photostream thumbnails on the right.
That photographer has a lot of great pics up, don't think he climbs.
Posted by David Senesac on January 15, 2007 at 7:00 PM
None of those three pics indicates how far below the ground really is. Per the comment, the cliff may drop away 900 feet but is that right underneath him 900 feet or just a little ways beyond? There are a number of detached pinnacles like this just beyond main cliff edges that do not drop away much. If the drop below is less than 20 feet to the ground, the wow factor drops way low. Three things tell me this is a less than believable. One is the photographer doesn't explain anywhere in the thread in more detail even though some posters asked questions. The second thing is the guy is jumping in sandals. Any sane rock savvy climber would not be playing around in sandals next to a 900 foot cliff much less leaping across a wide gap. And last as some of the posters commented, considering his tripod placement, I doubt moving to that spot in any way is going to make for some worthwhile image down into the canyon versus back behind the main cliff edge. In fact getting the detached pinnacle in the image instead of standing on it makes more sense. Thus the whole purpose of the image is likely being staged for the sake of faking gullable types out. ...David
Discussion
4 repliesYou have to click on the small thumbnails to see the rest of the pics and story. It's from Aug'06.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvandevorst/216200392/in/photostream/
I was initially quite skeptical. You'll see in his photostream the previous thumbnail of a vuluptious maiden pouring milk on herself - which clearly looks like a composite to me. Without giving it away - you'll have to look for yourself... I felt like the second image was a fake/composite image. But in reading the thread further from some of the links embedded in the photos, there was another photographer who had shots of this guy from different vantage points. Which makes it all a little bit more believable to me.
If it's true or even if it's not, it gives me the heebee-jeebees... I'm scared of heights!
Thanks Dan - I think.
Lon
That photographer has a lot of great pics up, don't think he climbs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvandevorst/216877526/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvandevorst/217713707/in/photostream/