I’ll admit that I thought this was a little crazy at first. However, once the giddy newness of watching someone find a new way to zoom down a mountain wears off, I began to see honest potential in those plastic shoes. Grass skiing could be as cool as downhill skateboarding, or the undeniably ballsy street luge.

Some of the videos I found on youtube are actually quite a testament to the possibilities of this nascent sport. People can get going pretty fast and still actually turn.

I’m glad to see the trend of moving cold weather sports into warmer seasons continues. Roller blading is undeniably cool. Street luge is fun to watch…mostly because of those occasional puffs of hay that signal a whipeout. Now, we can even watch grass skiing.

East of flagstaff, Arizona there is a giant hole in the ground that is totally worth a visit. It was created by either a meteor impact 50,000 years ago or a really big gopher. Whatever future studies conclude actually caused it, it is quite impressive.

If you are struggling get your mind around the idea that really big rocks sometimes crash into the earth at over 28,000 miles per hour, this is a good crater to visit. The dry climate of the region allows one to see the whole crater. Erosion hasn’t changed all that much since those heady days when giant ground sloths roamed the area. This crater also doesn’t have a forest to block your view of the destruction fast moving rocks can wreak.

Here, there is just a 4,000 foot wide hole.

Creative Commons picture by Marcin Wichary.

Creative Commons picture by Beige Alert.

Creative Commons picture by jurvetson.

This is incredibly gutsy. No matter how many times the math is carefully worked out on this one, only the most daring will actually attempt this. These are really really big rockets.

In fact, I am hard pressed to come up with a more gutsy action. Perhaps removing your own soon to explode appendix without anesthetic…but, that would usually fall into the “just crazy” category.

For those who would like to watch the launch of a humongous rocket that has people tied to it, the space shuttle discovery is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 12th.

As gutsy and amazing as this action is, and as terrifyingly powerful as those rockets are, there are other reasons to find this interesting. Watching a hurricane form from above (space) can be really helpful in predicting hurricanes in general. We could even say that much of our present weather predictions (and thus many farming decisions) are dependent upon people having done this very gutsy action. Oh yeah, GPS, Satellite Television, and Google maps are also dependent upon such gigantic rockets and the people who have tied themselves to them.

The technique of using a short ladder with a hook on the end to climb a tall building was once an important way for firefighters to avoid dangerously damaged staircases. A skilled firefighter could quickly hook the ladder on a window sill above him, climb up the ladder, then sit in that window while repeating the process. Theoretically this allowed a firefighter to get to any story of a burning building without much equipment.

As cool as this technique is, the function it provided firefighters has simply been replaced by other methods in North America. However, in eastern Europe speed hook ladder climbing has started to slide from “professional practice” to “sport.” If you are not yet convinced of the coolness of this sport, a 30 second video of a contestant climbing a building facade at amazing speeds will probably change your mind. I love seeing people do things that I thought were impossible, the outfits are pretty cool to.

Creative Commons picture by shioshvili.

These trees are committed to beauty. In the fall they expend great amounts of energy to produce a flash of beauty. With grace their magnificent color expands into the world around them making everything that much prettier. Deciduous trees are the makeover artists of the plant world, capable of turning an abandoned and rusting car into a jaw dropping work of art.

Awesome places to observe deciduous trees this coming fall:

1) The Ancient Aspen Grove at Fish Lake National Forest in Utah

Aspens are particularly amazing tree in the fall because whole groves change color at exactly the same time. Their roots are so interconnected that it is often argued that they are really one organism. The roots of this particular aspen grove is thought to be some 80,000 years old. They were sacrificing beauty for beauty even before the Trojan War.

2) From the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Southeast United States

An excellent way to marvel at a majestic seasonal transformation from the inside of your car. Plus, the people are really nice. I was once mountain biking here, broke my chain, and was quickly and generously offered a ride.

3) Washington DC

Not only is the leafy beauty amazing, but you can watch it secure in the knowledge that this is just one episode in the “which is the most beautiful tree” competition that rages here. When the spring comes the cherry trees will do their best to show up whatever you see here in the fall.

Good responses to this story

“I once dated a girl just like that”
“That’s what she said”
“Almost no other time has the discarding of a body part been so pretty.”

A Rate of Climb Comparison

The building of such a tall structure in Taiwan demonstrates a certain amount of moxy on the part of…well…almost everyone involved. Taiwan is a seismically active area that has a history of getting pummeled by typhoons. It has the natural disaster downsides of both Florida and California. This is where they decided to build a huge skyscraper.

During the building’s construction the area was even hit by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake. Some cranes were knocked off the nascent structure, however, even in such an incomplete form the structure didn’t flinch. When the next typhoon hits, the building is designed to handle that too. Taipei 101 can sustain winds of up to 137 miles per hour.

Creative Commons picture by Wm Jas.