Six people were killed in avalanches across the West this weekend as the masses headed out into the mountains to enjoy themselves. Most of the deaths were snowmobilers, but one skier was caught in Hell's canyon. The list of fatalities compiled at Avalanche.org.

Date	Place	Fatalities	State	Activity	Summary
02-18-2007	Hell's Canyon, backcountry near Snowbasin Resort	1	UT	SKI	1 skier caught, buried, and killed
02-17-2007	Signal Peak, southeast of Richfield, UT	1	UT	SNOWMOBILE	1 snowmobiler caught, buried, and killed
02-17-2007	Tower Mountain, southeast of Heber City	1	UT	SNOWMOBILE	1 snowmobiler caught, buried, and killed
02-17-2007	Palisades Peak Area	1	ID	SNOWMOBILE	1 snowmobiler caught, buried, and killed.
02-17-2007	Mount Baldy, about 20 miles from Townsend	2	MT	SNOWMOBILE	2 snowmobilers caught, buried and killed

Incredible survival tale. German world champion paraglider was sucked into a storm at the world championships last week to a height of 10,000 meters. She was knocked unconscious by the altitude while her glider continued to fly through hail, sub zero cold, and darkness. When she regained consciousness, she was able to safely land the glider, about 60 km from the start of her ordeal. A Chinese participant was killed by the same storm. Read more about the paragliding accident on the Herald Sun.

Snow is back in the Alps, and with it avalanches. Tough week in the Alps, with 3 people dying in avalanches. From Alpine Experience:

• An off-piste skier has been killed by an avalanche at Tignes in the early afternoon close to the Col du Palet. The avalanche occurred at 2,150 meters altitude in a sector between two open ski runs.
• At la Plagne a lone British skier died in an avalanche at 2300 meters. The alert was given by his wife when he failed to return to the resort in the early evening. The body was found after an extensive search at 2h30 on Wednesday morning; the missing skiers legs were visible on the surface of the slide.
• A 20 year old from the Maine et Loire also died in an avalanche at Corbier in the Maurienne.

Dying in avalanches between ski runs? Imagine that happening in the U.S.? Someone would be getting very rich off that lawsuit. 

So good news, it's safe to go into the water again. Your fear of being eaten by a shark is probably not justified by the reality. Just 4 people died last year and 58 were injured due to shark attacks. Numbers are down for deaths slightly up (by one) for injuries. The United States (38 attacks) is the leader in attacks, making Florida (23 attacks) the shark capital of the world. Congratulations to Florida. Shark attacks and Jeb Bush. Two things to be scared of the next time you visit. Here are the overall attack stats, but in general attacks have leveled off. Probably because we're killing off all the sharks.

• US - 38
• Australia - 7 (one fatal)
• South Africa - 4
• Brazil - 3 (one fatal)
• Bahamas - 2
• Fiji - 1
• Guam - 1
• Mexico - 1
• New Zealand - 1
• Puerto Rico - 1
• Reunion - 1 (one fatal)
• Spain - 1
• Tonga - 1 (one fatal)

So the moral of the story is, don't worry about sharks. Unless you're swimming in the shark infested waters off of Nor Cal. That shit's dangerous. Or Amity Island. Unless Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are still there kicking ass and taking names. More at Physorg.com.

RELATED POSTS:

• Sharks Still Carnivorous
• Shark Breaching Video Part II
• Shark Vs. Seal
• Sharks Still Carnivorous: Why We Don't Surf

Yet another parachutist that decides that a parachute is too easy and takes a nose dive 13,000 feet straight into a blackberry bush....and lives. Not as impressive as the pregnant parachutist that fell face first into a parking lot , Vesna Vulović the stewardess that was blown out of her exploding plane strapped to her seat, and the Nick Alkemade the tail gunner who jumped out of his burning bomber over Germany, all 3 survived. But still Versus worthy. Video after the jump (next page).

Ever since Agincourt, the French have had it out for the Brits. Waiting, patiently, they have been. The French. Smoking their Gallois. Driving their ozone depleting Renaults. All with the single minded goal of creating a massive heat barrier around the earth to melt the polar ice caps and drown their Anglo nemesis off the face of the earth. And their patient calculating revenege is reaping its reward. Finally. Sacre Bleu, England is sinking into the Ocean! Or Sea. Or channel. Depending of course on your pespective. Well, not quite sinking. The waters are rising and threatening the coast lines. Making an invasion by the French oh so much easier. Some of the landmarks that are in danger according to the Reutuers:

• Golden Cap, Dorset. The highest point on Britain's south coast could see erosion increase to more than two meters a year.
• Formby Sands. Over the next 100 years, the sands in the northeastern county of Lancashire could recede by more than 400 meters.
• Birling Gap, Sussex. Erosion has already claimed several cottages on the edge of the chalk cliffs in the southeast of England. The remaining houses and a hotel are under threat.
• Studland Peninsula, Dorset. The southern part of the beach is losing up to three meters each year, threatening cafes, toilets, a shop and beach huts on the south coast peninsula.

Formby Sands? Oh, the horror.

---

Pretty interesting SAR story. If you've been following the hunt for Jim Gray, one of Microsoft's leading DB computer scientists you'll be familiar with the story. For those that haven't, Gray disappeared on board his 40 ft. yacht while scattering his mother's ashes in the Farallon's off the coast of San Francisco. After the coast guard gave up, his peers organized a massive online effort to examine satellite images; over 560,000 were visually scanned by individuals in about a week. The images were made available after Sergei Brin, one of Google's founders, convinced the satellite imaging company that provides images to Google Earth to conduct a "special" sweep of the bay area. That must be nice. Just call up one of your suppliers and say, "Dudes, can you send you're satellites over here for a favor. We lost one of our scientists and could use your help." Where was Gates when all this was happening? Yet another sign Google rules the world and Microsoft can only sit on the sidelines and watch.

Gray remains missing still, but after reading the story, I was struck by the amount of money and resources that were mobilized to find Gray. Pity the poor and unwired folk who get lost. Moral of the story, if you're going to go missing, make sure you're well connected to tech saavy millionaires and billionaires. If you're just a guy with a wife and two kids missing on a road somewhere in Oregon, you can forget about it. You'd better hope you family can at least afford a helicopter. More on the Pop Sci blog.

Considering there were 11 deaths on Everest last year, it's pretty surprising to find so many people perishing on a 3,858 ft. "mountain" in the Scottish highlands:

In two months, five climbers have died there in four accidents. The deaths have led mountaineering organisations to take the unusual step of warning that the hype surrounding adventure activities may be encouraging young people to take unnecessary risks on Britain's mountains. Two of the dead, Richard Hardy, 18, and Graeme Cooper, 23, were overwhelmed by the conditions Allen is describing, in a storm in late November. Hardy was a geography student at Aberdeen University, while Cooper had graduated from the same department the summer before. Neil Batchelor, 26, who died in a fall in mid-December, was a friend of Cooper's. All three were members of the mountaineering club at Aberdeen Univeristy, the Lairig. On January 10 Hugh Pitcairn, a 20-year-old student at Bristol University, fell to his death from a route called Crotched Gully. On January 19 Mike Rough, 48, was found dead at the base of a rocky feature called Aladdin's Mirror. He had been climbing alone and local mountain rescuers could only speculate on why and from where he had fallen.

Via U.K. Guardian.

---