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Extreme trekkers - the age of the new cyber travelers
08:54 pm CST Mar 30, 2005
Guess we all figured that come year 2000, the world would be a different place. We would be skinny and wear silvery outfits; we would travel in flying cars and work on computer screens projected onto thin air. Chips would be surgically inserted in our brain and we would command our computers by our thought.
The tell-tale sign of Genius
It didn't happen. But something else is happening instead; and it's a revolution that we hardly even notice. We are downsizing and speeding up. Simplicity and speed have always been the tell-tale sign of genius, and now it's happening to us all.
The age of the Editor
We acquire knowledge in a new way. In this age of information overload, we no longer crave extensive reports - instead, we appreciate the guys who have the ability to give us the skinny on stuff. The new millennium is truly the age of the Editor.
We are all engineers if we want to be
We are rejecting the slow and the complicated. Computers have moved from IBM's cellars to our own desk top. Space rockets are moving from Lockheed's test pads to people's back yards. We are all engineers if we want to be and the new millennium is the age of Radio Shack.
Overnight delivery!
It all comes together on the Internet. Intelligence is spreading with the speed of light to every corner of our Earth, and the hardware needed to realize our dreams is at every man's finger tips. It's a giant brain at work; with the entire world for a warehouse - and overnight delivery! Oh, it's a revolution alright.
Strip it and abuse it
It's this new media and this new technology that has bred places like this site. Our community is truly interactive, sprung from the explorer's basic need to relay our discovery to the world.
We handle technology as we do our expedition gear: We take the latest and slim it, strip it and abuse it down to its core, until we arrive at a solution that's small, cheap and self sufficient.
The result? Speed and mobility. Originally sprung from our own need, the tech then quickly spreads to others. Today, Contact 3.0 is not only used by extreme explorers but also by aid workers, journalists and backpackers. It's pretty amazing, really.
Boys don't cry
Just check a dispatch sent today from the Appalachian Trail:
"There are no words for this; I'm at 6600ft on top of the Appalachian trail. I wouldn't trade this for any beach or other spring break trip...the picture does this view no justice, sitting on a cliff looking out at 270 degrees of Gods green earth, feet hangin off a 2000 ft. drop, and munchin on a granola bar- "kiss the mtn air we breath"- WP"
Here's another, from Tibet;
"Boys don't cry":
February 22nd 2005 GPS-pos: N28°58' | E090°23' | Alt: 4470 M T-54 +-5.
When you want something with all your heart the entire universe conspires for you to achieve it. (The teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda). Today is definitely the worst day of the expedition. It was the most incredibly painful one and it is no doubt the saddest as today may be the first day of the sudden end." (February 22nd 2005 GPS-pos: N28°58' | E090°23' | Alt: 4470 M T-54 +-5).
And another, from the Drake Passage:
"Land ahoy! Across the Drake"
7 March 2005 GPS-pos: °' | °' | Alt: 0 M
After leaving Paradise Harbour at 20:00 hrs on the 5th we made landfall exactly 3 days later. With good weather on our side we had a good crossing. Our highest recorded speed was 11.8 Knots with often 10 knots for hours. Everyone is happy to be back at Herchel Island just behind Cape Horn. Tomorrow we plan to attempt a landing on the Horn itself before heading on to Puerto Williams for the night and customs formalities.
Everyone passes on hello messages to their families and to let them all know we are back into the home stretch waters of the Beagle Channel."
And here's Hannah, from Afghanistan:
"Return to Faiserbad"
20 Aug, 04 - 07:58 GPS-pos: N37°05' | E070°34' | Alt: 0 M
Moobin has very proudly procured a rather curious breakfast of bread and what seems to be long life double cream in small cartons, but to be honest we will eat anything these days and polish it off without comment.
"Hi Mom"
Contact has spread all over the world, from Africa to Hawaii, Siberia and Himalaya, to local hikes in US and abroad. The new trekkers and backpackers are cybercasting their diaries to the world, to be shared and then saved for life as cherished memories.
10 years ago, this couldn't happen. Today, it does. No there are no flying cars. But the human thought, and the human word flies like never before - and that's a much greater promise for tomorrow. Contact is a product of its time, adapted by the explorers of this time. But some things will never change: "Hi, mom," will never go out of style.
Images
1. Appalachian trail
2. Tibet
3. Drake Passage
4. Mexico
5. Afghanistan
courtesy of the walking expeditions.
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