- Every year, 4 people die trying to put their pants on.
- Chickens lay more eggs while listening to pop music.
- If a frog eats enough fireflies, its stomach will eventually glow.
- A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
- India has more cell phones than toilets.
- Within five minutes of waking, half of your dreams are forgotten.
- The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times each year.
- If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.
- Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
- You use more calories eating celery than there are in the celery itself.
- The human body has enough fat to produce 7 bars of soap.
- The surface area of a human lung is equal to that of a tennis court.
- Every four days the world's population increases by one million people.
- Mosquitoes like the scent of estrogen, hence, women get bitten my mosquitoes more often than men do.
- The average life expectancy of an enemy soldier in a Chuck Morris film is 4 seconds.
- The Atlantic Ocean grows at about the samw rate as your fingernails
- An iguana can stay under water for twenty-eight minutes.
- A crocodile's tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth.
- 15 million blood cells are produced and destroyed in the human body every second.
- In 1910, football teams were penalized 15 yards if they threw an incomplete forward pass.
- The heart of a giraffe is two feet long, and can weigh as much as twenty-four pounds.
- From the age of 30, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
- You see your nose at all times, however your brain just chooses to ignore it.
- Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
- The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
- There are only 18 countries richer than Bill Gates
- The second most popular search item on yahoo is "google".
DEFINITIONS
- Alpine Start:
The push-off time (generally around 2 a.m. or earlier) for a summit run in order to return to camp by nightfall, as well as to avoid the dangers of melting ice and snow as the day's heat progresses, which make the climb dangerous. - AMS:
Acute Mountain Sickness. A cluster of symptoms brought on by lower blood levels of oxygen at higher altitudes. Symptoms include headache, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, malaise and disturbed sleep. - Belay:
Safety technique in which a stationary climber provides protection, by means of ropes, anchors and braking devices, to an ascending partner. - Buttress:
A rock formation that projects out from the line of a face. - Crampons:
Spiked metal devices which attach to climbing boots to provide purchase on ice and firm snow slopes. - Crimper:
A negligible hold that accomodates only the fingertips. - Deadman:
An alloy fluke or plate which is placed into deep snow to provide an anchor. - Dry-tool:
To ascend a section of rock using ice tools, a common technique employed on routes that contain both rock and ice sections. - Exposure:
The condition of being on high vertical rock with full consciousness that nothing exists between you and the distant ground but thin air. - Flute:
A usually insecure fin or flake of rock or ice. - Gumby:
A novice climber. - HACE:
High Altitude Cerebral Edema is the most serious form of altitude sickness, involving swelling of brain tissue. Symptoms include loss of memory and coordination, vision disturbances and hallucinations, paralysis and seizures. Immediate evacuation and treatment is imperative. - Headwall:
The point where a cliff or mountain's face steepens dramatically. - Hypoxia:
A debilitating lack of oxygen. - Ice screw:
A threaded piton made of aluminum or some other light metal designed to bore into ice securely enough to act as a protective anchor. - Jug:
To ascend a rope using a mechanical sliding/braking device. - Lead:
To be the first climber up a pitch, placing protection in the rock along the way while being belayed by a partner from below. - Mantel:
A technique wherein a climber grasps a hold waist-level and powers the body upward with minimal assistance from the feet. - Multi-Pitch Climb:
A climb that is longer than a single rope length, necessitating the setting of anchors at progressively higher belay stations as the climbers ascend. - Munter Hitch:
A belay knot through which the rope slides when pulled in one direction and brakes when pulled in the other. - Open Book:
A dihedral, or right-angled inside corner. - Piton:
Metal spike or peg of various shapes and configurations that can be hammered into the rock for protection, primarily in aid climbing. - Prusik:
A sliding friction knot used to ascend a rope; to ascend a rope by means of such a knot. - Redpoint:
To lead a route from bottom to top while placing one's own protection, without falling or hanging on the rope. - Runout:
An uncomfortably long and often dangerous distance between two points of protection. - Sandbag:
To deliberately underestimate the difficulties of a climb in order to get a climber in over his or her head, often with hilarious or tragic results. - Sherpas:
An ethnic group of Tibetan origin living below Mt. Everest in the Solo Khumbu area. From the Sherpa's effective monopoly as high-altitude porters, the name has come to be applied generically to all who work in that profession. - Spindrift:
Loose, powdery snow. - Traverse:
Moving sideways across a section of terrain instead of directly up or down. - Verglas:
A thin coating of ice on rock which makes for extremely dicey climbing conditions. - Weighting:
To delicately rest one's weight on a piece of protection to test its security. - Windslab:
A type of avalanche which occurs when a snow layer compacted by wind settles insecurely atop old snow; when it detaches it falls in large slabs or blocks of snow.