Summit Murder Mystery Series

First Everest climbers from US reminisce 4 men reunite 50 years later BERKELEY, Calif. — It might be hard to conceive now, in an era of extreme sports and ultra-light equipment, but there was a time when Americans who set out to conquer mountains engaged in a pursuit that was as lonely as it was dangerous. But four men — Norm Dyhrenfurth, now 94; Jim Whittaker, 84; Tom Hornbein, 82, and Dave Dingman, 76 — remember. The leather boots that stayed wet for weeks. Oxygen canisters that weighed 15 pounds. The shrugs of indifference most of their countrymen gave a half-century ago to what it would take to get a U.S.led mountaineering expedition to the top of Mt. Everest. "Americans when I first raised it, they said, "Well, Everest its been done.  Why do it again?"  Dyhrenfurth recalled Friday as he and three other surviving members of the 1963 expedition gathered in the San Francisco Bay area for a meeting honoring the 50th anni...

Ranulph Fiennes Unable to Continue Expedition After Developing Frostbite The 68-year-old explorer hoped to become the first person to cross the frozen continent in winter later this year, but pulled out of the journey after suffering the injury during training. A spokesman for the expedition, dubbed the "Coldest Journey on Earth", said Ranulph Fiennes had fallen while skiing in a blizzard and attempted to fix his binding with his bare hands. His five team-mates are attempting to extract him to South Africa, but have agreed to embark on the 2,000-mile without him, beginning on March 21. Tony Medniuk of the Coldest Journey expedition told the BBC: "In seeking to reattach his binding he felt that he couldn't get it on and had to take his glove off in very cold conditions and exposed his hand to snow and as a consequence he has contracted frostbite. "After five years of preparation, a small slip like th...