a032  0026  05 Aug 78
PM-Women-Climb,320
Laserphoto FX1
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An adventurous band of women leaves Sunday for
far-off Nepal on the first leg of a journey they hope will end at the
icy top of towering Annapurna, the world's 10th tallest peak.
    If they succeed, they will have made history - the first all-woman
American team to conquer a mountain more than 8,000 meters high.
    ''In mountain climbing, 8,000 meters (more than 26,000 feet) is a
magic mark,'' said Christy Tews, who will manage the base camp this
fall while 10 women attempt the harrowing climb.
    Ms. Tews said that while Japanese, Chinese and Polish women have
climbed beyond 8,000 meters, American women have yet to reach that
mark.
    The climbers, ranging in age from 20 to 50, all are experienced
mountaineers, Ms. Tews said.
    The group flies from San Francisco to Hong Kong and will assemble in
Nepal. From a staging area at Pokhara, the women will set out on a
10-day walk to the mountain.
    Ms. Tews said they expect to establish the base camp in early
September.
    Then, depending on weather conditions, they will begin the four- to
six-week assault of Annapurna, a feat completed successfully by only
four other expeditions.
    The Sherpa guides will include several women, she said.
    Arlene Blum, a biochemist at the University of California at
Berkeley, will lead the climb. She has had 10 expeditions in Asia and
Africa and was a co-leader of the first all-woman assault on Mount
McKinley.
    Other climbers include Joan Firey, Seattle; Alison
Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, England; Liz Klobusicky, Germany; Vera
Komarkova, Bolder, Colo.; Prio Kramar, Seattle; Irene Miller, Palo
Alto, Calif.; Margi Rusmore, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Vera Watson,
Stanford, Calif.; and Ann Whitehouse, Laramie, Wyo.
    Four of the women will be leaving husbands behind. Ms. Tews said
families generally have given the expedition full support.
    The climb is expected to cost $80,000. Donations will finance part
of the trip, and the women have raised $24,000 by selling T-shirts.
    
ap-ny-08-05 0327EDT
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a071  0355  05 Aug 78
PM-National Overview,550
    HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) - New York Times reporter Myron A. Farber,
sitting in a cell next to a murder suspect for refusing to surrender
his files on the Dr.X murder case, ''is like any other inmate'' in the
Bergen County jail.
    Farber and his newspaper were convicted of contempt for defying a
court order to surrender their material on Dr. Mario Jascalevich, the
surgeon referred to as Dr. X in Farber's stories on a series of
mysterious deaths at a New Jersey hospital.
    Farber served seven hours in jail last week before his sentence was
stayed temporarily by a New Jersey Supreme Court Justice. A last
minute effort to keep the reporter out of jail until an appeal could
be argued was rejected Friday by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall.
    ---
    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Immanuel David, who spent more than $30,000 on
food and posh hotel rooms for his family in the past 14 months, will
be buried with his wife and six of their children at county expense,
relatives said.
    David, who claimed to have revelations and to be able to destroy the
world, committed suicide this week. After learning of his death
Wednesday, Rachel David helped the couple's seven children plunge from
the 11th floor balcony of their $90-a-day, three-room suite before
she jumped over the side to her death Thursday morning.
    Only a 13-year-old daughter, Elizbeth, survived. Friday night she
was reported in critical condition at LDS Hospital.
    David's brother, Dean Longo, a Vero Beach, Fla., police sergeant,
arrived Friday to handle funeral arrangments. He said he could not
afford to pay for the family's funeral. He said the county had already
been contacted for help. The family will be buried in Utah.
    ---
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An adventurous band of women leaves Sunday for
far-off Nepal on the first leg of a journey they hope will end at the
icy top of towering Annapurna, the world's 10th tallest peak.
    If they succeed, they will have made history - the first all-woman
American team to conquer a mountain more than 8,000 meters high.
    ''In mountain climbing, 8,000 meters (more than 26,000 feet) is a
magic mark,'' said Christy Tews, who will manage the base camp this
fall while 10 women attempt the harrowing climb.
    Ms. Tews said that while Japanese, Chinese and Polish women have
climbed beyond 8,000 meters, American women have yet to reach that
mark.
    The climbers, ranging in age from 20 to 50, all are experienced
mountaineers, Ms. Tews said.
    ---
    ALBANY, Texas (AP) - Waterlogged residents of western Texas, already
inundated by up to 30 inches of rain in the last two days, braced for
more flooding today as the runoff sent rivers gushing from their
banks.
    Water poured over earthen dams and spillways, and creeks that barely
trickled a few days ago grew two miles wide across the rolling west
Texas prairies.
    The killer storm - remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia - has claimed
at least 20 lives while carving a 200-mile-long swath of destruction
from central to northwestern Texas.
    No rain was falling early today and skies were forecast to remain
partly cloudy.
    The Texas Department of Public Safety said 20 bodies had been
recovered across the state, including 16 in central Texas and four in
Albany, a farming town of 2,500 residents.
    
ap-ny-08-05 0656EDT
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a233  1233  16 Aug 78
AM-Focus-Adventurers, Bjt,840
TODAY'S FOCUS: Why? Not Only Because It's There
Laserphoto NY25
By MARC CHARNEY
Associated Press Writer
    NEW YORK (AP) - They leave the everyday comforts to climb mountains,
cross oceans in small boats, make epic balloon flights or marathon
swims.
    Why do they do it? It's an age-old question, and this summer there
are legions of adventurers about whom to ask it.
    This week alone, Diana Nyad and Stella Taylor tried - but failed -
to swim 100 miles or more to Miami; Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and
Larry Newman of Albuquerqu3 were trying to cross the Atlantic in a
balloon; two separate teams of Americans were in the Himalayas to
climb K-2 and Annapurna, two of the world's highest peaks.
    Those are just some of the adventurers in the public eye, doing the
most spectacular of feats. And there are others, men or women
everyone knows - canoeists or rock climbers or sailors, seeking out
rapids or cliffs or seas that may have been conquered many times
before, but never by them.
    Each has his reasons; each holds a fascination for the stay-at-home.
    Some explanations are as timeless, and as personal, as George Leigh
Mallory's was more than a half-century ago, when he was asked why he
wanted to climb Mt. Everest: ''Because it is there.''
    Others are as contemporary, and as complicated, as wealthy publisher
Malcolm Forbes' description of why people - himself among them - make
epic balloon flights. Apart from ''the great challenge,'' Forbes
says, ''An audience is vital; attention is a spur . . . Who'd be a
successsful writer, artist, etc., if nobody was watching?''
    Miss Nyad, on the other hand, had an answer both simple and
practical as she contemplated big-money contracts before her swim:
    ''This swim could set up my whole future,'' she said.
    But that is hardly the story for others.
    Consider Thomas Mutch, a geology professor at Brown University who
took students climbing a Himalayan peak nearly 22,000 feet high to
learn the meaning of exploration:
    ''I would disagree very strongly,'' he said when asked about Forbes'
explanation. He pointed to the way Charles A. Lindbergh landed in
Paris in 1927 after the first solo transatlantic flight - astounded
that his lonely flight had caused a stir.
    Mutch says mountaineering is ''a very very private feeling.''
    And he says: ''In exploration, you're talking about the goal, the
id3a of getting to some place. There's something exhilarating about
it. To struggle up a pinnacle and toward some point at the top,
whether you reach it or not - is a very simplifying experience.''
    Simplifying?
    ''The world's a complicated place. Most of the time, you kind of
muddle through. But most people who have climbed find that during a
climb all of your mental and metaphysical experiences are centered on
one activity - getting to the top. For that period of time, life
seems very, very straightforward. And afterward, you know that you did
this; people can't take this away from you.''
    Forbes, who has sunk profits from his magazine into cross-country
ballooning, says that sport evokes ''the way man first flew . .  the
air excites people; it's not a moonwalk; but it's as near as you can
get to it on earth.''
    As for epic flights, he says, ''Everybody likes identity. Everybody
wants something that they're known for. It's fun, it's a challenge,
and it's what you might call instant fame.''
    One man who achieved instant fame is Hugo Vihlen of Homestead, Fla.,
who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for crossing the
Atlantic in 1969 in a boat 5-feet, 11 1/2-inches long, the smallest to
make the voyage. He says his goal was ''to set a world record.''
    But then he adds other motives. ''There are adventurous people who
are not content to go home every day and stagnate,'' he says, and
there is the satisfaction of planning for a difficult feat.
    ''Obviously, it's a calculated risk,'' he says. ''But by the
research you can eliminate an awful lot of the risk.''
    He rejects the idea that he was testing himself: ''I knew it could
be done. I didn't reach any big inner thoughts. I was a Marine fighter
pilot, so I knew about being afraid.''
    That, in turn, clashes with the thoughts of rock-climber Charlton
DuRant of Morganton, N.C., who teaches outdoor life at an Outward
Bound school and says adventure makes an individual face himself.
    Like all the others, DuRant stresses preparation; he speaks of ''a
dangerous situation that becomes safe because you're educated.''
    But he also says that ''a large part of climbing, to everybody that
climbs, is fear. In some way or another, you're dealing with it.''
    ''When you're mountaineering, you make irreversible commitments
. . . You go over a line; the only way you can tell about this
adventure is if you've finished it.''
    So it is a complex business, the ''why'' behind adventuring.
    But the rewards are sometimes quite simple. Joshua Slocum, who
couldn't swim, described them this way after completing the world's
first solo sail around the world - a three-year venture - in 1898:
    ''I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained
flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from
Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life was turned back till my
friends all said, 'Slocum is young again.' ''
    
ap-ny-08-16 1536EDT
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a269  1622  16 Aug 78
AM-Focus-Adventurers, 1st Ld, a233,100
EDS:The following subs the 3rd graf to show the ballonists succeeded.
TODAY'S FOCUS: Why? Not Only Because It's There
Laserphoto NY25
By MARC CHARNEY
Associated Press Writer
    NEW YORK (AP) - They leave the everyday comforts to climb mountains,
cross oceans in small boats, make epic balloon flights or marathon
swims.
    Why do they do it? It's an age-old question, and this summer there
are legions of adventurers about whom to ask it.
    This week alone, Diana Nyad and Stella Taylor tried - but failed -
to swim 100 miles or more to Miami; Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and
Larry Newman of Albuquerque crossed the Atlantic in a balloon; two
separate teams of Americans were in the Himalayas to climb K-2 and
Annapurna, two of the world's highest peaks.
    Those are 4th graf
    
ap-ny-08-16 1925EDT
**********

n514  0130  22 Aug 78
 
BC-Women 2takes 08-22
Attention: Sports editors, following is a Sports Plus feature.
By BARBARA VARRO
(c) 1978 Chicago Sun-Times
    Suddenly, women are more in the news than ever before as they
challenge nature, statistics, convention and their own strength.
    - New York marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, 28, battled high waves,
seasickness and jellyfish stings in an attempted Cuba-to-Key West
swim before being persuaded to give up. The Phi Beta
Kappa graduate of Lake Forest (Ill.) College begged
to continue her swim and wept when she was forced to abandon
her swim after going 70 miles.
    - Former British nun Stella Taylor, 48, swam 140 miles of
a Bimini-to-Florida course and was trailed by a shark that had to
be killed. Clutching a good-luck teddy bear after being coaxed out
of the water, the ''simming nun'' said she was goin to begin
training immediately for another marathon swim from Florida to the
Bahamas.
    - Englishwoman Robyn Davidson, 28, dubbed ''the camel lady,''
trekked all alone across 1,200 miles of sand dunes, salt marshes
and scrublands of Australia's harsh Gibson Desert on camelback.
She captured and tamed the four camels in her caravan herself.
    - Barbara Mast, a 27-year-old Bridgewater (Mass.) real estate
broker, is hiking 2,000 miles along the Donner Trail, following
the route of a wagon train that started out from Springfield,
Ill., in 1846 and was lost in California's Sierras.
    - And this September, 10 women will attempt to scale the 26,545-foot
-high Annapurna in Nepal. The first Aemrican women's Himalayan
expedition in history will be led by 32-year-old California
biochemist Arlene Blum. The youngest member of the team is
21-year-old University of California student, Margi Rusmore, who
has climbed to the peak of Alaska's 20,300-foot Mt. McKinley.
    Adventurous women all. Why? What makes them do it?
    Nyad has said that while she once wanted to break records
for self-esteem, that is no longer her reason. ''I only do a swim
if it's a good business venture. Why shouldn't I want public and
financial recognitoin?''
    Davidson said she wanted to ride camelback across the Gibson Desert,
which has claimed the lives of explorers in the past, because of her
love for both camels and a good challenge.
    What do others think about female adventurers, whose numbers have
been increasing in the last couple of years? What's the motivation
behind a wish to accomplish great feats, to break records, to
be first? Some women think these adventurers are bonkers, and some
men say more power to them. (and some men think they're bonkers,
and some other women are encouraging.) One psychiatrist thinks that
they may have problems with masochism and that their drive to
succeed may be rooted in a childhood desire to gain approval
from their fathers. Another believes adventurous females
may simply be adopting a me-too attitude and showing that they can
accomplish feats traditionally tried by males.
x x x
    While Nyad and Taylor were swimming their hearts out last week,
we took an informal pool to determine what males and females think
of their attempts. A majority of the males and female
polled said they were disappointed that neither woman accomplished
what she setout to do. But there were other telling
comments. Some women asked, ''Why would anyone want to do something
like that?'' Most of the men answered, ''Why not?''
    More women than men expressed a negative, so-what attitude.
They said things like, ''What are they trying to prove?'' and ''They
must be nuts.'' One woman said that she thought everyone was
taking these adventurers too seriously, and questioned whether
the media wouldn't be wiser to make heroincs out of those who make
more valid contributions to society. ''With all of the brouhaha
about those women who were brave enough to go out there and try
to beat the sea,'' she said, ''it seems to me that females are falling
into the same macho trap as males.''
    Another woman said she probably harbored some resentment
toward those women who were trying to prove themselves via a
treacherous swim. Perhaps it was only that she was put off by the
fact that the swimmers seemed on the brink of accomplishing great
things, while she wasn't, she said.
    Others said they just didn't understand why a woman, or a man for
that matter, would want to do something as masochistic as
swimming for days in rough seas, being stung by jellyfish and menaced
by sharks. These women obviously don't have the climbing-a-mountain
-because-it's-there mentality.
rl     (MORE) 08-22
 
 
ov cd
...
(End missing.)
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a035  0044  04 Sep 78
PM-Women Climbers,90
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - The 10-woman American team climbing
26,502-foot Annapurna One in western Nepal reports it is more than
half way up the mountain.
    A message received today said the women established their base camp
at 12,149 feet on Aug. 26 and their first camp after that at 13,839
feet on Aug. 28.
    The climbers are about two weeks ahead of schedule. They left
Katmandu Aug. 14 and did not expect to establish their base camp until
mid-September.
    
ap-ny-09-04 0349EDT
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