Chuting Spree Answers – BD Boots
Holt Hancock from Livingston, Montana is the Black Diamond boot winner and is leaning towards a pair of the new Factor boots (just like the pair in Jon Krakauer’s lap in the photo below). Holt said:
“I found the boots by doing about an hour and half of research on the Vinson Massif area last night. This morning I got a little panicky when I had no idea about the final clue, but a hunch about a plane crash (somewhat cemented by your near miss described in the current Sunday photo) led me to a productive Google search. Thanks, again!”Nice job Holt! I hope you get many miles/smiles out of the boots.
BD Boot Contest Answers
The boots are located in the co-pilots seat of a crashed DC-6B which is located 6-9 miles away from the Patriot Hills camp in Antarctica.
- Blink, blink… excuse me Mr. Krakauer, but can I have my boots please? JK sitting in the co-pilot seat of the crashed and now buried DC-6B airplane.
“The DC-6B is N1597F of Allcair Air Transport which hit high ground on approach in bad weather to the ice runway at Patriot Hills on Nov. 26, 1993 while being seven miles of course. It was transporting the Norman Vaughn Expedition led by 88 year old Norman Vaughn to climb Mt. Vaughn; named in his honor. (He was the chief dog musher for Admiral Byrd in 1928.) One of eight people was injured severly; four dogs were also lost in the crash.”
- The tailfin, which “appears to be a random prong of snow” of the DC-6B is all that is left showing of the plane wreck.
Clue #4 – Specific Peak (Vinson Massif)
“Anselme Baud (France) and I made a ski descent of the south ice stream on the west face (45-55 degrees) of a sub-peak of Mt. Vinson on January 2.” Conrad Anker in the American Alpine Journal 1998
Category: Chuting Spree Contest - BD Boots
I liked this one Andrew. Good work on it.
Nice one, but there’s no way I would ever have figured this one out.
First you had to figure out “Patriot Hills” then search for 6-9 miles from it. Three slim, obscure references showed up with a Google search, although they all had different mileages to/from the wreck.
The Patriot Hills part was a given, and now that you mention it, I found the 6 mile reference:
http://www.sonrisa.com/journal.htm
and the 9 mile reference:
http://www.iaato.org/html/xii_enviro_assessment.html
Big props to HJ for figuring that one out. i are two stoopid.
AWESOME contest, Andrew! And way to go Holt. This one was even more frenzied than the last (for me)
Andrew – was the formal answer pilot’s or co-pilot’s chair? Your clue of “look to the right” led me to submit co-pilot’s… your answer above says the same? I think I was the first to have co-pilots. Do I win too? :)
Hi Matt,
I have to admit that I don’t really know which seat is the pilot vs. co-pilot in that plane, although on other planes I’ve flown in, the co-pilot was on the right. Still, it was within one meter, and it did say “where are you” (pilot) not where are the boots (copilot, assuming they are in the righthand seat). The exact model of plane was also a bit dubious between internet searches so I had to be a bit lenient on that one as well.
But, if you happen to be a men’s medium, I’ll send you a runner’s up prize.
Hot damn! I am a men’s medium! Totally understand the difficulty running one of these contests Andrew, and was more curious than anything else. Thanks! do you have my pm already as admin to the site?
Hi Matt,
Send me an email at amclean@xmission.com with your shipping address.
Andrew
Andrew. PM sent. Thanks! And most importantly, when is the next Chuting Spree!?!?
Not looking for the boots, but I was in the flight engineer’s seat during the crash. Want to know the story?, read my book, Blind Descent by Robert Hess. Just ran across this playing around on a Google search.