For the Record

By Todd Balf and Paul Kvinta

Green Peace?

To the long list of accolades that David Brower has received over the years, there's now a chance — albeit a slim one — that he will soon add another: the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, no environmentalist has ever won the big enchilada for international statesmanship, but that didn't stop former California Congressman Ron Dellums from nominating Brower, 85, on a joint ticket with his longtime confidante, population biologist Paul Ehrlich. "If you're talking global security, quality of life, and the future of the planet," explains Sierra Club president Adam Werbach, "those aren't just political issues, they're environmental issues." That may be, but the odds of an October victory against the likes of more traditional peace-mongers such as Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II are still rather long. Nonetheless, Brower is happy just to take advantage of the resultant buzz. "I appealed to President Clinton as a fellow nominee to join our conservation efforts," Brower says, "but he hasn't written back."

Swimming with the Fishes
"If there was a problem," sniffs French explorer Guy Delage, "it was a design problem." Indeed, a rather large one at that, judging by the results of Delage's spectacularly ill-fated February expedition to study marine life in the Indian Ocean. Only 18 hours after the launch of his state-of-the-art engineless sub from Sumatra, the cables linking the craft to a pontoon on the surface snapped in 40-knot winds, forcing Delage, 45, to jury-rig a tenuous leash from scraps of line. When he ran out of rope on day 13, the 20-ton capsule sank like a stone. Delage, meanwhile, sought refuge atop the drifting pontoon. No stranger to the open sea (he made international headlines for swimming across the Atlantic in 1995), he happily busied himself collecting data on the swarms of sharks scouring the area. When rescuers finally showed up ten days later, Delage wasn't ready to go home. "I wanted one more week!" he proclaimed. Considerably less enthused were the folks at Sector Sport Watches, whose six-figure investment in Delage's debacle vanished with the sub. "No," concluded a company spokesman upon hearing that Monsieur Guy is eager to try again, "I don't imagine we'll be involved in future research."

Gang Busters
"I've poured everything into this project," says producer Gary Burden of his decade-long effort to make a celluloid blockbuster of Edward Abbey's 1976 cult novel, "It's taken all my time and every penny I had." Certainly it seems fitting that this story about a posse of fanatical eco-warriors has inspired such single-minded obsession. For Burden, the monomania began when he bought the movie rights in 1988 and has since only intensified, despite two wayward scripts and rocky negotiations with studio officials. Things started looking up late last year for Burden and his partner, Ed Pressman, when scribe Deric Washburn completed the screenplay, Woody Harrelson signed on to play George Washington Hayduke, and Dennis Hopper agreed to direct. (Abbey first approached him with the project in 1976.) The film is scheduled to begin pre-production this month, with its release tentatively slated for the fall of 1999. "This movie is about standing up to the government and protecting your rights," declares Burden. Then, as though remembering the respective box-office tallies of and, say, he adds, "Plus it's action-packed and a helluva lot of fun!"

Bloody Ridiculous, That
"It's a nuisance having a dysfunctional right eye," admits Martin Lyster, 35, who has suffered from double vision ever since he botched a 1981 bungee jump as part of England's infamous Dangerous Sports Club. "Still, I don't regret anything." Which is a fitting motto for the group, whose exploits are laid bare in Lyster's new book, to be released in the United States this month. Beginning in 1977, DSC members spent more than a decade staging ski races on inflatable elephants, unsuccessful Channel crossings in polyethylene bubbles, and countless other acts of buffoonery. By the early nineties, however, mounting debts and assorted legal woes had forced the club to disband. "We left a lot of, um, collateral damage," says Lyster. "Broken chandeliers, unpaid bills. I'm not really proud of that."

Of Course, the Elevator Beat Him by a Good Eight Minutes

"If I'm still standing at the end of a race," says Terry Purcell, "I know I haven't pushed myself hard enough." Admirable dedication, given that Purcell sacrifices his body for an utterly unsung sport: stair racing. The 27-year-old Australian recently won the, ahem, prestigious Empire State Building Run-Up by sprinting 86 stories in just over ten minutes. Yet Purcell is the first to concede that his sport has its drawbacks. After all, the air in stairwells isn't exactly fresh. And the spectators...well, there aren't too many. "People see us run into the building; then a little while later we come out," explains Purcell. "They have no idea what really goes on." That could change this summer if the new international Run-Up circuit — a series of races in Europe, Asia, and North America — succeeds in popularizing the sport. "With only two or three races a year, there's a lot of pressure to win," says Purcell. "But with ten, as long as I win a few, I'll remain in the spotlight."

The Malian Misery Tour

Todd Skinner typically has few complaints with his big-wall itinerary. The peripatetic free-climber from Lander, Wyoming, spends most of the year gallivanting from one exotic locale to the next while sponsors pick up the tab. But there was nothing enviable about his most recent mission, an assault on Kaga Pamari, a 1,500-foot quartzite spire that juts from the southern Sahara in Mali. "It was definitely the most unpleasant wall I've ever been on," grumbles Skinner, who had to contend with a 21-day sandstorm and 100-degree heat — conditions that turned the 13-pitch route into a vertical Bataan Death March. By the end, he and his five-man team had lost one member to malaria and all of their ropes to the incessant gales, forcing them to climb on knotted scraps. Ironically, it was the sheer loftiness of their last 5.10 pitch that finally brought relief. "We climbed out of the sandstorm at 1,000 feet, and it was sunny and clear," recalls Skinner. "We got it done, and got the heck out of there." Illustrations by Tim Bower; Gary Baseman