High Drama for U.S. Mountain Climbers in Kyrgyzstan

Four U.S. climbers are happy to be home and even happier to be alive after escaping Uzbeki militants--by pushing one to his death off a cliff--who detained them for six days earlier this month in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic.

Jason Smith, 22, John Dickey, 25, Beth Rodden, 20, of the San Francisco area, and Tommy Caldwell, 22, of Estes Park, Colo., were scaling granite cliffs that dominate the region when the rebel forces--trying to seize control of an area where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan converge--announced their presence by peppering the cliffs near the climbers with bullets.

On the sixth day, one rebel was left in charge of the climbers while the others went to scrounge for batteries in the climbers’ camp. He was told to take them up a small mountain, and it was on one of the ledges that the climbers seized their opportunity, rushing their captor and shoving him off.

“The whole way up the mountain we were talking about pushing him off,” Smith, 22, a Utah native, told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We couldn’t believe how stupid [the other rebels] were to send him up there alone with four experienced climbers.”

They then ran for about 18 hours until finding a government outpost. The government troops took them in, fed them and ultimately arranged for their trip home.

So the story goes, anyway.

During their time in the hands of the rebels, the climbers say they heard their captors execute another hostage, a Kyrgyz soldier. They survived on rations of energy bars and were fed yogurt balls dipped in yak butter. They were forced to lie still for up to 17 hours a day in near-freezing temperatures and were occasionally covered with brush and trees so government forces in helicopters could not detect them.

The incident has put the climbers in a media spotlight unlike any associated with their many previous expeditions. Smith even went so far as to hire an agent in hopes of getting the most out of his story.

But such a story prompts one serious question: What were these people doing in such a hostile region to begin with?

“The warnings we found on the Internet gave this region very mild warnings. If you compare them to warnings in other countries, it was very minor,” Rodden’s father, Robb, also an avid climber, told reporters at a news conference last week in Davis, Calif.

Jill Pagliaro, a spokeswoman for The North Face, an outdoor gear company that sponsored the expedition, added: “Climbers tend to favor such remote, hard-to-reach areas for expeditions because they feel [that’s where] they can make their marks in athletic achievement.

“The North Face was impressed by the team’s spirit of exploration and agreed to provide the team with equipment and transportation to help them climb safely. [We] regret that any expedition would end in such a manner, but we are relieved that now they’re all home and safe.”

And, hopefully, conducting Internet research on more trustworthy sites.

CLIFFHANGER II

On the other side of the planet, in a remote jungle encampment on Jolo Island in the Philippines, six Western hostages were recently released and seven remain in the hands of Muslim rebels seeking, among other things, an independent Islamic state in southeast Philippines.

“I’m over the moon,” South Africa’s Carel Strydom told reporters this week after being freed a day after the release of his wife, Monique.

The Strydoms were among 21 tourists and staff abducted during an evening raid April 23 at a scuba diving resort on Malaysia’s Sipadan Island. The Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyaf then took them to nearby Jolo and tense negotiations have been underway since.

Also involved in the four-month ordeal are tourists from France, Germany and Finland. One of the six Westerners still in the hands of the terrorists is Oakland’s Jeffrey Edwards Craig Schilling, who was abducted Monday in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga and taken to Jolo.

Schilling’s captors say he’s an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency and are demanding the release of three terrorists jailed in the United States. The U.S. says he is not a CIA agent and that it will not make any deals.

Meanwhile, Libya, of all nations, has been instrumental in winning the release of the six European tourists, reportedly by paying $1 million in ransom per person.

The Libyan government denies paying ransom and dismisses allegations it is using the situation simply to improve its international image. It calls its mission purely humanitarian, but it’s probably no coincidence that four of the six hostages were taken home by way of Tripoli, where they were given a series of pro-Libyan speeches and taken on a tour of places decorated with anti-American and anti-British slogans.

In any event, scuba divers planning their next vacation are probably wondering whether it’s safe to visit Sipadan, a tiny island off the northeast coast of Borneo, with turquoise waters that are world renowned for their beautiful coral and colorful fish.

Malaysia, which relies on tourism to sustain its economy, announced recently that it has “increased security in all our island resorts, waters and territories, including the many popular dive destinations” within and around the northern state of Sabah.

The Malaysian government also vows to restructure its commando units so heavily criticized of late.

In an editorial this week by online dive magazine Cyberdiver.net, the publication not only advises against travel to Sipadan, it blasts ad-driven print publications that are still promoting the island.

“What the magazines neglected to tell you about Sipadan is that it happens to be located in an extremely impoverished area that is politically unstable and dangerous,” Cyberdiver cautions.

“They neglected to tell you that Malaysia and Indonesia are locked in a territorial dispute over Sipadan. They neglected to tell you that the area is controlled by pirates who frequently attack coastal towns near Sipadan.”

The editorial rambles on, and it’s obvious by reading it that Cyberdiver is using the incident to promote its ad-free publication.

Regardless, Hawaii, Tahiti or even Cancun are sounding more inviting by the minute.

QUICK CASTS

* Eco-buffs: Adventure racing standout Robyn Benincasa of Del Mar was in Malaysia this month, and if there were any terrorists in pursuit they would have needed a helicopter to keep up.

The team of Benincasa, Ian Adamson of Boulder, Colo., Isaac Wilson of Salt Lake City and Michael Kloser of Vail, Colo., negotiated a grueling 320-mile jungle course in less than six days to win the Eco-Challenge Sabah 2000.

Disciplines included trekking, climbing, mountain biking, scuba diving, caving and paddling. Members of the winning team managed a total of only six to 12 hours sleep during the six days. Perhaps this explains why they chose to paddle the river stark naked in the middle of the night.

“We’re paddling and I turn around in the perahu [a canoe crafted by locals], and there are three naked guys behind me, just airing it out,” Benincasa explained after crossing the finish line Monday morning. “I thought, well, I just have to join them.”

* Fun while it lasted: Jumbo squid have provided lots of sloppy thrills for twilight fishermen since riding the current north into local waters more than a week ago, but since Tuesday night the action has been more spotty that sloppy, leaving the twilighters with no calamari to go with their sand bass.

* End of the line? Labor Day typically marks the end of the summer fishing season, “but after the holiday is when the smart anglers come out, because they’ve saved their money and waited, because the fishing is usually better and there are no crowds,” says Don Ashley, owner of Pierpoint Landing and Marina Sportfishing in Long Beach.

How smart remains to be seen. Yellowfin tuna, yellowtail and dorado have been available for weeks for those aboard overnight vessels running from Long Beach to San Diego, but to no predictable degree. Barring an extended cold snap, September might be the month things really break loose.

* Open season: Thunderstorms and a cool front swept though southeastern California at midweek, undoubtedly scattering the state’s most popular upland game birds. More rain fell this morning, in the form of shotgun pellets. Today is opening day of dove season--the first half runs through Sept. 15; the second Nov. 11 through Dec. 25--and hunters will get their limit of fun, if not their 10-bird limits of doves.

Richard Sprague, owner of Sprague’s Sports and RV across the border in Yuma, Ariz., sold about 1,000 hunting licenses--mostly to California hunters--on Thursday alone.

WINDING UP

A human head was found inside a giant cod this week as it was being prepared for sale in an Australian seafood plant.

Police believe the head belonged to a man who had fallen off a trawler that later caught the 97-pound fish.

“In our view it is too much of a coincidence for the head not to belong to the missing man,” detective Peter Wright told Reuters news service.