Jamie Clarke

The bright sun is streaming into Green Valley Ranch Resort as conventioneers file into an auditorium, some slightly hung over, a few munching the bacon and eggs served at the buffet next door. Two hundred and fifty chairs are occupied when the heavy doors close, sealing the room from the ringing of slot machines outside. Like explorers in a snow-covered valley moments before an avalanche, the audience has no idea what is about to hit them.

Regarding "The Real Payoff After Everest" [May 3]: I was at that conference and was fortunate to hear Jamie Clarke speak. It was a great presentation. Whether or not it was enough "business-related" -- we got plenty of upsell from another presentation. Cindy Harris Novato You have given Jamie Clarke a nicely written front page advertisement but breeze over his account of the distressed climber calling his family. Was the climber fictional or real? If real, what was his name?

Regarding "The Real Payoff After Everest" [May 3]: I was at that conference and was fortunate to hear Jamie Clarke speak. It was a great presentation. Whether or not it was enough "business-related" -- we got plenty of upsell from another presentation. Cindy Harris Novato You have given Jamie Clarke a nicely written front page advertisement but breeze over his account of the distressed climber calling his family. Was the climber fictional or real? If real, what was his name?

The bright sun is streaming into Green Valley Ranch Resort as conventioneers file into an auditorium, some slightly hung over, a few munching the bacon and eggs served at the buffet next door. Two hundred and fifty chairs are occupied when the heavy doors close, sealing the room from the ringing of slot machines outside. Like explorers in a snow-covered valley moments before an avalanche, the audience has no idea what is about to hit them.

Less than two years ago, the bitter cold of Mt. Everest made heating water for tea a formidable task for Jamie Clarke. Now he's got more than enough heat but barely enough water. Clarke, a Canadian who climbed the Himalayan peak in 1997, is trekking across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter, infamous for its quicksand, mountainous sand dunes and blazing heat. "I long for walking into the kitchen and pouring a sweet glass of cold water," said Clarke by satellite phone from the desert.

It was a trek of exploration, not of the terrain but of themselves. That is how self-described adventurer Jamie Clarke explained the first expedition of Westerners to dare to cross the Rub al Khali, or the Empty Quarter, of Saudi Arabia on foot and camelback in more than 50 years. Clarke's team of three Canadians, three Bedouins and 12 camels stumbled into the oil-glitz emirate of Abu Dhabi last Friday, looking like emissaries from another epoch. They had set out Feb.

National partisan tides carried North Carolina Republican Bill Hendon to Congress in 1980, swept him out of office two years later and carried him back in 1984. But this year, as he faces Democrat Jamie Clarke for a third time, the country's political waters are unusually still. Hendon is featuring top Administration officials in his advertising, as he did in 1984.

Less than two years ago, the bitter cold of Mt. Everest made heating water for tea a formidable task for Jamie Clarke. Now he's got more than enough heat but barely enough water. Clarke, a Canadian who climbed the Himalayan peak in 1997, is trekking across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter, infamous for its quicksand, mountainous sand dunes and blazing heat. "I long for walking into the kitchen and pouring a sweet glass of cold water," said Clarke by satellite phone from the desert.