Think of the very rich who fly their hot-air balloons across the sky, only to be rescued at taxpayer expense when their adventure deflates. But the point of such sports is winning or losing, and the game must always be played within rules. Rock climbing, bungee jumping, sky surfing, street luge. . . The list keeps growing. Gravity, cold, the sky becomes the opponent.
Participants speak of the exhilaration of gravity.
For a time he bicycles in the desert. Then this young man ends up in Alaska, where he ends up dead. Why exactly, we never learn. All we know for certain is that here was a young man from a comfortable American suburb who needed to find himself, or to find God, in the far extremities of hot and cold. An odd idea, since extreme sports have arisen in opposition to regular athletics.