Cold Fusion

Some people watch television for entertainment. Others, like Doug Stoup, prefer careening down an icy, 8,000-foot slope on a snowboard.

Stoup, who is from Malibu, and five of his friends leave Los Angeles on Thursday to spend three weeks scaling Antarctica’s Vinson Massif, one of the highest summits in the world. They will climb to 16,000 feet, live in subzero temperatures, brave 100-mph winds, haul 80-pound sleds and spend nearly $1 million for the thrill of being the first to descend the mountain on snowboards and skis.

In practice, Stoup’s trip appeals to only the most extreme athletes. But those interested in sharing the experience without the risk can do so by logging on to the Internet.

Americans’ appetite for armchair adventure may have started with books, like Jon Krakauer’s bestselling “Into Thin Air,” which detailed a 1996 disaster atop Mt. Everest, and “The Perfect Storm,” about a commercial fishing boat caught up in a 100-year gale. But books can’t compete with the immediacy of the Web, a medium that allows the audience to experience such events with the real participants as they actually happen.

Whether it’s an around-the-world solo sailing adventure or Formula One racing, watching extreme sports online is becoming more and more popular.

“Part of the appeal is that everyone knows these guys are on their own and they have to rely on themselves. I think that’s what makes this such a riveting experience on the Web,” says Peter Potterfield, editor of MountainZone.com (https://www.mountainzone.com), the Web site that will cybercast Stoup’s expedition. “A mountaineering exhibition would be really boring on television because it’s too slow. The Internet is ideal because the climbers can report in a couple times a day.”

The climbers are eager for the cybercast as well.

“Some mountaineers relish being the only one to experience it and have it not be a public thing,” says Stoup, 35. “I always like to be state-of-the-art, and I think it would be a great experience for everyone to witness and see what we actually do.”

Tapping into Rising Public Interest

Potterfield expects 1 million hits during the team’s trip--the 20th major mountaineering expedition MountainZone has chronicled, and the site’s third cybercast from Vinson Massif. When the body of George Mallory, the British climber who died on Mt. Everest in 1924, was discovered earlier this year, the site, which cybercast the trek, attracted almost 5 million hits. The site has been online since 1997.

“Remember when nobody cared what happened on mountains but other mountaineers?” asks Potterfield, who traces interest in the sport to the Everest disaster, in which 12 climbers lost their lives. “With Krakauer and everything, we just shook our heads. We all just thought the interest would peak and fall away, but on the contrary, our traffic continues to grow exponentially. High-altitude adventure has got a huge following.”

Other sports that had been largely ignored are also enjoying increased attention as a result of the Internet. J.P. Mouligne, 43, won last year’s Around Alone sailing competition. During his 132-day solo voyage around the world, he used a digital camera, satellite phone and a computer to transmit images and interviews to Quokka.com (https://www.quokka.com), another Web site that specializes in “sports immersion.”

“I think the Internet is changing the sport for the better,” says Mouligne, a Frenchman living in Newport, R.I. “Information can be collected and disseminated to people in a very quick amount of time. Suddenly it makes the sport marketable and enjoyable because people can watch you pass Cape Horn without getting wet.”

The relationship between athlete and armchair adventurer is symbiotic. For every computer user wishing to vicariously participate in the sport, there must be athletes interested in sharing their experiences with the masses.

“It’s really a beautiful experience. That’s why I climb,” says Stoup, an aerial rigger for films and commercials who has been mountain climbing for 10 years. “To bring that to somebody at home is a fascinating thing.”

Stoup has been training six hours a day since April for the trip by sea kayaking, rock climbing, weightlifting, running and dragging tires through the Santa Monica mountains. His team will spend 15 hours each day climbing, he says. Despite a 5,000-calorie-a-day diet, he estimates that each team member will lose 15 to 20 pounds during the trip.

A Long Way Up, a Short Ride Down

It’s a lot of work for what seems like little payoff: 40 seconds of skiing and boarding on crusty, hard-packed snow.

“We get dropped off, and we don’t see anybody for three weeks. That’s the crazy thing about Antarctica. There really is no rescue,” Stoup says. “That’s the one thing that really drives me about mountaineering. You have to use your mind all the time. There’s not many things where you really have to be on 24/7. If you’re not, it could result in death and injury.”

In addition to his tent, freeze-dried food, ropes and other necessary gear, Stoup will carry two satellite phones, a digital camera, batteries and a high-frequency radio. The photo disks will be picked up--when weather permits--by airplane and flown to Patriot Hills, an ice field at 4,000 feet where the team’s tech support, Mark Sicola, will use a laptop computer to uplink the images to the Web via telephone. Stoup will also radio Sicola with weather reports, ski conditions and other details of the climb to post on the MountainZone site.

Stoup’s original plan was to cybercast live video 24 hours a day, but that is not possible from the South Pole, where satellites are not always within reach. That plan will hold until 2001, when Stoup and his group hope to ski and snowboard from the summit of Mt. Everest and cybercast it live. The Everest trip will be the second of the world’s highest seven summits he and his friends aspire to ski and snowboard over the next few years.

To many, it may seem foolish to attempt such high-risk adventures. But it is this element of danger that’s contributed to the rising tide of interest in Internet adventure.

“The whole allure of tuning into a big adventure . . . is that it is so dangerous,” Potterfield says. “There is no getting around the fact that the risk involved is one of the aspects that makes it so enthralling.”

A Million People Sitting in Judgment

Potterfield is concerned, however, about the impact of bringing a million viewers along for the trip. Since the climbers know they are being watched, “people question whether [they] will make the right decisions or whether they’ll try to press ahead in order not to fail.”

But awareness of an audience is only the tip of the iceberg. The physical burden of carrying additional equipment and the mental toll of worrying whether that equipment will work in such extreme conditions can also put an athlete at risk.

Dirk Collins, 29, is an extreme skier from Jackson Hole, Wyo., and part of Stoup’s team. A cinematographer, he will add 30 pounds to his load by bringing a 16mm camera, tripod and 30 rolls of film on the trip in hopes of documenting the event. Parts of the footage will be used on MountainZone and also in a film Collins hopes to produce.

“You’re not just concentrating on the actual climb and the ski descent,” Collins says. “You’re thinking about the filming side of things and documenting it, and that always adds more danger into it because you’re not as fast as you could or should be.”

More worrisome if a trip does not go as planned is the potential loss of sponsorships, the lifeblood of many athletes.

“Especially on big trips, where there are a lot of sponsorships involved, where people are expecting certain results . . . instead of just being there and climbing and making decisions to go down when you don’t feel right, you’ve got all these people counting on you instead of just your own desires,” Collins says.

This particular trip to Vinson Massif, however, is not heavily sponsored. MountainZone provided one satellite phone. The rest of the group’s members are sponsored individually because they are widely known in their fields of expertise: Doug Coombs, 39, two-time winner of the World Extreme Ski Championships; Stephen Koch, 30, World Extreme Snowboarding Champion; Wade McKoy, 40, a world-renowned mountaineering photojournalist; and Mark Newcome, 32, an extreme skier and avalanche forecaster. Failure to transmit from Vinson would not threaten their livelihoods.

But Mouligne, who received $1.5 million (including his $750,000 boat) from Cray-Valley, a French chemical company, has seen firsthand how the Internet can compromise an athlete.

“It’s a Catch-22,” he says. “You’re getting more exposure, but you’re also getting more pressure because suddenly you have to be communicating a lot. You don’t have to just sail the boat. You also have to talk about it.”

As the Web grows bigger in business, its presence becomes more of a double-edged sword.

“My main focus is for us to have a lot of fun and be in the mountains where we all love to be,” Stoup says. “I don’t want it to be too stressful, worrying about Internet stuff.

“It’s the challenge of the intense conditions and the remoteness of it all and the beauty of Antarctica that we’re after,” he adds. “It’s not about conquering the mountain, getting to the top and beating your chest. It’s the personal achievement and sharing the summit with friends.”

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Susan Carpenter can be reached by e-mail at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.