3 . Anyone, whether they have ever been to Phoenix or not, would know this about the place — it is hot. From June to September, the temperature can easily go beyond the century mark. But that doesn’t stop hikers from attempting the 1.3-mile hiking to the top of the city’s famed Camelback Mountain. Signs warn that the trail (路 线) is “extremely difficult” . If you continue, a posted checklist suggests at least a liter (升) of water per person. And if you’re still not stopped, another sign farther up declares: “If you’re halfway through your water, turn around!”

Unfortunately, many people do not take the warnings seriously. Fortunately, Scott Cullymore does. The 53-year-old Cullymore can be found hiking up and down Camelback a couple of times a day, giving out cold bottles of water to worn-out hikers. He has helped supply water to so many hikers that he has earned a heavenly nickname: the Water Angel.

Cullymore was on Camelback Mountain one day in 2015 when a British tourist died after being lost for nearly six hours in the July heat. That experience inspired him to start helping people caught unaware by the cruelty of Mother Nature. “They underestimate the mountain, and they overestimate what they can do, and they get themselves in trouble.” he warned.

One hiker who was offered water agrees. “You think you know the heat, but then you get out here in the desert and it surrounds you like a blanket,” said Austin Hill, who was hiking with a high school friend. They were lucky, he said pointing to Cullymore. “We ran into this Good Samaritan(乐善好施的人) here.” And with that, the Water Angel goes in search of another hiker in need.

Selah Schneiter, ten, has become one of the youngest people     1    (climb) El Captain, in Yosemite National Park, in California. Selah climbed to     2     3,000-foot peak with her father, Mike, and family friend Mark.

Getting to the top of El Capitan is no easy task. It is     3    (tall), as is reported, than the tallest building in the world — Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Though some have died     4     an attempt to conquer (征服) Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, many more     5    (include) Selah’s parents have finished the journey. About 15 years ago, Selah’s father and mother     6    (meet) on a climbing trip up the mountain.

Selah thought reaching the top was a great challenge, but the hardest part was getting down. “You’re carrying everything, and you’re     7    (deep) tired,” she said. Since the park does not keep those kinds of     8    (record), it’s unclear if Selah is the youngest climber who makes the trip. Selah lives in a family     9     everyone loves to climb. They even have a climbing wall in the garage. “I’m so     10    (pride) of her, just to see how big her heart was and how strong she was,” her dad told reporters.

5 . The tough challenge of a six-month, 3,200-kilometer walk across the South Pole, in the long darkness of the Antarctic winter when temperatures can fall to -90℃, proved irresistible to the experienced British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Fiennes’s hero, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, wrote “great God, this is an awful place” when he reached the South Pole a century ago, before freezing and starving to death with his team on the return journey.

That journey was made in summer. Nobody before has attempted to cross the pole in winter. In a statement, Fiennes said, “This will be my greatest challenge to date. We will stretch the limits of human endurance.”

However, Fiennes could not explain why anyone should consider such a venture, still less a man aged 68 who has survived cancer, heart surgery and the loss of most of the frozen fingertips on one hand. “It’s what I do,” he said, looking slightly puzzled at the question.

Fiennes, the world’s greatest living explorer, according to the Guinness Book of Records — was the first to cross the Antarctic continent unsupported; the first to cross both polar ice caps; and the first to travel across the globe from pole to pole.

Fiennes admitted his wife, Louise, and their six-year-old daughter were not thrilled. “But I’ve never done anything else; it’s how I earn my living. And you’re much more likely, statistically, to die on the roads than on the polar ice,” he said.

After training in the Swedish Arctic in a relatively balmy -40℃, Fiennes’ team will set sail from London on Dec. 6 on a South African research ship. The ice trek will begin on Mar. 21, the spring equinox (春分) that marks the official start of the polar winter, from the Russian base of Novolazareskaya. Fiennes and his five team members must then climb more than 3,000 meters on to the inland plateau, walk for several hundred kilometers using an ice tractor to pull all the supplies and equipment they need, descend another 3,000 meters and finally reach the Ross Sea. If they reach Captain Scott’s old base at McMurdo Sound by the spring equinox six months later, they will still have to wait for months until the sea ice backs off enough for their ship to collect them.