Annapolis, MD, May 15th, 2008, the first-year students at the USNA were at it again, trying to climb the Herndon 21-foot granite obelisk (coated with 200 pounds of… lard) and replace a plebe “dixie-cup” on top with a midshipman hat. New pictures of this year’s event just surfaced and they are definitely too good to be buried as old news.

It also appears that they could be the last, since the end-of-year events for plebes are being broadly reconsidered by the Academy. The Herndon Climb could well be cancelled, for security reasons, they say.

Others think they’re just embarrassed that classes from the 1960s could scale the monolith in under 5 minutes (1 minute, 30 seconds in 1969 is the official record), whereas it took 1 hour and 32 minutes in 2007 (Jamie Shrock) and a whopping 2 hours 35 minutes in 2008 (Greg Reichel).

What’s your take on that?

(don’t be mean, ok?)

(you don’t wanna mess with this Reichel guy)

Source: Braddex Multimedia