Expedition News - July 2012

EXPEDITION UPDATE

Arctic Jubilee Team Summits Barbeau Peak

The Arctic Jubilee Expedition successfully summited Barbeau Peak (8,583-ft./2616 m) in honor of the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II. It is the highest point on the Queen Elizabeth Islands, part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago which was renamed by Canada upon the coronation of HM the Queen in 1952. (See EN, March 2012).

Central to the legacy of the Arctic Jubilee Expedition was an education and outreach program linking Canadian Inuit and UK schools via an interactive IT learning platform. Discussion boards enabled students from both cultures to interact and discuss questions relating to cultural identity, the Arctic environment and issues of climate change and sustainability. This education and outreach campaign was an extension of the work of Education Through Expeditions (www.etehome.org). The effort was sponsored, in part, by the team’s official baselayer sponsor, CW-X. (For more information: www.facebook.com/TheArcticJubilee or www.etelive.org/arcticjubilee).

Pangaea Plans Adventurous Finish in Africa

One sailboat, four years, five oceans – and a single mission. Explorer Mike Horn and his crew have been sailing around the globe on the Pangaea between October 2008 and November 2012 in support of environmental protections (see EN, December 2011).

In early May 2012, seven youths from among 16 applicants successfully made it through the last selection camp in Château-d’Oex in Switzerland. This month, the South African adventurer and his team departed for Africa for the 12th and last expedition.

Since 2008, Horn has been traveling the world on a 115-ft. (35 m) 30-berth ship with Mercedes-Benz BlueTec engines, solar panels, a recyclable aluminum hull and trawling nets for bottles. Horn says the construction of Pangaea supplied work and income for over 200 Brazilian families for an entire year at a workshop in a Sao Paolo suburb. Main sponsors are Mercedes-Benz, Officine Panerai, and Geberit, makers of sanitary and piping systems. (For more information: www.mikehorn.com)

Eddie Bauer Climbs Aboard Arctic Row 2012 Expedition

This month, four Americans embark on a rowing voyage team members are calling one of the world’s last great firsts: a non-stop, unsupported row across the Arctic Ocean. Sponsored through Eddie Bauer’s Be First program, Paul Ridley, Collin West, Neal Mueller and Scott Mortensen will travel 1,300 miles from Inuvik, Canada, to Provideniya, Russia, arriving around Aug. 15.

The project hopes to raise awareness of the changes in the Arctic climate – the team will navigate through Arctic waters which have only recently become passable as a result of climate change and melting sea ice. To power the 29-foot-long, six-foot wide rowboat, the four will rotate between the two rowing positions, each rowing two hours on and two hours off for 24 hours a day. The voyage is expected to take approximately 30 days to complete. (See EN, January 2012).

The Arctic Row Expedition presents an opportunity for the team to conduct scientific research with no impact on the Arctic ecosystem. Throughout the expedition, the team will record whale sightings, collect plankton samples, and monitor the salinity and temperature of the water. The recorded data will aid scientists at The University of Alaska Fairbanks and Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (www.adventureandscience.org) to gain a better understanding of a whale’s sense of smell and feeding habits in the Arctic Ocean.

The Arctic Row team will use a desalinator to convert 400 lbs. of salt water into the 24 liters of drinking water that they will need every day. Solar panels are mounted above the cabin to power a VHF radio, GPS, a navigation system, and laptop for the team to stay in contact with followers throughout their journey. They will be fully outfitted in First Ascent, Eddie Bauer’s expedition-class gear and apparel that was launched in 2009. (For more information: http://www.arcticrow.com/blog/, or www.eddiebauer.com/befirst)

EXPEDITION NOTES

Would the Real Explorers Club Please Stand Up?

If you troll the Internet like we do far too much you’ll get the impression that everyone wants to be The Explorers Club these days. There’s a namesake restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, a band in Charleston, S.C., an Explorers Club for fans of Albarino wine from Spain, and the Ladies Explorer Club (no “s”), also in the Columbus area. But wait, there’s more.

In 2011, producers from the non-profit Wing-It Productions, a comedy club in Seattle, staged an improvisational comedy called The Explorers Club which followed the adventures of turn-of-the-century British explorers as they comically muddle their way through exotic lands, not-so-deadly foes and foreign diplomacy. The show featured puppets and actively solicited audience participation. Rosemary Jones, a theater reviewer at Examiner.com wrote, “Drawing on local costuming talent, a vast stock of mustaches, and a borrowed gorilla suit, the explorer, the villain, and a variety of colorful sidekicks tackle the hinterlands of adventure.”

Oh goodie. To make matters worse, some actors even wore that most stereotypical of exploration headwear: pith helmets.

Somehow, the real Explorers Club based in New York survived these West Coast theatrics. But now comes news of another, unrelated theatrical production at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York next year, a production that’s again called, to the chagrin of many, The Explorers Club. This one is billed as a new madcap comedy from Tony-nominated writer Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde).

Here’s the story line: “London, 1879. The prestigious Explorers Club faces the worst crisis in their history: their acting president wants to admit a woman, and their bartender is terrible.

“True, the female candidate is brilliant, beautiful, and has discovered a legendary Lost City, but the decision to let in a woman could shake the very foundation of the British Empire, and how do you make such a decision without a decent drink?”

Previews begin in May 2013.

Club officials are well aware of these infringements on the trademarked Explorers Club name and often send cease and desist letters. But artistic free expression is another matter. One Club attorney who asked to remain anonymous, tells us that objecting “only serves to promote that which we question.”

Frozen in Time

The frozen bodies and climbing equipment of three brothers and their guide who disappeared 86 years ago have been discovered by two British climbers in the Swiss Alps, according to authorities in the Valais region of Switzerland.

A melting glacier revealed the siblings’ skulls, boots, binoculars, walking sticks and a leather purse holding nine Swiss francs.

Fidelis, Cletus and Johann Ebener, who were between 22 and 31 years old, and their guide Max Reider began their expedition toward the Aletsch Glacier in March 1926, and never returned. Swiss Police spokesman Jean Marie Bornet explained that since 1926 there have been 280 persons who have disappeared in the mountains in the Valais region and that melting ice could reveal more bodies in months and years ahead.

Climbing Campers Wanted

When we went to summer camp, climbing wasn’t even on the radar so we spent more time than necessary pounding our names into leather and weaving lariats. Obviously, we were born too soon. Word comes of a residential summer camp with a specialization in rock climbing and mountaineering exclusively for teens ages 14 to 17. A new resident camp located in the Columbia Gorge east of Portland, Ore., will offer 7- and a 14-day sessions this month devoted to the fine art of climbing.

The Teen Climbing Camp will be based at Lyle High School, in Lyle, Washington, on the Columbia River. The camp is the inspiration of Dr. Robert Hanson, Professor-emeritus of San Diego State University. Motivated teens in good standing with their parents, schools and communities may qualify for a 50% scholarship. (For more information: www.ColumbiaGorgeTeenCamps.com or call Jan Mayer, camp director, 801 679 9099).

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“How I long for the freedom of a bivouac in the desert, in that unfathomable expanse where, savoring my freedom from the thousands of little things that torture people here, I would roll out my bed at the end of a long day's march with my possessions, my camels, and my horse around me.

– Heinrich Barth, excerpted from A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa by Steve Kemper (W.W. Norton, 2012)

In 1849 Heinrich Barth joined a small British expedition to Islamic north and central Africa. His five-and-a-half year, 10,000-mile adventure ranks among the greatest journeys in the annals of exploration. His feats rival, if not surpass, those of the most famous names in 19th century African travel: Park, Burton, Speke, Livingstone, Stanley, Baker, and Cameron. (See related review in this issue’s Expedition Ink).

EXPEDITION FOCUS

Former Explorers Club President and Husband
Open Schools in China and Myanmar

Former Explorers Club president, Lorie Karnath, and her husband and fellow Club member Robert Roethenmund, have worked to build and foster a number of schools in remote regions of China and Myanmar, in several cases where no schools have existed at all. This effort combines the couple’s exploration experience with their desire to foster education.

In 2011, they opened the Tiber School in southern China’s Yunnan province. This school project represented a completely new facility located close to China’s Vietnam border and includes a dormitory, kitchen and washrooms providing room and board for around 300 students.

Last March, following a three-year stint as Explorers Club president, Karnath opened the Peace School near the city of Mangshi, formerly Lu Xi Shi, located along the southwestern frontier of China. The region contiguous with Burma is represented by approximately 50% minorities. Beyond Mangshi, Yunnan’s capital, the state is sparsely populated and the region remains diverse throughout. The area is remote, rural and quite poor, Karnath reports. The annual per capita disposable income per rural resident is estimated at approximately 3,100 yuan ($443). The education level for the region is well below China ’s national average for schooling.

Near term future school projects are slated for other areas within China’s Yunnan Province, although sites outside of Yunnan are also being evaluated.

In Myanmar, Karnath and Roethenmund have also supported a school and orphanage for years. Last November they were among a group representing the first private western boat to travel along the relatively untouched and volatile Rakhine coast of Myanmar delivering supplies to roadless inland schools.

Karnath, a resident of Berlin and New York, believes that it is “by investing in and teaching others that we have the best chance ultimately of preserving our planet, its peoples and other species.”

Karnath was recently injured in a parasailing accident in southern Spain and expects to be back on her feet later this summer. We wish her a speedy recovery.

MEDIA MATTERS

Lots of climbing profiles in the news these past few months, pointing to the increased popularity of the sport as well as a public that breathlessly awaits the latest grim news from Everest each spring climbing season.

Honnold Reveals Paycheck

Glad to see that climbers are starting to make some real money these days. In a profile of Alex Honnold in the New York Times (June 16), Tim Neville reports the famed 26-year-old professional climber now earns six figures a year from speaking engagements and sponsors like The North Face, La Sportiva and Black Diamond. Neville writes, “Honnold has become the closest thing to a celebrity that American rock climbing offers, with fawning fans who rush in to take pictures and get autographs.”

Neville tagged along with Sender Films to record Honnold’s successful ascent of the three biggest rocks faces in Yosemite, alone and in less than 24 hours – the sheer walls of Mount Watkins, El Capitan and Half Dome. Toughest challenge was on Watkins when hordes of wingless insects called silverfish poured down the rock in biblical proportions.

Neville writes, “There Honnold was, dangling by his fingertips, with inch-long arthropods wiggling into his ears, tickling his neck and probing his mouth with wispy antennae.”

In classic Honnold understatement, the climber is quoted, “It was heinous. At any given point I had dozens of them on me. But what are you going to do?”

Honnold completed the spectacular enchainment – what climbers call a “link-up” – in about 19 hours.

Tiny Hands

Ashima Shiraishi is an 11-year-old climber from New York City who made a name for herself by conquering some of the sport’s most difficult climbs. According to a story by Julie Bosman in the New York Times (May 13), three days after she arrived at Hueco Tanks last spring, a mecca for bouldering enthusiasts 30 miles northeast of El Paso, she stunned the bouldering world by climbing Crown of Aragorn, an exceedingly difficult route that requires climbers to contort their bodies and hang practically upside down by their fingers as they navigate a rock that juts out from the ground at a 45-degree angle.

On a scale of V0 to V16 that governs bouldering, it was a V13, a level that only a few female climbers had reached before. Her accomplishments place the pre-teen among the elites in the sport. Physically, children and teenagers are thought to have advantages over adults: their small hands and feet allow them to use holds that adults cannot, according to Bosman.

Said Kynan Waggoner, director of operations for USA Climbing, “The best young climbers climb like shrunken adults – they don’t move like children.”

Waggoner continues, “Their coordination is like a fully formed adult. Their balance is better; their agility is better. They just look like little men or little women. Everything is precise; everything is calculated. That’s how Ashima climbs.”

After completing Crown of Aragorn, Shiraishi tells the Times, “It felt so good. I didn’t think I could do it. Next year, I want to do something even harder.”

Everest Makes a Fashion Statement

“We were looking at Everest covered in snow. It was so pristine and majestic,” said Proenza Schouler designer Lazaro Hernandez in the Wall Street Journal (May19-20). The snowy image was the inspiration for the flurry of white looks that kicked off the designer’s fall 2012 runway show. “We wanted to literally have a white canvas with no texture or color, and focus on shape,” Hernandez tells writer Alexa Brazilian. The Journal predicts more designers this fall will be stripping their collections down to monochromatic looks in muted tones.

Everest Warning: “The Mountain is Dangerously Alive”

Guide, author and climber Freddie Wilkinson of Madison, N.H., tried to insert some sanity in an otherwise insane, overcrowded Everest climbing season. He writes in the New York Times (May 18), that the risks this year have never been greater. “Two intersecting trends are to blame: the rising number of people attempting the mountain, and the cumulative effects of global warming which is slowly, yet steadily drying out the Himalayas, resulting in rockfalls, avalanches and serac collapses.” This season, he says, “the mountain has been dangerously alive.”

Sea Mail

Harvey Bennett, 61, has spent the last five decades, since childhood, putting messages into bottles and tossing them adrift from the eastern end of Long Island. Of the hundreds he’s sent into the waves over the past half-century, roughly 50 have been found, according to Corey Kilgannon’s story in the New York Times (June 24). The furthest were found in Bermuda and England; recipients are sent a reward: a fly-fishing lure from his tackle shop called, naturally enough, The Tackle Shop.

“It’s a primitive way of communicating, but it works,” he said. In case you want to get into the act, Bennett advises that glass bottles like Coronas or Cokes are the slowest, while plastic ones travel much faster. “You can see them literally skipping across the surface with the wind.”

Bennett, who along with other East Enders are known locally as Bonackers, says, “It’s a tremendous thrill to throw a bottle in the ocean and get a phone call from some guy in Bermdua … then you talk to him and find you have things in common and you strike up a friendship.”

Ravenous Appetite for Shark Shows

“If there is one thing voracious viewers of science TV can’t get enough of, it is shark video,” writes Gwen Shrift in PhillyBurbs.com (June 24).

“This has caused inflation in marine pseudo-research, a genre defined by a guy with a lot of expensive photographic equipment fearlessly declaring he is determined to find out what happens when he drags a haunch of raw beef behind his boat.

“As anyone with the brains of a sardine could tell him, a shark brandishing enormous, razor-sharp teeth will fling him or herself onto the beef, or ham as the case may be, then rip it to shreds and gulp it down.

“This happens every single time a piece of raw or even cooked meat goes over the side of a boat. Nevertheless, the resulting pictures are always touted as a great zoological discovery.”

Shrift continues, “I say we should all move beyond our amazement at the shark’s nutritional choices, and admit what we really like: pictures of omnipotent, remorseless predators showing their teeth. Especially when we are reclining on a sofa, miles from the ocean.”

(Read the entire post here: http://www.phillyburbs.com/blogs/news_columnists/gwen-shrift/a-ravenous-appetite-for-shark-shows/article_39abb674-5ad8-5796-9696-b9126c8aa884.html)

NatGeo Seeks A New “Q”

National Geographic is seeking to hire a multi-disciplinary team leader with multiple extreme and expert outdoor skills to guide challenging field expeditions around the world. The candidate must be experienced navigating through remote areas, able to handle rapidly changing situations, passionate about exploration and adventure and as comfortable on camera as in the field. The job involves full-time employment with a minimum one-year contract.

Also needed is a tech wiz to develop, customize, deploy and modify equipment for field scientists exploring new frontiers. In effect the candidate would become National Geographic's version of James Bond's "Q"- an imagineer who will not just be a lab-based visionary, but also a field engineer, called on to create and operate equipment on site across multiple expeditions. (For more information: NGTeamLeader@gmail.com).

WEB WATCH

Expedition 1000 Completes Another 1,000-mile Mission

Dave Cornthwaite recently succeeded in piloting a pedal-powered four-wheeler 1,000 miles over 27 days. The cheerful Brit averaged 40 miles a day and was nearly killed midway through his mission when he was run off the road by a car, but he came away unscathed. In late May, he safely made it to Miami from Memphis in one piece, according to The Adventure Blog.

For some, this sort of adventure would be the trip of a lifetime, but arrival in Miami marked the completion of Cornthwaite’s sixth such 1,000-mile expedition.

His goal is to complete 25 non-motorized journeys—all part of an ambitious compilation of 1,000-mile missions called Expedition1000. His previous exploits include skateboarding the width of Australia, standup paddling the length of the Mississippi and riding a tandem bicycle from Vancouver to Vegas.

The project, once completed, will take Cornthwaite across three oceans and to every continent.

Cornthwaite has broken several records along the way, but says his larger goal through Expedition1000 is to raise one million Euros (US $1.2 million) for charity. Cornthwaite has parlayed his experiences into a book (with two more on the way) and helps support his nomadic lifestyle with motivational speaking gigs.

His next mission – swimming down 1,000 miles of the Missouri River – is scheduled to start in August. (For more information: www.davecornthwaite.com)

EXPEDITION INK

A Labyrinth of Kingdoms – 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa
By Steve Kemper (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012)

Reviewed by Robert F. Wells

In the middle of the 19th century, central Africa was but a blank page to the Western World. Europeans knew it was there. But they had no clue what lay within the Dark Continent. An itch for empire was in full bloom. So off they went into the night. Soon, everyone would hear of Livingston, Stanley and a small collection of other explorers. But another would remain a relatively invisible enigma – Heinrich Barth.
And so, in 1850 here's where a five-year tale of exploratory exasperation begins.

Barth, a German, is hired by the British Government to poke into areas around Islamic north and central Africa and discover opportunities for "development.” Little did England's Foreign Office know what it was getting into. Barth, to be charitable, was an odd duck. A loner. A palpably persnickety scientist devoted to advancing knowledge, not his own personal gain. He gobbled up alien cultures and tongues ... and recorded his discoveries in excruciating detail -– eventually penning five volumes titled "Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa"... and other writings on obscure African dialects.

Barth's tale is one of marauding mosquitoes, camels collapsing from thirst, thieves thriving on anything that moved and foibles of failed communications. (This is the 1850's, after all.) At the time, Barth entered villages as a weird oddity. On one hand, he was a source of intellectual entertainment for local sheiks. On another, he was but a dirty infidel to prevalent local Muslim populations.

For five years – and over 10,000 miles – he unraveled the mysteries of Bornu, Gwandu, Bagirmi, Wadai, Sokoto ... and the list goes on. For historians who think the currently defined nation states of the Middle East and Africa make sense, please take note. Everything over there is tribal. Borders are and always have been fluid, depending upon whose blood is spilt. How naive of us to think we could fluff up the leaders of countries like Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Mali to make them march in a national direction. Silly us.

But back to Steve Kemper's Labyrinth. If you have an ounce of historical exploratory curiosity in your veins, course through this forgotten tale. Timbuktu awaits. And you will steep yourself in context as you absorb origins of colonial thought driving European powers deeper into the unknowns of Africa.

Robert Wells, a member of The Explorers Club since 1991, is a resident of South Londonderry, Vt., and a retired executive of the Young & Rubicam ad agency. Wells is the director of a steel band (see www.blueflamessteelband.com) and in 1989, at the age of 45, traveled south by road bike from Canada to Long Island Sound in a single 350-mile, 19-hr., 28-min. push.

BUZZ WORDS

Voluntourism

Tourism in which travelers do voluntary work to help communities or the environment in the places they are visiting. The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) reports that 55% of their members currently run volunteer trips. Of the remaining 45%, 41% of them are considering running volunteer trips in the future.

Reasons cited for this included “growing awareness and demand for ‘giving back’” as well as consumer trends towards local and sustainable initiatives. ATTA members reported their volunteer travelers to be 53.21 percent female and 46.79 male. Just over 12 percent of these consumers were younger than 20 years old, with 20-40 year-olds and 41-60 year olds coming in at almost 33 percent and 34 percent respectively.

The most popular types of volunteer projects offered, respectively, were: working with children and education (tied at 15.27 percent each), environmental protection or recovery (13.99 percent), wildlife recovery or habitats and local job creation or economic projects (tied at 10.18 percent each), and clean water projects (at 7.89 percent).

(See the survey results here: http://www.adventuretravelnews.com/results-are-in-atta-survey-on-voluntourism. One good source of information on voluntouring is www.journeys4good.com).

ON THE HORIZON

Mountain Films at Rubin Museum

The American Alpine Club NY Section is co-sponsoring a series of dramatic, classic mountain films with the Rubin Museum of Art ( 7th Avenue and 17th Street). Each of these feature-length films will be introduced by a knowledgeable AAC member.
Schedule this month: The Mountain (July 13), K2 (July 20), and Seven Years in Tibet (July 27).

Admission is free with a $7 bar minimum. Each film begins at 9:30 p.m. Reservations at 212 620 5000.

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

DreamQuest Productions – An award winning video production company specializing in adventure and expedition film production. No environment is too extreme, call us today and tell us what your dream is and lets make it happen! Allan R. Smith, Producer, DreamQuest Productions, LLC, Production / Post Production, Rosamond, CA, 661 492 3188, allan@dreamquest.tv, Facebook.com/allanrsmith2011,
Facebook.com/DreamQuestProductions, www.dreamquest.tv

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EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 1281 East Main Street – Box 10, Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Tel. 203 655 1600, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Assistant editor: Jamie Gribbon. ©2012 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments accepted through www.paypal.com. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com. Enjoy the EN blog at www.expeditionnews.blogspot.com.

EXPEDITION NEWS - June 2012 - Everest Logjam

June 2012 – Volume Nineteen, Number Six

EXPEDITION NEWS, now in its 18th year, is the monthly review of significant expeditions, research projects and newsworthy adventures. It is distributed online to media representatives, corporate sponsors, educators, research librarians, explorers, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. This forum on exploration covers projects that stimulate, motivate and educate.

EXPEDITION UPDATE

Movie Focuses on Freediving Tragedy

James Cameron is handing The Dive over to Martin Campbell, award-winning director of multiple James Bond adventures, including the winning franchise reboot Casino Royale and last summer’s Green Lantern.

Based on factual events, Dive tells the story of husband-and-wife freedivers Francisco “Pipin” Ferraras and Audrey Mestre. The two would dive to unimaginable depths on a single breath. But during an effort to break her world record, Audrey lost her life.

Cameron has been circling the story for some time now, even shopping a treatment that had Salma Hayek in the Audrey role at one point. The Titanic filmmaker later recorded a dive Ferraras completed in his wife’s honor.

20th Century Fox will distribute The Dive, with Campbell directing from a screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski (Changling, Underworld: Awakening) which will take its cues from Ferraras’ 2004 autobiography The Dive: A Story of Love and Obsession.

ESPN is also planning a major documentary on the Audrey Mestre tragedy and freediving in 2013.

EN personally witnessed Mestre, then 28, die while freediving on Oct. 12, 2002, approximately 2-1/2 miles off the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic (see EN, November 2002). She was attempting to officially break the world freediving record with a dive of 557.7 feet (170 m), a depth she achieved unofficially during a practice dive three days before.

Mestre was attempting to break the record in the “No Limits” category, which involves riding a weighted sled down the length of a vinyl-coated stainless steel cable.

EVEREST ROUND-UP

Everest Logjam Spurs Call for Action

We always know when things are getting out of hand on Mount Everest when even our own parents call from a Florida retirement community to say, “did you hear about the traffic jam on Everest?”

It’s May and that means Everest gets into the news again, but usually for all the wrong reasons. In a single day late last month, a near-record number of climbers reached the summit from the Nepali side as the season ended. The photo of climbers queuing up was, frankly, sad to see.

According to The Times UK (June 4), this year was the busiest in the 59 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first conquered the summit. Alan Arnette, an Everest summiteer and blogger who monitored the Everest climbing season on www.alanarnette.com, said that 548 people climbed over a four-day period this year, an average of 137 a day. That was 52 per cent more crowded than 2007, the next busiest season on record when 633 people climbed in seven days – a 90 per day average.

The spring mountaineering season, which lasts from March 1 to May 31, is the most popular season to climb the Himalayan peaks in Nepal. The record number of ascents in one day is 169 set on May 23, 2010, according to German statistician Eberhard Jurgalski.

This season Arnette calculated a 57.93% summit to attempt rate. At 10 deaths this season, that figures out to be a 1.82% summit to death ratio.

The high death toll, pictures of hundreds of climbers ascending in "traffic jams" on fixed lines, and tales of rubbish, human waste and bodies strewn across the mountainside, have provoked criticism that – far from its glorious image as the peak of human achievement – scaling Everest is becoming a commercialized tourist attraction, in which crowds of often inexperienced climbers pay up to US$110,000 to be taken to the top by sherpas, often with little regard for their own safety, or that of others. This has lead to calls for better safety measures to end traffic jams near the summit.

American Mark Jenkins, a mountaineer who reached the summit with a team from the National Geographic Society late last month (see below), said that "a full 25 per cent" of those attempting Everest this year lacked proper experience or training.

"This is a mortal sport, not tennis or bowling," he tells The Times’ Robin Pagnamenta. "You make one mistake, the mountain might forgive you, but if you make two or three you die.

"Experienced climbers can make their own way and get away from the crowds," said Jenkins, who has called for stricter rules on issuing permits to limit the numbers. "But for those that have to stay on the fixed lines (ropes put up by sherpas at the start of the season), everyone has to move at the speed of the slowest person."

Jenkins said the problem was fueled by the type of people that Everest attracts.

"Many of them are very successful in other areas of their life – banking, real estate, whatever. They are type-As who come to prove themselves, and often their attitude is, 'I paid so much money I deserve to get to the top.’”

But he has little sympathy for those who ignore the warnings, then get into difficulty. "The mountain didn't kill these people; they killed themselves," he tells The Times.

"In many cases, the sherpas told the client, 'You are moving too slowly; you are going to die' and the client refused - and they died. They viewed the summit as more important than their own life."

On May 26, approximately 150 people reached the top, according to tourism ministry official Tilak Pandey, a week after four deaths on the South side led to calls for better safety measures to end traffic jams.

Nepali officials shrug, "The climbers have received the permits to climb within specific dates. We cannot say who gets to get to the summit on which dates because of the unpredictable weather. When weather clears up they all want to benefit," Nepal's Tourism Ministry spokesman, Bal Krishna Ghimire, tells the Associated Press.

Long-time Explorers Club member Frederick P. Selby, author of Postcards from Kathmandu (Vajra Publications, 2008), shakes his head over the whole situation:

“Time was when the government of Nepal issued permits to two Everest expeditions each climbing season. Dick Bass, first to complete the ‘Seven Summits’ about 30 years ago, was unable to secure a permit but a permitted Norwegian expedition enabled him to climb Everest on their permit.”

Selby continues, “Today the fee charged by Nepal is $70,000 per expedition, usually divided among seven to 10 expedition members. Forgotten is the clogged path to the summit – the fees charged matter to this nation, one of the world's poorest countries.

“Climbers are aware of this and proceed at their own risk, aided by the dozens of guiding agencies. Deaths will continue as a result,” he warns ominously.
What to do about this? Tourism Ministry spokesman Bal Krishna Ghimire, tells AP that eventually the government plans to set up a seasonal office at Base Camp equipped with doctors, weather experts and security personnel. Ghimire said they also have plans to give each climber a tracking device.

For another perspective on Everest 2012, see the related story in this month’s EN Focus.

In other Everest news:

• Oldest Woman – Tamae Watanabe of Japan has become the oldest ever woman to summit. On May 19, she reached the peak at the age of 73 years and 180 days from the northern side on the Tibet-China border with Asian Trekking's International Everest Spring 2012 Expedition. She created the new record by breaking her own record – she previously summited Everest in 2002 at the age of 63. This was her sixth summit of an 8000 m-plus peak.

The oldest Everest climber is 76-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan of Nepal, who ascended in 2008.

• American Record-Breakers – Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (RMI) guides Dave Hahn and Melissa Arnot established new records on the mountain. It was Hahn's 14th summit, breaking his own record with the most summits of Mt. Everest of any non-Sherpa. The climb also marked Arnot's fourth summit of the mountain, setting a new record with the most summits of Mt. Everest of any American woman. The record number of summits for any human is 21, set in 2011 by Apa Sherpa, of Draper, Utah.

Arriving in Nepal at the end of March, Hahn and Arnot made the 12-day trek into Base Camp. After close to a month of climbing establishing successive camps, Arnot, Hahn and their team made a summit bid on May 26, reaching the top at 9:31 a.m. local time.

Hahn is a renowned mountaineer and guide and is widely regarded as the preeminent high-altitude mountain guide who also holds the record for the most number of summits of Antarctica's Vinson Massif. Arnot is an accomplished climber and guide and a preeminent female American mountaineer.

• National Geographic-North Face Climbers Summit With Anker – A six-person National Geographic-North Face team summited last month, despite unrelenting winds and the aforementioned crowds of climbers. And in a surprise twist, the sixth member of the team – group leader and The North Face athlete Conrad Anker – summited a day later despite pulling out earlier due to exhaustion, according to www.nationalgeographic.com (May 26, 2012).

The group that summited via the well-traveled Southeast Ridge also included magazine writer Mark Jenkins, and The North Face athletes Hilaree O'Neill, Kris Erickson, Sam Elias, and Emily Harrington.

The summit attempt was only the most visible part of a wider expedition designed to answer scientific questions about Everest geology and human health.

At the summit, the team collected rock samples for a Montana State University project that aims, in part, to better understand the mineral composition of Everest and to get new measurements for the height of the mountain. The team also participated in Mayo Clinic research into the connection between high-altitude acclimatization and heart failure. Both institutions were official expedition partners.

As part of the expedition, MSU created an accompanying online science curriculum focused on topics such as geology, glaciology, and climate change.

Hear Anker’s interview with NPR by logging onto: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/28/153846980/at-end-of-climbing-season-a-reflection-on-everest-traffic-jam

• Please Make It Stop – The climbing madness in the Himalayas this season included a music group claiming the highest-ever concert on 6654 m (21,831-ft.) Mera Peak, which is close to Mount Everest and Mount Lhotse.

Only eight of the 10 volunteer musicians from various countries reached the top, while two with altitude sickness did not. Local porters helped carry their three guitars, and a small amplifier fitted with speakers, microphones and a stand. The musicians took turns performing. They even had an audience – 15 other trekkers paid $10 each to watch the musicians perform for 40 minutes at the summit.

Group leader Oz Bayldon, an Australian living in London, said the group raised £35,000 (approx. $54,200) for a charity in Nepal that is building an orphanage. Other performers were from England, Scotland, Poland and Denmark.
Bayldon set a previous record for highest musical performance in 2005, performing near Everest Base Camp. But that record was broken two years later.

Guinness World Records currently assigns highest concert honors to Musikkapelle Roggenzell, 10 musicians from Germany and Bolivia, who scaled Mount Acotango in Bolivia to perform at 6069 m (19,911-ft.).

EXPEDITION NOTES

Fighter Plane Discovered in Sahara Desert

A fighter plane from World War II that crashed in the Sahara 70 years ago has been unearthed, and holds clues to a missing pilot.
According to U.K. newspaper accounts, the intact American-made Curtiss Kittyhawk P-40, which had remained untouched since its crash landing in 1942, was discovered by a Polish oil company worker who was exploring a remote region of the Western Desert in Egypt, about 200 miles from the nearest town.

It is believed that the airman, Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, 24, initially survived the crash because a parachute found at the scene looks to have been used as a makeshift shelter. But no trace of the body was found, leaving experts to believe the pilot walked away from the flight, then walked to his death in a hopeless attempt to find civilization.

A military historian, noting that there would be no reason on earth to have found the plane in the middle of the desert, hailed the find as "a quite incredible time capsule, the aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb."

The Canadian website Vintage Wings of Canada said the plane was in "incredible condition," but worried about looters to the site, which happens is on a dangerous smuggling route between Sudan and Libya.

A search is planned to locate the missing pilot's body, but officials don't believe that any remains will be found. Eventually, the aircraft will be moved to London's Royal Air Force Museum.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"Humans are an adventurous species. We like to explore and are inspired by
journeys into the unknown. Science is not only a discipline of reason but,
also, one of romance and passion. Exploration by real people inspires us."

– Stephen Hawking, British theoretical physicist and cosmologist

EXPEDITION FOCUS

Everest 2012 – Easier and More Dangerous Than Ever
Going from Zero to Hero in a Day

By Robert M. Anderson
Special to Expedition News

Everest is both becoming easier, as evidenced simply by the numbers of people summiting, and it is also becoming potentially more dangerous, with large amounts of people in places that can in no way be considered safe.

Warmer temperatures up high translate to more movement on the glaciers below. More people create build-ups that force people to wait in places where things can hit them, and up higher, burn through their oxygen that once gone, is a quick recipe for disaster. And climbing ropes and anchors, originally designed for holding two or three climbers, now hold 50 or more, as climbers line up on ropes up the Lhotse Face and on up from the South Col to the summit.

The physical holding power of the anchors and ropes on Everest defies logic. A stone cutting them, a misplaced crampon point, an ice axe, too much weight on them or the anchors and they can’t be expected to always work.

What’s more, crowds of people in avalanche paths, as evidenced this year at Camp I, which badly injured one person, could easily have been far worse.

So as the mountain gets easier, the potential for disaster increases exponentially. Should there be limits, or restrictions, or qualifications required? One of the great things about climbing is that such limitations have never really existed – you can go from zero to hero in a day. But that doesn’t mean it will ever really be easy. And the easier it appears, the more dangerous it will become.

Robert M. Anderson is a guide for Jagged Globe, Sheffield, England, leading successful expeditions over 15 Himalayan seasons to Everest, Cho Oyu, Shishipangma and Makalu. An expedition to Dhaulagiri is planned for 2013. (For more information: robertmadsanderson@gmail.com)

MEDIA MATTERS

“Touristnaut” Accidents: What Then?

Virgin’s Richard Branson considers what would happen to the burgeoning space tourism industry if an accident occurs. He tells James M. Clash in the May/June 2012 issue of Departures magazine, “If it happened early on, it would be a tough one to overcome. If it happens two or three years into the program, and it’s been proven that the program works, then I think it would most likely be able to continue.
“Commercial airlines occasionally have accidents, and it doesn’t result in all airlines being grounded, as long as we know what went wrong. You fix the problem and move on,” Branson said.

Over 500 prospective “touristnauts” have committed approximately $200,000 in advance to fly into space, according to Clash.

How “Lucky Lindy” Got His Name

Last month, famed U.S. astronauts and Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation board members celebrated the organization’s 35th anniversary at The Explorers Club in New York. The foundation was established at the Club in 1977, 50 years after Charles Lindbergh’s solo, nonstop Atlantic Ocean crossing. Among the 100 attendees of the $1,000-per-plate benefit were astronauts Gene Cernan, Jim Lovell, and Neil Armstrong, according to a story by Thomas B. Haines in AOPA Online

Reeve Lindbergh, the aviation pioneer’s youngest daughter with wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, revealed her father’s nickname did not come because of his successful Atlantic crossing. Instead, it came from him surviving several aircraft accidents in the years before the crossing. After the crossing, he flew nearly every model of aircraft in existence at the time, she said, often observing from the air the impact that society was having on the environment.

“He wanted to continue progress through technology. He was not a Luddite for the environment. He wanted progress and technology and recognized humans’ extraordinary ability to adapt so that we could have both the birds and aircraft – we wouldn’t have to choose,” Lindbergh said.

Apollo 11 astronaut and first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, was a co-founder of the foundation, along with Anne Morrow and other aviation luminaries of the time, such as Jimmy Doolittle. Speaking at the New York event, Armstrong reiterated the passion Lindbergh had for balancing progress with the needs of the environment.

Cernan emphasized that Apollo missions were not the work of individuals, but the result of the efforts of many. “We were the tip of the arrow,” Cernan said, noting that 3,000 to 4,000 people worked on the moon missions.

A big proponent of manned spaceflight, he wondered aloud whether there was a boy or girl in school today who might one day be the astronaut who launches humans to Mars and beyond.

(Read the entire story here: http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2012/120523aerospace-luminaries-reflect-on-lindbergh.html)

The Games Explorers Play

Videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen is passionate about examining the intersection between games, play, and other seats of culture from art to music to design.

To that end, they publish a website and a magazine as well as organize events. For their next issue titled, "The Great Outdoors," they’re interested in writing about the kinds of videogames explorers play, particularly at base camps. (To participate in the story contact Jamin Warren, jamin@killscreenmedia.com, 347 675 4575, www.killscreendaily.com).

EXPEDITION MARKETING

“We Are Sherpa”

The Sherpa-run and Sherpa-owned Nepalese gear company, Sherpa Adventure Gear, headquartered in Renton, Wash., chose for the cover of its Fall Winter 2012 catalog a photo of Lakpa Rita Sherpa, who works as a guide and Sirdar for Alpine Ascents International. Lakpa Rita safely made the summit last month for his 16th ascent.

Lakpa was the first Sherpa to climb the Seven Summits a few years ago. The cover photo was taken by Lance Mercer, formerly the official photographer of the band Pearl Jam. Purchase of selected company products, such as Polarfleece hats, directly benefit Sherpa families in Nepal. (See the catalog here: http://db.tt/s8SVNEiN)

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Jaimie Donovan Youngest-Ever North Pole Record Stands

We were incorrect to state in the May 2012 issue of Expedition News that the children of explorers Paul Schurke and Rick Sweitzer set youngest-ever Geographic North Pole records in 1993. They were not precisely at the North Pole. The children were flown out onto the Arctic Ocean to meet their fathers who had dogsledded and skied to the North Pole. Their plane landed at the spot nearest the Pole that had ice thick and stable enough to support an aircraft. According to a story in the February 13, 1993 Chicago Tribune, written by Sweitzer and confirmed by him last month to be correct, that spot was approximately 13 miles from the point Schurke and Sweitzer had determined to be the North Pole.

Our thanks to Jaimie Donovan’s father, endurance runner Richard Donovan, for pointing out this error. We were wrong to question the eight-year-old’s Guinness World Record.

We confirmed the error after reaching Paul Schurke on May 21, a day after he returned from a dogsled trek across Svalbard Island, located in the Arctic Ocean.

We also regret saying that Jaimie was nicknamed “Captain Tot”. That was a name given to her in the headline of the Apr. 10 UK Daily Mail. Richard Donovan confirms that it is not her nickname.

We apologize for any misunderstandings this error may have caused.

EDITOR’S NOTE: EXPEDITION NEWS TREKS TO STAMFORD

The offices of EN recently relocated one town over to Stamford, Conn., about 40 miles northeast of New York. Our new address is 1281 East Main Street – Box 10, Stamford, CT 06902.

Once settled in our new space, we struggled to find link to exploration in our new adopted home. It wasn’t easy. How’s this courtesy of the Stamford Historical Society: On June 26, 1930, the citizens of Stamford gave a hero’s welcome to native son Harold I. June on the occasion of his return from participation as co-pilot in the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, including the airplane flight over the South Pole on November 29, 1929. He was called at the time, “Stamford’s Best Known Traveller.”

We figure we’re connected to June by just one degree of separation based upon our friendship with one of the expedition’s dog drivers, the late Col. Norman D. Vaughan.

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

Infinite Safari Adventures – Other companies offer wildlife safaris, but only Infinite Safari Adventures adds adventure to the mix. Climb Kilimanjaro, ride horses in the bush, scuba dive, ride a hot air balloon, track wild chimps and explore exotic Zanzibar. These are just a few of our exciting options. Or enjoy something only we offer: kayak the warm waters off the Tanzanian Coast. Someday is now! Alan Feldstein 888 745 2925, adventure@infinitesafariadventures.com

DreamQuest Productions – An award winning professional production and post-production studio specializes in the production of DVDs, TV shows, promotional and documentary films and the distribution of mountain, expeditionary and adventure documentary films. Contact us today and let’s talk! Allan R. Smith, Producer, 661 492 3188, info@dreamquest.tv

Life on Ice – Looking for a great adventure read? Lonnie Dupre’s new book Life on Ice covers 25 years of arctic exploration, including the world’s first circumnavigation of Greenland and One World Expedition, a summer expedition to the North Pole. Over the past two decades, Dupre has lived and traveled with the Arctic Inuit, bringing their culture to the rest of the world. Dupre reveals the secret of survival in a world with quickly shifting weather patterns: respecting nature in all its elements and living in sync with the world we inhabit. The guiding force behind Life on Ice is the same as the impetus for Dupre's expeditions: the desire to make a difference in the world.

Life on Ice includes a 32-page color insert of extraordinary Arctic images, maps and is autographed. Order now through the Lonnie Dupre Store. http://lonniedupre.wazala.com/)

Advertise in Expedition News – For just 50 cents a word, you can reach an estimated 10,000 readers of America’s only monthly newsletter celebrating the world of expeditions on land, in space, and beneath the sea. Join us as we take a sometimes irreverent look at the people and projects making Expedition News. Frequency discounts are available. (For more information: blumassoc@aol.com).
Ripped From the Pages of EN – Read the book that was spawned by Expedition News. Autographed copies of You Want to Go Where? – How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams (Skyhorse Publishing) – are available to readers for the discounted price of $14.99 plus $2.89 s & h (international orders add $9.95 s & h). If you have a project that is bigger than yourself – a trip with a purpose – learn how it’s possible to generate cash or in-kind (gear) support. Written by EN editor Jeff Blumenfeld, it is based upon three decades helping sponsors select the right exploration projects to support. Payable by PayPal to blumassoc@aol.com, or by check to Expedition News, 1281 East Main Street – Box 10, Stamford, CT 06902


EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 1281 East Main Street – Box 10, Stamford, CT 06902 USA. Tel. 203 655 1600, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Assistant editor: Jamie Gribbon. ©2012 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments accepted through www.paypal.com. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com. Enjoy the EN blog at www.expeditionnews.blogspot.com.

CORRECTION: JAIMIE DONOVAN YOUNGEST-EVER NORTH POLE RECORD IS CORRECT

We were incorrect to state in the May 2012 issue of Expedition News that the children of explorers Paul Schurke and Rick Sweitzer set youngest-ever North Pole records in 1993. They were not precisely at the North Pole. The children were flown out onto the Arctic Ocean to meet their fathers who had dogsledded and skied to the North Pole. Their plane landed at the spot nearest the Pole that had ice thick and stable enough to support an aircraft. According to a story in the February 13, 1993 Chicago Tribune, written by Sweitzer and confirmed by him this month to be correct, that spot was approximately 13 miles from the point Schurke and Sweitzer had determined to be the North Pole.

Our thanks to Jaimie Donovan’s father, endurance runner Richard Donovan, for pointing out this error. We were wrong to question the eight-year-old’s Guinness World Record.

We confirmed the error after reaching Paul Schurke on May 21, a day after he returned from a dogsled trek across Svalbard Island, located in the Arctic Ocean.

We also regret saying that Jaimie was nicknamed “Captain Tot”. That was a name given to her in the headline of the Apr. 10 UK Daily Mail. Richard Donovan confirms that it is not her nickname.

We apologize for any misunderstandings this error may have caused.

Expedition News - May 2012

May 2012 – Volume Nineteen, Number Five

EXPEDITION NEWS, now in its 18th year, is the monthly review of significant expeditions, research projects and newsworthy adventures. It is distributed online to media representatives, corporate sponsors, educators, research librarians, explorers, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. This forum on exploration covers projects that stimulate, motivate and educate.


KAYAKERS PLAN 360 CIRCUMNAVGIATION OF BRITAIN

The GB360 Midlifekayak expedition set off late last month from the Cornwall coast in the South West of England with plans to circumnavigate mainland Britain by kayak – a total distance of about 2,500 miles. English paddlers Andy Mullins, Geoff Cater and Mike Greenslade hope to complete the trip in approximately 100 days by covering roughly 25 miles each day. A total of 23 people have previously completed the route with the first successful attempt in 1980.

The paddlers of GB360 Midlifekayak met on the Isles of Scilly (UK) in April 2010 and found that they all harbored ambitions for a large scale kayaking expedition. Along with a goal of completing the expedition, GB360 Midlifekayak hopes to raise $15,000 for their favorite causes. They will be equipped with Kokatat Gore-Tex drysuits, PFDs and accessories to help keep them dry on their journey.

(For more information: www.midlifekayak.co.uk)

EXPEDITION NOTES

Third, It Won’t Stink Like Polypro

Colorado State University apparel design and production researchers and students are working to develop natural-fiber outdoor clothing that can charge MP3 devices, tablets, computers, GPS units and cell phones with built-in – but comfortable to wear – solar panels. The project is so impressive that it was selected to compete in a sustainability design competition in Washington, D.C., last month.

The effort, funded by a $15,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, intends to also reduce pollution on two fronts. First, the clothing will use the most recent research and technology to make natural fibers such as cotton and linen as outdoor savvy as other petroleum-based textiles which are heralded by outdoor enthusiasts for warmth, UV ray protection, comfort and moisture-wicking. Second, the clothing will provide a solar source of energy for electronic devices, reducing alkaline battery use – harvesting energy while the wearer participates in outdoor activities. Third, well let’s just say natural fibers have certain olfactory advantages over polypro.

(Read the entire announcement here: http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/6186)

Arctic Watch to Photograph Whales

Polar explorer Richard Weber’s Canadian Arctic Holidays Arctic Watch facility on Somerset Island in Nunavut, Canada, will launch its first scientific project to photograph and identify the beluga whales that visit the area each summer. The goal is to identify 100 individual whales through photo identification of heads and tails.

“Computer-assisted photo identification provides a powerful, inexpensive method of monitoring population movements and testing hypotheses about ecological mechanisms affecting demography. The use of photographic data enables the tracking of large numbers of individual whales reliably without subjecting them to stressful capture and marking procedures,” Weber says.

As soon as the whales arrive in Cunningham Inlet, Gretchen Freund, an expert in whale photo identification and Nansen Weber, Richard Weber’s son, will collect the photographic data. They will photograph whale heads and tails looking for identifying marks such as old scrapes and injuries, then sort, resize and catalogue the photos. Following the summer collection period, computerized identification will be conducted by Mystic Aquarium, Mystic, Conn.

“With this program we can start to answer which whales return annually and how do individual whales stay in Cunningham Inlet?,” said Richard Weber.

“With a better understanding of the changes taking place and their effects on the Arctic Watch beluga whales, we can ensure they continue to visit for generations to come.”

(For more information: www.arcticwatch.ca, www.canadianarcticholidays.ca)

Youngest to the North Pole? Depends Upon Who You Ask

A story in the Apr. 10 issue of UK’s Daily Mail caught our eye. The eight-year-old daughter of endurance runner Richard Donovan was credited with being the youngest person to ever reach the North Pole. The youngster, Jaimie Donovan, nicknamed “Captain Tot,” from Galway, Ireland, is said to have broken the record set by the daughter of British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams, Alicia, by one day. Both youngsters were flown to the pole.

Age eight is practically middle aged compared to the actual, although unofficial record set by the offspring of polar explorers Paul Schurke and Rick Sweitzer. Bria Schurke was seven years-old when she reached the North Pole in May 1993. Peter Schurke was 18 months. Rick Sweitzer's son Chris was 16 months.

Richard Donovan, Jaimie’s father, defends her record by referring us to page 125 of the Guinness Book of Records. He e-mails EN:

“According to the information in the book, Jaimie now happens to be the youngest person at the Geographic North Pole (not that it matters too much). Every year, I personally get claims of all kinds – people saying they ran a marathon at the North Pole when they were elsewhere in Greenland etc., etc.”

Donovan continues, “Therefore, I think you should contact Guinness World Records with proof of anything to the contrary i.e. if an 18 month-old or a 16 month-old stood at the exact geographic North Pole, i.e. 90N!”

Says Paul Schurke in reply, “I guess we should send our family photos and news clips of that trip to the Guinness World Record folks!”

However we don’t get the sense that he’ll actually get around to doing so. He and his family seem to be doing fine regardless. In fact, we caught up with Schurke as he was about to launch a dogsled trek across Svalbard Island, located in the Arctic Ocean, halfway between Norway and the North Pole.

EXPEDITION MARKETING

App Features NatGeo’s Greatest Stories Ever

Enough with the Angry Birds already. Here’s an app really worth the money: PrimaLoft, the manufacturer of performance insulations and yarns, is sponsoring National Geographic Adventure: Greatest Stories Ever Told, a new iPad app developed from National Geographic magazine’s archives. The app features stories of explorers at the moment of discovery, and their adventures on journeys around the world. The new app brings adventures around the world to life through extraordinary photography, video and top-notch journalism.

The app uses the full capabilities of tablet technology with video, photography, interactive mapping and more to reinvent how adventure stories are told. Featured explorers include Bob Ballard, Alex Honnold, and Will Steger.

The Greatest Stories Ever Told app is now available in the iTunes store for $1.99.

Fox River Supports 70-Day Paddling Trek for Kids Wilderness Program

Fox River, U.S. manufacturer of outdoor, sport and lifestyle performance socks, is supporting Expedition 2012, a 70-day paddling trek to raise awareness and funds to support the Keewaydin Foundation and Keewaydin Way.

Expedition 2012 aims to preserve and enhance Keewaydin's unique heritage of wilderness canoe tripping and raise funds to support and build Keewaydin's scholarships program for the foundation. The Keewaydin Foundation offers youth wilderness programs and has been operating wilderness and adventure-based summer camps for well over a century. The Foundation is dedicated to environmental preservation, and the camp’s summer programs offer a rare and undisturbed wilderness experience.

Fox River performance socks and handwear will keep crew members warm and dry during the 1,200-mile canoeing trek. The 10-man crew departed early last month from Lake Dunmore in Vermont and is traveling across creeks, lakes, rivers and streams before arriving in Moosonee, Ontario, over two months later. Temperatures will range from the low-20s to mid-60s over the course of the 10-week trip.

(For more information: www.Expedition2012.com).

Climber Beth Rodden Signs with Osprey Packs

Outdoor pack manufacturer Osprey Packs, Inc. announced the addition of renowned climber Beth Rodden to its roster of 2012 sponsored athletes.

One of the most accomplished female climbers in the world, Rodden has free climbed three routes on El Capitan, more than any other woman. She has also established some of the hardest traditional climbs and sport climbs in the world by a woman, including free climbing the Nose on Yosemite’s El Capitan and the first ascent of Yosemite’s Meltdown. She was the youngest woman to climb a 5.14a, and is one of the only women in the world to have red-pointed a 5.14c/8c traditional climb.

Over the past few years Rodden has become increasingly involved with clinics and working with young climbers across the country. Other Osprey-sponsored athletes include freeskier Alison Gannett, climber Timmy O’Neill, MTB racer Krista Park, climber Majka Burhardt and mountaineer Ben Clark.

(For more information: www.ospreypacks.com)

MEDIA MATTERS

Shortwave Listening Opens the World to Budding Explorers

Truth be told, we first became interested in geography while huddled over a Hallicrafters SX-110 shortwave radio in our basement bedroom. Glad to see we weren’t alone down there. Bill Husted writes in the Ventura County (Calif.) Star on May 5, “I'm an analog guy in a digital world. Shortwave listening, once the drug of choice for nerds, is an unlikely hobby nowadays. After all, that distant station I'm straining to hear probably is also available as a crystal clear audio stream somewhere on the Internet.

“So how can I stand before you today, with no fingers crossed, and tell you that you may find both education and joy through shortwave listening? … keep in mind that there really is an element of magic here, something to be experienced more than explained.”

He praises the unfiltered nature of shortwave, “It's all unfiltered, all coming to me as it happens. It's such a random smorgasbord of information that there would be no way to duplicate it with a television or computer.”

Hulsted continues, “Unlike TV or the Web, shortwave listening is a lot like fishing. You never know what you'll catch. Those who try it for the first time often find satisfaction and even excitement as they troll these waters and make their own catches for the first time.”

(Read Hulsted’s entire column here: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/may/05/shortwave-listening-like-a-fishing-expedition/)

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.

– Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

EXPEDITION FOCUS

Obtaining Expedition Funding in Tough Economic Times
By Parker Liautaud

Polar explorer Parker Liautaud, from London, is a 17 year-old adventurer, environmental campaigner and speaker. In April 2011, he completed his second North Pole expedition, becoming the youngest mainland European to walk that distance to North Pole – and in the second fastest time ever recorded. In April 2012, he completed his third expedition to the North Pole and successfully completed the field sampling phase of the scientific partnership between his organization, Last Degree, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Liautaud, the first person to check-in at the North Pole via the social media service Foursquare, is planning several polar expeditions for the next few years, including his third North Pole expedition, an expedition to find the real-time location of the constantly shifting North Magnetic Pole, as well as an expedition to become the first person to circumnavigate Svalbard unsupported – all of which requires him to raise several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming years.
Although a tender age 17, he’s been rattling the tin cup for years now and shares some advice on corporate fund-raising.

Acquiring funding for an expedition is often the most challenging aspect of expedition planning – by far the most time-consuming and frustrating aspect of an expedition, and often, even funding that seems secure falls through the roof. Moreover, exploration grants are rarely significant enough to cover a sizeable part of an expedition budget – for instance, the biggest grant I could find that would be applicable to an expedition that I am planning for next year covered a mere 2% of its budget.

Most explorers and adventurers have come to the conclusion that the best way to fund expeditions is through corporate sponsorship – an incredibly difficult task. Even though I have far less experience in fund-raising than many adventurers out there, I outline below a few points that I have come to realize over the past few years.

Start early

I can’t stress this point enough. Companies are vastly complex organizations with motives and deadlines that are completely incomprehensible and invisible to the outside individual, and it’s important to be OK with that. If you send in a proposal, it is likely they will only consider serious funding if it is at least six months in advance, maybe more. Sometimes, you will have written to them right after they have budgeted for the year, so they won’t consider any new projects for the next 12 months. It happens. In the past few years, there are many occasions when I have left fund-raising tasks to the last minute, and I have crashed and burned in several regards because of it.

What do you bring to the table in times of economic despair?

This is a relatively obvious point, but the company needs to have an incentive to sponsor you. What is the “hook” of the expedition in terms of media/press/social media and/or in terms of CSR (corporate social responsibility)? I started searching for sponsors for the very first time in late 2009, probably the worst time imaginable in terms of the world economy. It was pointed out to me very early that sponsorship programs are some of the first to be slashed when budget cuts are made. Marketing potential isn’t enough anymore – but your project may have a hook if it benefits their company directly or it benefits the world directly.

Regardless of how hopeless approaching a particular company or individual may seem, do it anyway.

Some of my biggest sponsorship deals started with me thinking, “I know they won’t sponsor me, but I guess I might as well write to them.” In fact, this is what I was thinking when I wrote to GE, my first sponsor. My personal advice is to never, ever miss an opportunity, even if you don’t know it exists. I write to anyone and everyone I can think of. Even if initially, it seems totally and completely hopeless. FYI, I didn’t have any contacts at GE. I wrote to people I didn’t know at all. In fact, this is pretty much the case with almost all of my deals to date. Going through networking is useful and important, but don’t walk away if you’ve already burned through all your contacts.

If there is initial interest, NEVER accept rejection and walk away.

In my minimal experience, about 75% of my proposals received no reply, 24.5% of my proposals were rejected, 0.499% received an expression of interest and only one or two actually came through. Maybe this only applies to me, but if I had to guess, I would assume I’m not the only one, because most people don’t have sponsorship agents. The last three sponsorship deals I secured came from companies that were interested but then rejected my proposal, then rejected further proposals for at least a year, time and time again. I made sure I was polite and not excessive, but opportunities came up. The only reason they thought of me was because I kept on getting back to them, letting them know what’s up, thinking of new angles on how it could work for their company, etc.

Make sure they know you are flexible.

I try to make sure that companies know that I take pride in providing tailor-made solutions to every one of my sponsors. Each company will have different aims and different needs – so I try to make sure they know that I can adapt to what they want from a campaign, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the overall goals of what I am doing.

General initiation, personalized approach.

If I already know the person I am sending a proposal to, I tailor my proposal specifically to that company. This means also adding factors that apply to the right kind of exposure and a campaign that would align with their industry and their audience or customer base. If you are “cold calling” by e-mail, I wouldn’t bother personalizing it because you will likely send out hundreds of them, but once there is interest, I like to make sure I know everything there is to know about their company and industry so that I can create a proposal to fit their needs.

If you’re too firm, you risk killing the deal.

I find that it’s important not to let companies take advantage of me (keeping in mind they know I’m only 17) and make me an unfair offer. After all, I have a certain amount to raise and a limited time to raise it in. However, I find it stupid to keep a dollar amount firm in my head and be completely unyielding. The truth is that for expedition sponsorship, pretty much everything you are offering them is free for you (logos on equipment, social media, speeches, press, etc.). So, for me, I will make sure that I come to an agreement that is fair. If the amount is low, it’s a shame for me but it’s still expedition money. If another company then offers more money, then I can replace the sponsor that pushed down their own amount, but I never want to waste an opportunity.

Fund-raising will get easier as exposure grows and you do more expeditions. It’s just important to keep in mind that the beginning will be very hard, but not to let that deter you.

(For more information on Parker Liautaud: www.parkerliautaud.com)

MEDIA MATTERS

Cameron Returns The Explorers Club Flag No. 161

“Explorers are of a different tribe. They attempt things that leave many shaking their heads and asking, ‘Why?’”, writes columnist Dave Whiting in the OC (Calif.) Register, Apr. 16. Attending a ceremony marking the return of Explorers Club Flag No. 161 at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif., Whiting continues, “Onstage before his tribe, Cameron gazed out over men and women who have gone down the Amazon River, climbed the world's highest peaks, bicycled across central Asia – and cleared the way for the director making his own dives to Titanic.

“Of those who ask why, Cameron said, "I don't have to answer that question in this room."

Cameron explained why some take on what others consider crazy risks. Sure, one could send a robotic sub to the deepest place on the globe. But robots can't share the human experience. "It's the telling of the tale that is the human story," Cameron said. "To me, that was the whole point."

Standing before retired Navy Capt. Don Walsh, who descended into the Mariana Trench aboard Trieste with Jacques Piccard in 1960, Cameron declared, "No kid ever dreamed of being a robot."

Cameron later continued, "A good part of exploration is not admitting what's possible and what's impossible."

In a related story, Don Walsh, tells EN that Explorers Club Flag number 161 was first put into service in 1955, and had been on 19 expeditions including the Arctic, Antarctic and up Mt. Everest twice. The flag will be formally retired, presented to the Club’s headquarters, and displayed close to flags that have been to the moon, on Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki, and elsewhere suitably historic.

Cameron's Deepsea Challenge Expedition was sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Rolex.

Caught in the Act

Have you managed to capture amazing, unusual or exciting animal behavior on video or as a photo sequence? Aquavision in South Africa is looking for material to broadcast on Caught In The Act, a National Geographic TV program shown in over 165 countries. Payment will be made for every clip selected. (For more information: julie@aquavision.co.za)

WEB WATCH

ExplorersConnect.com is New Resource for Explorers and Adventurers

New to the web is Explorers Connect, an online platform and social network specifically designed for explorers and those involved with expeditions and adventurous outdoor pursuits. The free web forum enables its members – from enthusiastic amateurs to professional experts – to share and exchange information, recruit teammates, review and recommend equipment and suppliers, and to follow the trials and tribulations of intrepid souls across the globe.

The site was founded by television director and endurance rower Belinda Kirk, 36, who hopes to create the world’s biggest online community of adventurers. She has already attracted over 3,000 members including the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Charity Challenge and The Adventurists. Our favorite section is “Join a Team” where, should we be so inclined, we could sign up for a six-month human powered descent of The Nile from source to sea, or a traverse of Europe’s biggest glacier – the Vatnajokull ice cap in Iceland, via Iceland's highest peak, the barely pronounceable Hvannadalshnúkur. (For more information: www.explorersconnect.com).

ON THE HORIZON

The Explorers Club Hosts Phantoms of the Clark Expedition
May 9 to Aug. 3, 2012

Journeys into the natural world and the tools explorers take with them along the way, are the focus of artist and explorer Mark Dion’s Phantoms of the Clark Expedition, opening at The Explorers Club in New York on May 9, 2012 and continuing through Aug. 3, 2012. The Dion installation was commissioned by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., as part of the Institute’s commemoration of the centennial of the 1912 publication of Through Shên-kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in North China, 1908–9, written by the Institute’s founder, Robert Sterling Clark and naturalist Arthur deCarle Sowerby.

The book details a scientific expedition Clark led to the Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces of China. Admission is free of charge. An artist-conceived "field guide" will lead visitors through the installation and will highlight the building’s history and The Explorers Club's collection. For more information: www.explorers.org.

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

Infinite Safari Adventures – Other companies offer wildlife safaris, but only Infinite Safari Adventures adds adventure to the mix. Climb Kilimanjaro, ride horses in the bush, scuba dive, ride a hot air balloon, track wild chimps and explore exotic Zanzibar. These are just a few of our exciting options. Or enjoy something only we offer: kayak the warm waters off the Tanzanian Coast. Someday is Now! Alan Feldstein 888 745 2925, adventure@infinitesafariadventures.com

DreamQuest Productions – An award winning professional production and post-production studio specializes in the production of DVDs, TV shows, promotional and documentary films and the distribution of mountain, expeditionary and adventure documentary films. Contact us today and let’s talk! Allan R. Smith, Producer
661 492 3188, info@dreamquest.tv

Life on Ice – Looking for a great adventure read? Lonnie Dupre’s new book Life on Ice covers 25 years of arctic exploration, including the world’s first circumnavigation of Greenland and One World Expedition, a summer expedition to the North Pole. Over the past two decades, Dupre has lived and traveled with the Arctic Inuit, bringing their culture to the rest of the world. Dupre reveals the secret of survival in a world with quickly shifting weather patterns: respecting nature in all its elements and living in sync with the world we inhabit. The guiding force behind Life on Ice is the same as the impetus for Dupre's expeditions: the desire to make a difference in the world.

Life on Ice includes a 32-page color insert of extraordinary Arctic images, maps and is autographed. Order now through the Lonnie Dupre Store. http://lonniedupre.wazala.com/)

Advertise in Expedition News – For just 50 cents a word, you can reach an estimated 10,000 readers of America’s only monthly newsletter celebrating the world of expeditions on land, in space, and beneath the sea. Join us as we take a sometimes irreverent look at the people and projects making Expedition News. Frequency discounts are available. (For more information: blumassoc@aol.com).

Ripped From the Pages of EN – Read the book that was spawned by Expedition News. Autographed copies of You Want to Go Where? – How to Get Someone to Pay for the Trip of Your Dreams (Skyhorse Publishing) – are available to readers for the discounted price of $14.99 plus $2.89 s & h (international orders add $9.95 s & h). If you have a project that is bigger than yourself – a trip with a purpose – learn how it’s possible to generate cash or in-kind (gear) support. Written by EN editor Jeff Blumenfeld, it is based upon three decades helping sponsors select the right exploration projects to support. Payable by PayPal to blumassoc@aol.com, or by check to Expedition News, 28 Center Street, Darien, CT 06820 USA.



EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 28 Center Street, Darien, CT 06820 USA. Tel. 203 655 1600, fax 203 655 1622, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Assistant editor: Jamie Gribbon. ©2012 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments accepted through www.paypal.com. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com. Enjoy the EN blog at www.expeditionnews.blogspot.com.

Expedition News - "Rusticles" Protect Titanic

April 2012 – Volume Nineteen, Number Four

EXPEDITION NEWS, now in its 18th year, is the monthly review of significant expeditions, research projects and newsworthy adventures. It is distributed online to media representatives, corporate sponsors, educators, research librarians, explorers, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. This forum on exploration covers projects that stimulate, motivate and educate.




DIVING ANTARCTICA’S NEWLY DISCOVERED ECOSYSTEM

Scientist and explorer Dale T. Andersen, Ph.D. of Lake Placid, N.Y., plans to revisit what he calls an “exciting, new ecosystem” in Antarctica’s mountainous Queen Maud Land – specifically a perennially ice-covered body of water called Lake Untersee that he dove for the first time in 2008. Back then his team discovered large conical stromatolites (mounds) populating the bottom of the lake.

“As far as we know these are the only known modern analogs to a class of conical stromatolites that existed as far back as 3.45 billion years – back to the dawn of life on planet earth,” he said. Andersen is in the process of raising $750,000 annually for five years to continue research at the site in fall 2012. What makes this project memorable? As Andersen, 56, puts it, “Not too many people Skidoo inland to mountains of Antarctica, make a one meter diameter dive hole through three meters of ice, and go swimming for science.”

Andersen, a scientist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, Mountain View, Calif., adds, “Our work is a journey of discovery – one that encompasses adventure, curiosity, imagination, leadership and courage along with a burning desire to advance knowledge.”

Through scientific research, technical analyses and syntheses of scientific information, his team hopes to help explain critical emerging issues pertaining to the conservation and preservation of fragile ecosystems in Antarctica. (For more information: 518 524 0993, dandersen@seti.org, http://daleandersen.seti.org)


STUDYING AFRICA’S CAPE FUR SEALS

A non-profit organization based in South Africa will embark in December on a scientific conservation expedition to study Africa's only indigenous species of seal, the threatened Cape Fur seals. The expedition, during the peak birthing period, will depart from Cape Town, travel up the West Coast of Africa, through Namibia to just past the Angolan border.

The group is affiliated with The Foundation for Antarctic Research, The Jane Goodall Institute of South Africa, and Seal Alert SA, a rescue and rehabilitation organization regarded as the leading authority on Cape Fur seals that has been operating for over 14 years.

The project’s objective is to undertake the world’s first complete independent survey of the entire Cape Fur seal species. The group will monitor population dynamics, perform seal rescues, disentangle seals from marine debris, and monitor the effects of ocean pollution on the fragile Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem. (BCLME)

The group says they will guarantee massive brand exposure to an international audience. Sponsorship of $50,000 USD is being sought, according to campaign manager Pat Dickens. (For more information: 27 76 875 3545, http://sealepic.weebly.com/, thesealsofnam@gmail.com).

PHINISI-RIGGED VESSEL SEEKS SPONSORS

Matthew and Athena Downes have been living in Indonesia restoring a phinsi-rigged wooden vessel for the past two years. A phinsi is a traditional Indonesian ship handcrafted on the beaches of Tanah Beru and constructed of ebony "ironwood/ kayu besi" and teak "jati". Phinisi carry seven sails and are designed by the "bugis" tribe of South Sulawesi who gained their reputation hundreds of years ago as the fearsome sailors or "bogeymen" of the East Indies.

The Downes' KLM Citra Pelangi ("the image of a rainbow") was launched in 2000 and is just under 131 feet. They currently hope to become only the second-ever Indonesian phinsi to cross an ocean, and the first phinsi to enter the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean Sea by sail.

The current crew includes a man named Ismail, the son of Muhammad Hasan who was one of the sailors aboard the Nusantara Jaya, the only other phinisi to successfully cross an ocean in 1986 from Sulawesi to Vancouver, Canada via Hawaii. This previous expedition was financed by Suharto, the former authoritarian and polarizing president of Indonesia for 31 years (which kept it from becoming a huge international success as well as kept it from being fondly remembered by present day Indonesians).

The three Downes moved onto the Citra Pelangi in September 2009 with a mission and a dream. Along with a crew of dedicated professionals, they hope to make history by studying and preserving nautical life, assuming they can raise $500,000 to assist with the ocean voyage and the making of a feature-length documentary.

As a team, the Downes and the ship owners William and Johnna Anderson have spent the last two and a half years, strengthening, streamlining and preparing the ship for this voyage. They hope to depart from Benoa, Bali, Indonesia in Fall 2012 to cross the Indian Ocean, navigate through the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and then sail trans-Atlantic to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the West Indies – approximately 12,500 nautical miles.

(For more information: Matthew and Athena Downes, www.mayantriangle.com,
seawolf@mayantriangle.com, citra.pelangi.charters@gmail.com,
+62 (0) 821 8744 5120)

EXPEDITION UPDATE

Cameron Revisits Ocean’s Dark Frontier

At 5:52 p.m. EDT, Sunday, Mar. 25, James Cameron, the Titanic director and adventurer, successfully descended to the deepest point on earth, Challenger Deep, 35,756 feet below sea level in the Mariana Trench near Guam, reports James Clash on www.askmen.com.

The last time that was done by humans was a half century ago by U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and the late Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste (see EN, March 2012). Appropriately enough Walsh was in the Pacific to congratulate Cameron as he exited his one-man submersible, being among the first to shake the famous director's hand.

Cameron's first words: "We did it. We all did it as a group!" But quickly Cameron looked over at Walsh in acknowledgement. "It hasn't changed a bit since you were down there. I saw a skid mark of some kind. It might have been from you!"

Cameron then went on to describe his solo experience. "It was bleak. It was like the moon. Man, that is a long way down. When you go past Titanic's (depth), then past Bismarck's, then past where the Mir (submersible) can go – you're still only half or two-thirds of the way there. It's a heck of a ride."

Walsh shared with EN an e-mail sent to him by Cameron in early March, following Cameron’s successful 26,247-ft./ 8,000-meter dive to the bottom of the New Britain Trench. In it the creative force behind Avatar writes, “Sitting down there at 27000′, alone in the dark, with no comms, no contact whatsoever with the world so far above, and nothing but the ingenuity of the engineering to get me back … it’s simultaneously scary and exhilarating. It’s the precipice we put ourselves on by choice, to test ourselves and our machines.”

Read an interview of Don Walsh written by James Clash here:

http://www.askmen.com/celebs/interview_400/460_don-walsh-the-right-stuff.html#ixzz1qFHy8QEX

EXPEDITION NOTES

Anker Returns to Everest

Famed mountaineer and The North Face athlete Conrad Anker returns to Everest with a team of climbers attempting the summit this spring. Anker, along with fellow The North Face athlete and National Geographic photographer Cory Richards, will revisit Everest's past as they attempt to repeat the historic climb of the 1963 National Geographic-sponsored American Mount Everest Expedition (AMEE) almost 50 years after the first American ascent to the summit via the West Ridge.

Anker and Richards will climb Everest's West Ridge, a route seldom visited. Their alpine-style climb will be documented by Richards for a feature in National Geographic magazine to be published in early 2013 and covered in real time on the magazine's May issue iPad app starting April 16.

Anker and Richards' efforts will be complemented by a second team of climbers from The North Face global athlete team, including Kris Erickson, Hilaree O'Neill, Emily Harrington and Sam Elias. This team will attempt the summit simultaneously on the Southeast Ridge.

The scientific portion of the expedition involves geologists from Montana State University (MSU) on the Southeast Ridge team and medical specialists from Mayo Clinic at Base Camp. MSU professor and structural geologist, Dr. David Lageson, will focus on research and education in partnership with Philip Henderson of the National Outdoor Leadership School and Travis Corthouts, a geology graduate student who will conduct research from Everest Base Camp.

Also part of the Southeast Ridge team will be National Geographic writer Mark Jenkins. Some members of this team will contribute to an online science curriculum developed for fifth graders by Montana State University.

Anker said, "Everest remains a beacon of exploration. The ability to share the experience of Mount Everest with schoolchildren while conducting science is the foundation of our expedition."

Lageson’s team will re-survey the summit of Mount Everest with the latest and most precise GPS equipment available to obtain a reading of the current height of the mountain, which was last reliably measured in 1999.

(For more information: National Geographic – www.natgeo.com/everest; The North Face – www.thenorthface.com/everest; Montana State University – www.montana.edu/everest; Mayo Clinic – http://advancingthescience.mayo.edu

Big Weekend at The Explorers Club

The biggest weekend of the year for The Explorers Club features its famous annual dinner – at 108 years-old it’s one of New York’s longest-running benefit dinners attracting a range of expedition supporters, from Buzz Aldrin to SNL’s Dan Aykroyd. The next day, Mar. 18, featured a series of presentations at the East 70th Street HQ where hundreds packed into the Clark Room, the terrace and second floor library to learn about the activities of fellow members. Here are some highlights:

• Bedazzled – Donald C. Johanson, annual dinner committee chair, kicked off the evening by proclaiming, “Humans have always been on the move … to explore and be dazzled by the unknown.” Speaking of unknowns, he later said in reference to the Culinary Curiosities served during the cocktail hour, “I never had duck tongue in my life and won’t have one ever again.” (Editor’s note: we’re guessing he wouldn’t have liked the bull penis either).

• Blessing of Awareness – “We can’t ride on the laurels of early explorers,” said Honorary Chairman Jim Fowler. “Humans are the only species that can contemplate life and death and time in between. I call that the ‘burden of awareness.’ We also have the blessing of awareness – we’re the only species that can find out who, what, where we are.

“We’ve got to learn how exploration can affect human welfare,” said Fowler.

• Snap, Crackle Pop – Philip J. Currie, recipient of The Explorers Club Medal, admitted that he was inspired to focus his life’s work on dinosaurs after opening a Rice Krispies cereal box at the age of six and finding a toy dinosaur inside. His parents made him finish the cereal before he could get at the toy. He brought the dinosaur to the dinner to show the audience.

• What is Exploration? – Frederick “Fritz” Selby, honored with a Citation of Merit, asked, “what is exploration?” then answered, “the satisfaction of curiosity. Without curiosity there are no explorers.”

• Failure is an Option ¬– Johan E. Nilson said during his return of The Explorers Club flag, “Failure must be an option because by taking risks, you reach the highest level of possible.”

• Saving Oceans – “The importance of saving the oceans is the new frontier for exploration and the stakes couldn’t be higher, said Susan Shaw, recipient of a Citation of Merit. “This is what explorers do: we study terrain, we take on challenges and we dive in and take risks in the process.”

• Further One Goes – Julianne M. Chase, recipient of the Edward C. Sweeney Medal, paraphrased Lao Tzu, “What is crystal clean to me after traveling the world, the further one goes the less one knows.”

• Japanese Nooky – The next day, Mead Treadwell, Club member and Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, spoke about “Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic.” “People forget that America became an Arctic nation in 1867 with the purchase of ‘Seward’s Folly,’ a deal with the Russians that the New York World derided as a ‘sucked orange.’” He continued, “The planet Mars is mapped with better maps and resolution than the state of Alaska.”

He worries that the magnetic North Pole is migrating to Siberia along with the loss of the aurora borealis. “That means Japanese tourists who want to procreate under the Northern Lights will go to Siberia.” He advocates the use of lighter-than-air airships to carry 60 tons of material at a time, a better alternative to building trucking roads in wilderness areas.

• Nichols Elected TEC President

The Club’s board of directors selected Alan Nichols, from Belvedere, Calif., as its 38th president since the Club was founded in 1904. Nichols, 82, an explorer who specializes in Tibet and China, and the world’s sacred mountains, replaces Lorie Karnath, who served the Club for three years.

Nichols’ experiences and knowledge of Tibet come from many years of study and journeys to the sacred mountains of Bhutan, China, Kashmir, Ladakh (“Little Tibet”), Nepal, and Sikkim. He was the first Westerner to circumambulate sacred Mt. Kailas in southwestern Tibet after Tibet was opened to foreigners. He was also the first to bicycle the entire Silk Road from Xian, China’s historic capital, to the Mediterranean, a feat achieved in four stages from 2001-08 with the help of his wife and others.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"Jacques Cousteau always used to say, 'If we knew what was there, we wouldn't have to go. So we have to go because we don't know what's there.'" – Adventurer and filmmaker James Cameron following his historic dive late last month to the Mariana Trench.

EXPEDITION FOCUS

One Hundred Years Later, Titanic Rusticles Preserve Relics of Lost Liner

Charles Pellegrino, a scientist and author from Long Beach, N.Y., was conducting forensic archaeology and bio-archaeology studies at the Titanic site on September 10, 2001 (James Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss" deep robot penetration). He was there to explore both the bow and stern sections of the Titanic during two dives and surfaced aboard a Russian research vessel into a changing world. Little did he know that day he would apply the same physics he studied on the Titanic (column-collapse, downblast, shock cocoons, surge clouds) to his later studies at Ground Zero in New York.

As the Titanic disaster commemorates its 100th anniversary this month, Pellegrino, 58, shares his observations of the ship’s final resting place:

“Every bit as amazing as the Titanic herself was the wildlife that surrounded her: Cephalopods that resembled bats and even gliding polynoses, along with unidentified organisms (possibly related to comb jellys) known to us only as ‘flashing Milkduds,’ blazing out so brilliantly that they left after-images burned briefly into one's eyes. The rust-icicles, named ‘rusticles,’ turned out to be an interconnected microbial reef that, in addition to turning the more than 450 foot-long bow section of the Titanic into one of the largest organisms on Earth, was helping to preserve paper and wood while, at the same time, dissolving sheets of steel and slowly avalanching decks one upon another,” Pellegrino tells EN.

“Glacier-like, the rusticle reef was building a fossil bed in which the ceramic tiles and traces of wood from the Turkish Baths, and perhaps even the now microbially sheathed mail bags nearby, would long outlast the pyramids – and, along with other ocean wrecks, might somehow speak for human civilization, 50 million years from now, long after the Titanic itself falls like a house of cards during only the next few decades.

The third and final installment in Pellegrino’s trilogy about the Titanic expeditions, Farewell, Titanic (Wiley, 2012), comes out this month.

(For more information: sammiekatz_10018@yahoo.com, www.charlespellegrino.com)

Is the Famed Vinland Map Authentic?

The medieval Viking explorations in the North Atlantic had a huge boost of interest with Yale University's discovery in 1965 of the Vinland Map, generally considered to date back to 1430. But soon after, doubts about the map's authenticity spiked, with claims of 20th Century anachronistic pigments in its ink.

James Enterline, a retired mathematician and computer scientist from New York has worked at the center of this controversy, with field research in the Arctic, numerous papers in scholarly journals, and two books published by Doubleday and Johns Hopkins University Press. He maintains that while the map has not been proven authentic, neither is the evidence marshaled against it conclusive.

A nucleus of pro-authenticity workers are trying to dispel the ink-anachronism evidence by various paths – showing that exactly such inks did exist in the middle ages; showing how modern pigments could have been accidentally introduced in modern times; or showing that chemical arguments in the anachronism theory are faulty. But none of this could establish that the map is in fact authentic, and leaves it still open to some other kind of argument.

Enterline believes the best way to establish authenticity would be by what is called "internal evidence," some aspect of the map that was necessarily present from its beginning and a modern forger could not have introduced. Enterline has discovered multiple cryptograms in the map's inscriptions that may provide just such an aspect.

Cryptography, surprisingly, was an art practiced by medieval scribes to show off their skills to one another, very much analogous to the original intent of modern computer virus writers. The Vinland Map cryptograms contain identification of their writers.

At age 79, Enterline is learning Latin with the intent to research these identities in medieval scriptorium libraries. Establishing their reality could give proof of the map's authenticity.

(For more information: James Enterline, jenterli@jenterli.cnc.net)

MEDIA MATTERS

Amazon Chief Looking for Sunken Apollo 11 Engines

For more than four decades, the powerful engines that helped boost the Apollo 11 mission to the moon have rested in the Atlantic. Now Internet billionaire and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos wants to raise at least one of them to the surface, according to a Mar. 28 story in the Associated Press.

In an online announcement, the Amazon.com CEO and founder said he is drawing up plans to recover the 19-ft. sunken engine, part of the mighty Saturn V rocket that launched Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their moon mission.

The five engines, which produced nearly 7.7 million pounds of thrust, dropped into the sea as planned minutes after liftoff in 1969. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon.

Bezos acknowledged the engines were the property of NASA, but said he hoped they will be displayed in museums.

In 2009, a private company salvaged Gus Grissom’s Mercury capsule that accidentally sank in the Atlantic after splashdown in 1961. It was restored and displayed at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

(See the Mercury 7 on display here: http://www.kansastravel.org/hutchinson/kansascosmosphere.htm)

Man vs. Wild Star Lost in TV Wasteland

Discovery Channel has terminated its relationship with Bear Grylls, the British television personality and star of the network’s Man vs. Wild. The severing of the relationship, which began in 2006 when Man vs. Wild launched on Discovery, comes after the network has allegedly been unable to get Gryhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflls to participate in two unannounced projects he was contracted for, say sources. The sixth season of Man vs. Wild wrapped in August, according to The Hollywood Reporter (Mar. 13).

Grylls spokesperson Heather Krug, an executive at Rogers & Cowan, tells THR, "Bear's goal has always been to make life-empowering shows for his many fans around the globe, and he has taken great risks to bring Discovery such award-winning programming over seven seasons.

"Unfortunately, Bear and Discovery have not been able to come to mutual agreement on new programming, and he disagrees with Discovery's decision to terminate current productions. Bear has loved the Man vs. Wild journey and looks forward to producing further cutting-edge content again soon for his loyal audience."

Grylls, 37, has parlayed his fame as an extreme outdoorsman into an international media career. He’s written nearly a dozen books, many of them survival guides. His memoir Mud, Sweat and Tears – due to be published in the U.S. in May – already is a best seller in England and Australia. He’s landed numerous endorsement deals including with Dockers and Degree deodorant. There's a Man vs. Wild video game, he has an iPhone app, and his clothing line is sold at REI and Walmart.

In 2007, the show was briefly taken off the air in the U.K., and Discovery began airing it with a disclaimer explaining Grylls was not in fact left alone to survive in the wild. In subsequent episodes, Grylls directly addresses the crew, and in the interest of transparency, each season featured a making-of episode, according to THR’s Marisa Guthrie.

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

Infinite Safari Adventures – Other companies offer wildlife safaris, but only Infinite Safari Adventures adds adventure to the mix. Climb Kilimanjaro, ride horses in the bush, scuba dive, ride a hot air balloon, track wild chimps and explore exotic Zanzibar. These are just a few of our exciting options. Or enjoy something only we offer: kayak the warm waters off the Tanzanian Coast. Someday is Now! Alan Feldstein 888-745-2925, adventure@infinitesafariadventures.com

DreamQuest Productions – An award winning professional production and post-production studio specializes in the production of DVDs, TV shows, promotional and documentary films and the distribution of mountain, expeditionary and adventure documentary films. Contact us today and let’s talk! Allan R. Smith, Producer
661 492 3188, info@dreamquest.tv

Life on Ice – Looking for a great adventure read? Lonnie Dupre’s new book Life on Ice covers 25 years of arctic exploration, including the world’s first circumnavigation of Greenland and One World Expedition, a summer expedition to the North Pole. Over the past two decades, Dupre has lived and traveled with the Arctic Inuit, bringing their culture to the rest of the world. Dupre reveals the secret of survival in a world with quickly shifting weather patterns: respecting nature in all its elements and living in sync with the world we inhabit. The guiding force behind Life on Ice is the same as the impetus for Dupre's expeditions: the desire to make a difference in the world.

Life on Ice includes a 32-page color insert of extraordinary Arctic images, maps and is autographed. Order now through the Lonnie Dupre Store. http://lonniedupre.wazala.com/)

Advertise in Expedition News – For just 50 cents a word, you can reach an estimated 10,000 readers of America’s only monthly newsletter celebrating the world of expeditions on land, in space, and beneath the sea. Join us as we take a sometimes irreverent look at the people and projects making Expedition News. Frequency discounts are available. (For more information: blumassoc@aol.com).

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EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 28 Center Street, Darien, CT 06820 USA. Tel. 203 655 1600, fax 203 655 1622, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Assistant editor: Jamie Gribbon. ©2012 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments accepted through www.paypal.com. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com. Enjoy the EN blog at www.expeditionnews.blogspot.com.

PHINISI-RIGGED VESSEL SEEKS SPONSORS

Matthew and Athena Downes have been living in Indonesia restoring a phinsi-rigged wooden vessel for the past two years. A phinsi is a traditional Indonesian ship handcrafted on the beaches of Tanah Beru and constructed of ebony "ironwood/ kayu besi" and teak "jati". Phinisi carry seven sails and are designed by the "bugis" tribe of South Sulawesi who gained their reputation hundreds of years ago as the fearsome sailors or "bogeymen" of the East Indies.

The Downes' KLM Citra Pelangi ("the image of a rainbow") was launched in 2000 and is just under 131 feet. They currently hope to become only the second-ever Indonesian phinsi to cross an ocean, and the first phinsi to enter the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean Sea by sail.

The current crew includes a man named Ismail, the son of Muhammad Hasan who was one of the sailors aboard the Nusantara Jaya, the only other phinisi to successfully cross an ocean in 1986 from Sulawesi to Vancouver, Canada via Hawaii.

This previous expedition was financed by Suharto, the former authoritarian and polarizing president of Indonesia for 31 years (which kept it from becoming a huge international success as well as kept it from being fondly remembered by present day Indonesians).

The three Downes moved onto the Citra Pelangi in September 2009 with a mission and a dream. Along with a crew of dedicated professionals, they hope to make history by studying and preserving nautical life, assuming they can raise $500,000 to assist with the ocean voyage and the making of a feature-length documentary. As a team, the Downes and the ship owners William and Johnna Anderson have spent the last two and a half years, strengthening, streamlining and preparing the ship for this voyage.

They hope to depart from Benoa, Bali, Indonesia in Fall 2012 to cross the Indian Ocean, navigate through the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and then sail trans-Atlantic to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the West Indies – approximately 12,500 nautical miles.

(For more information: Matthew and Athena Downes, www.mayantriangle.com,
seawolf@mayantriangle.com, citra.pelangi.charters@gmail.com,
+62 (0) 821 8744 5120)

The Explorers Club Elects Alan Nichols President

One day after The Explorers Club held its 108th annual dinner in the Waldorf=Astoria on Mar. 17, the international exploration society’s board of directors selected Alan Nichols, from Belvedere, Calif., as its 38th president since the Club was founded in 1904.

Nichols, 82, an explorer who specializes in Tibet and China, and the world’s sacred mountains, replaced Lorie Karnath, who served the Club for three years.

Shortly after the selection, Nichols praised the achievements of Karnath during her tenure as Club president. "Lorie Karnath has delivered to the new administration a Club in pristine condition, with a refurbished building. She has added important sponsors, enhanced relations with our worldwide chapters and created plans to continue the protection of our museum-quality headquarters," Nichols said.

Nichols has served The Explorers Club at the chapter level and in a variety of officer- and committee-level positions where he has gained a reputation as a motivating speaker and the ability to moderate differences between conflicting ideas
among often strong-willed explorers.

He plans to expand upon the Club's ability to support field expeditions for which the Club has become famous. Initial goals are to encourage increased membership and secure new sources of funding and in-kind support, especially now that “exploration is so active in these times of expanded technology," Nichols said. “Where world field exploration intersects with 21st century communications, that’s where you’ll find our membership.”

Nichols’ experiences and knowledge of Tibet come from many years of study and journeys to the sacred mountains of Bhutan, China, Kashmir, Ladakh (“Little Tibet”), Nepal, and Sikkim. He was the first Westerner to circumambulate sacred Mt. Kailas in southwestern Tibet after Tibet was opened to foreigners. He was also the first to bicycle the entire Silk Road from Xian, China’s historic capital, to the Mediterranean, a feat achieved in four stages from 2001-08 with the help of his wife and others.

Nichols is author of many books including “To Climb a Sacred Mountain” (Illuminated Way Press, 1979), which he wrote under a pen name. It was the first book to establish the relationship between religions and mountains.

Nichols served as president of The Sacred Mountain Foundation, San Francisco, and is former president of the San Francisco School Board and City College of San Francisco. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School, and has practiced law for 50 years in San Francisco.

Nichols resides in Belvedere (Marin County) with his wife Becky, who, between them, have six children and four grandchildren.