EXPEDITION NEWS is a monthly review of significant expeditions, research projects and newsworthy adventures. It is distributed online and by mail to media representatives, corporate sponsors, educators, research librarians, explorers, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. This forum on exploration covers projects that stimulate, motivate and educate.
The following are highlights of the December issue of Expedition News. This free version is only about one-third of the entire newsletter, which is available for US$36/year; US$46 via international post for 12 annual issues. Want to know what you’re missing? Send us a long self-addressed stamped envelope for a free sample issue.
The unsupported Trans-Baikal Bike Expedition plans to use mountain bikes
towing supply trailers to cross 434 miles (700 km) of frozen Lake Baikal in
Siberia this February.
The Trans-Baikal Bike Expedition team consists of six young people between
the ages of 18 and 23 from Germany, Holland, Italy, France, Sweden and the
UK.
Baikal has been crossed by bicycle before, and cars drive along the lake
on a regular basis in the winter, but this doesn’t matter much to the TBBE
team. “As we are not heading for any records or ‘first something’s,’ we are
doing it for the adventure and the experience itself,” says expedition leader
and German adventurer Till Gottbrath, 41, who, in 1999, led the crossing of
the Greenland inland ice. He will be supported locally by the Russian Andrej
Sagusin, 26, the team’s logistical leader - a local professional hunter and
licensed guide.
Would-Be Explorers Discover Royal Geographic Society Conference – Over 200
explorers and would-be explorers attended the 21st annual Explore 2001
conference at the prestigious Royal Geographic Society in London last month.
Based upon the enthusiasm of many of the college students there, it’s safe to
say people will be exploring for a long time to come. One student approached
EN with a plan to cross America on camel; another team – all in their early
20’s – plan to circumnavigate Africa by Land Rover. A team of four hopes to
establish a true course for the River Parapeti in Bolivia, considered
unnavigable for 350 years.
Explore 2001 speakers addressed equipment, fund-raising, and medical matters,
as well as developing project ideas, safety, insurance liability, and
environmental responsibility.
The speakers provided a wealth of constructive
information for expedition planners:
• Chris Johnson, former medical officer of the British Antarctic Survey,
says expeditions are getting safer over the years. “There are fewer jokes
about explorers in pots being eaten by cannibals,” he said. “Expeditions are
reasonably safe, but only if you’re sensible and anticipate problems.”
• Listen to Dave Worrell, however, and you might not be so sure. Worrell,
professor of Tropical Medicine & Infectious Diseases at the University of
Oxford, advised, “Make sure everyone on your expedition has first aid
training. The one team member without training may be the only one left
standing after the avalanche strikes. There are no passengers on an
expedition.” He warned of harmful bacteria that could still live in a boiled
crab during your meal, and bacteria that can cause gas and bloating so bad,
team members would all need separate tents. “Cook it, peel it, or forget
it,” should be the explorers’ mealtime mantra.
According to Worrell, some team members never even make it to base camp.
“While the perception of danger lies with exotic infection, attacks by large
animals, or cannibals, in reality, the greatest danger to expeditions is road
accidents. Don’t trust your life to a madman behind a wheel. Watch him like a
hawk, check the vehicle, and never drive at night.”
Heat Foils Texas Border Walker – Here’s someone who won’t be joining the
Royal Geographic Society anytime soon: a Texas man who was trying to be the
first to walk and canoe the length of the 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexico border said
the harsh landscape and intense heat – even in November – forced him to
abandon his plans and catch a Greyhound bus home after just two days.
David Chizum started his ambitious U.S.-Mexico Border Friendship Expedition
2001-2002 on Nov. 7 at California's Border Field State Park, across the
border from Tijuana. He had planned to trek for five months and was hoping to
end in Brownsville, Texas, this spring.
Memo to Marketers: Adventure Marketing
Can Break Through the Clutter
This month’s issue includes an open memo to all those corporate marketing
executives out there who must decide between yet another golf or tennis
sponsorship, or the next great expedition project. We write, in part:
Consider the typical golf or tennis sponsorship: the savvy marketer can
sample products, entertain customers, present their latest advertising
campaigns over lunch or dinner, and distribute goodie bags brimming with
imprinted polo shirts and ballcaps. Traditional sports sponsorship is a no br
ainer. A slam-dunk.
But occasionally, a sponsorship opportunity arises that steps outside the
box, way outside. To the ends of the earth, in fact. It takes some
corporate fortitude to sponsor a mountain climbing expedition by a blind
climber, an Antarctic crossing by two women, a freedive to 427 feet on a
single breath of air, or the circumnavigation of the globe in a hot air
balloon.
Yet if planned correctly, these “adventure marketing” projects can yield
substantial returns: blind climber Erik Weihenmayer, 32, lands on the cover
of Time magazine after climbing Mt. Everest, generating exposure for Allegra
in the process; polar explorers Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen capture visual
identification for Volvo, Pfizer, and Motorola during an interview with Katie
Couric on the NBC Today Show; Audrey Mestre-Ferreras of Miami is about to
appear on National Geographic Explorer TV in her wetsuit crediting Mares, a
dive manufacturer; and Dr. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones land the
Breitling Orbiter 3 - named for their watch sponsor - on the cover of nearly
every daily newspaper on the planet.
Sure, it’s difficult to entertain customers at Everest base camp, or at the
South Pole, but adventure marketing opportunities have their own unique set
of advantages, as the story goes on to explain (see above for instructions on
how to receive a free copy).
Into Finn Air – Mayhem erupted on Mt. Everest as a leaked e-mail message from
Finn-Olaf Jones went around the world in Internet time, traveling from his
base camp tent to Discovery headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to a tent a few
hundred feet away belonging to Bob Hoffman’s Inventa Everest 2000
Environmental Expedition. According to a story in Forbes FYI
(Nov. 12, 2001), when Jones, on assignment for the Discovery Channel,
questioned the Inventa team’s claims that it too was sponsored by Discovery,
Jones got his clocked cleaned – a sucker punch from an expedition outfitter
Jones himself hired. The plot thickens: according to the story, Jones’
editors at Discovery hadn’t heard of Hoffman either. Jones, who feared for
his safety, writes, “The e-mail had the effect of a flame-thrower applied to
a hornet’s nest.”
When reached by EN, Hoffman told us, “There’s no truth to the story in
Forbes. It’s complete fiction. This guy (Jones) is living in a world of
illusion. We’re in discussions with attorneys to take action.”
The Forbes story is a sad commentary on the state of climbing on Everest; Sir
Edmund Hillary laments in the story’s subhead, “It’s all bullshit on Everest
these days.”
Elton’s Rocket Man Attempts Kili – Sir Elton John is sending his
life-partner, David Furnish, and two others on a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro in
December to raise money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. According to
HELLO! Magazine, when they reach the top, the plan is to call Bill Clinton,
who’s involved in AIDS charity work. The team has spent hours in a Hypoxic
Training Room to build up cardiovascular strength for the 19,340-ft. climb.
Who’s the Mysterious Antarctic Candy Man? - Eagle-eyed Antarctic experts
besieged the Hershey Museum in Pennsylvania after reports that a rare 1937
Hershey Ration Bar found at the South Pole was left there by Adm. Richard
Byrd’s late 1930’s expedition (See EN, November 2001). Seems Byrd never came
closer than 300 nautical miles to the Pole.
Discovered in January 2001 at the South Pole by Adventure Network
International’s Douglas Stoup, the bar was issued to Admiral Byrd for his
third expedition (1939-1941), his first sponsored by the U.S. Military. But
how the bar got to the South Pole is a mystery.
In a statement to the press, the Hershey Museum says, “While Byrd did have
the bar for his third expedition, there is no documented proof that he or any
of his crew were physically at the South Pole during that time period.” The
museum reports 90,000 Ration Bars were produced in 1937 for testing by the
military. As such, they were a forerunner to the nasty-tasting but otherwise
nutritious World War II Ration D Bars – the inspiration behind the energy
bars of today. Most were tested in Tropical climates, and Byrd most
likely received only a limited quantity for the expedition.
The bar was found at a depth of 2.5 feet, which leads researchers to believe
it was moved from its original 1939 location during a much later expedition,
possibly by Dr. Paul Siple during his 1956-58 stay in Antarctica as
scientific leader of the South Pole Station.
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is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 28 Center Street, Darien, CT 06820 USA. Tel. 203-855-9400, fax 203-855-9433, blumassoc@aol.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. ©2001 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr.; international postal rate US$46/yr. Highlights from EXPEDITION NEWS can be found at www.expeditionnews.com. Layout and design by Nextwave Design, Seattle.