June 2008 – Volume Fifteen, Number Six

EXPEDITION NEWS, now in its 14^th 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.

50 STATES IN 50 DAYS

How do you top a successful expedition to Mount Everest that was closely monitored by thousands of schoolchildren on the Web? Climb another mountain? How about climb to the highest point of each of the 50 states - and do it in 50 days or less.

Compared to The Coleman Company's Everest 5.5 Challenge last year, Denver schoolteacher Mike Haugen's new project, the 50 States in 50 Days Adventure, is arguably even more challenging. More days, more climbing, more travel. Infinitely more complicated logistics. Yet this latest quest takes place right in the nation's backyards.

Haugen, 31, hopes to combat childhood obesity due to poor eating and exercise habits by hosting an online virtual challenge with his next climb to all 50 U.S. highpoints, which begins June 9 on Alaska's Mt. McKinley. The public can follow along in real time during June and July on Coleman's Web site (http://www.coleman.com/50states). Posted online will be photos, videos and a blog about his route, his equipment, the people he meets, and the nature surrounding each summit.

Information about the American highpoints collected by Haugen will help update the highpoints display at the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum in Golden, Colo. (bwamm.org), which hosted Haugen's media kick-off on May 20.

After Haugen physically completes the adventure in July, Coleman's 50 States in 50 Days Challenge will launch with dozens of physical activities that kids can undertake as they earn their way from one state's virtual highpoint to another. Teachers will be encouraged to include the challenge in their curricula so that entire classrooms can participate together as a team. The online challenge will continue through December.

Haugen will summit by any means during his 24,000-mile journey this summer, even if by car (which is best way to reach Florida's 345-ft. HP, or Delaware's lofty 448-ft. peak. Such is the nature of the variety of America's highpoints. Regardless of its height, each highpoint will allow Haugen to tell a different story involving flora and fauna, geography, fitness and the simple pleasures of being outdoors.

Haugen's goal is to finish on Hawaii's Mauna Kea less than 50 days later, on approximately July 25. Ben Jones, from Lynnwood, Wash., set the current record of 50 days, 7 hours and 5 minutes in 2005.

Accompanying Haugen on his adventure will be Zach Price, 30, an architect and climber from Seattle, and Lindsay Danner, a social work major residing in Denver.

Mike Haugen's 50 States in 50 Days Adventure is supported by Coleman, K2 Skis, Marmot, and SPOT Satellite Messenger. Additional help is provided by the Highpointers Club (HighPointers.org)

THE SOLIO 2008 MOUNT STANLEY EXPEDITION

Next month, the SOLIO 2008 Mount Stanley Expedition departs from the village of Gars am Kamp, Austria, for the African nation of Uganda. Expedition leader Julian Monroe Fisher F.R.G.S. (JulianMonroeFisher.com) says the team will trek into the remote Rwenzori Mountain Range, the fabled Mountains of the Moon, located on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the country of Uganda. Their objectives are to document the impact of climate change on the Rwenzori glaciers and the people that live within their shadows. The glaciers are predicted to disappear within 20 years.

The expedition will also commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Uganda-Congo Boundary Commission Expedition of 1907-08 which calculated the actual geographic border between Uganda and the Congo Free State. However, they only estimated the source of the River Lamya. The SOLIO 2008 Mount Stanley Expedition, which will carry an Explorers Club flag, will be the first to mark the river's actual source.

Title sponsor is Better Energy Systems' SOLIO, a solar (hybrid) charger for hand-held electronic devices (www.solio.com). Upon completion of the expedition, SOLIO portable solar battery chargers and additional support equipment will be donated to the Ugandan Wildlife Authority and the Rwenzori Mountaineering Services. (For more information: (+43) 720-720-308, info@mountstanleyexpedition.com, MountStanleyExpedition.com)

“GENTLEMEN, START YOUR BLIMPS”

Part of the fun of writing Expedition News, besides all the free ballcaps and t-shirts we receive, is you never know what's going to arrive in the morning's e-mail. Case in point: the World Sky Race - an historic competition of lighter-than-air skyships racing 29,000-plus miles around the world.

The fall 2010 race will feature zeppelins, dirigibles, blimps and other lighter-than-air craft, an efficient and relatively green form of aviation travel. Starting a series of 16 races from the Greenwich Prime Meridian near the National Maritime Museum, the World Sky Race will circumnavigate the globe. By competing in and completing all 16 races, the skyship with fastest cumulative time will be crowned “World Sky Champion.” The race route covers major metropolitan areas on four continents and will fly over more than 130 World Heritage sites.

Reportedly, it will be the first organized international race of lighter-than-air skyships; the first global circumnavigation by any skyship since the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin circled in 1929, and would be the first officially recognized and fastest global circumnavigation.

World Air League Commissioner is Don Hartsell, an entrepreneur, lawyer and inventor from Houston. “It is our hope that the event will propel further development in green aviation technology,” he tells EN. “In the 1930s skyships covered vast stretches of the world. They were routinely crossing the Atlantic. In fact, the Empire State Building was designed to dock zeppelins.

“We're looking to reopen a chapter of history that closed with the destruction of the Hindenburg in 1937, but to do it with a lot safer gas this time, enclosed in a variety of polymers ¬- a far superior material than the Hindenberg's 30,000 cow stomachs that they used to envelop highly flammable hydrogen gas.”

The World Sky Race breathlessly predicts in typical Texas fashion that it will be “…the largest man-made event seen by live spectators in the history of the human race.”

To compete in the event, fill your skyship with the estimated $3-4 million entry fee and report bright and early on a date to be determined in fall 2010. (For more information: Don Hartsell, drh@worldskyrace.com, (+1) 713-963-8600, WorldSkyRace.com)

KAYAKING FOR ALBATROSS

Sailors used to capture albatross for their long wing bones, which they manufactured into tobacco-pipe stems. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered themselves with the companionship of the albatross in their dreary solitudes; and the evil fate of him who shot with his crossbow the "bird of good omen" is familiar to readers of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Yet this storied seabird is nonetheless threatened.

Hayley Shephard, 38, a teacher, guide and naturalist from Alert Bay, a small island off the northern inside passage of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, plans a five week, 470 nautical mile solo sea kayak journey around South Georgia Island in the Sub-Antarctic to draw attention to the plight of the albatross. South Georgia was kayaked for the first time in 2005 by a team of three New Zealand men. Reportedly, Shephard will be the first person to attempt a solo journey. The expedition is planned for February 2009 and will be documented through film and still images, and audio feeds to her Web site.

Shephard's expedition hopes to generate awareness about the Wandering Albatross which today is threatened by surface longline fishing for tuna. Tuna are caught on baited hooks which are on lines that sink slowly, providing ample time for slow moving birds like Wanderers to snatch at the baited hooks. The financial pledges Shepherd receives through her Web site will be donated to the Save the Albatross Campaign - biologists, scientists and other organizations working together to put a stop to the decline in albatross species (SaveTheAlbatross.net)

The expedition support vessel is the well-known Northanger (northanger.org). South Georgia is administered by the British and their safety regulations require that sea-based expeditions have their own means of possible search and rescue. The Northanger is a 54-ft. steel Damien II ketch rigged sailboat designed specifically to access remote, high latitude regions. (There is a saying when traveling at these latitudes - "in the 40's there is no law but in the 50's there is no god").

Shepherd tells EN, “I believe that an expedition which involves one woman in a kayak, an isolated, rugged, dramatic island riddled with unique wildlife, glaciers, mountains and surf-beaten beaches, attempting a world first, can only capture the attention of a varied audience.”

Shepherd, who has previously kayaked around both Vancouver Island (1999) and the Queen Charlotte Islands (2005) on the west coast of Canada, is seeking at least US $45,000 in cash and in-kind support. (For more information: (+1) 250-588-9848, oceanmaid1@yahoo.com, KayakingToSaveAlbatross.com)

EVEREST UPDATE

News about Mt. Everest is getting to be old hat these days, what with hundreds summiting each year (at least 269 topped off this season alone, according to EverestNews.com). But like a train wreck, it's hard to look away. Here's an update on some spring 2008 activities on the mountain and off:

Carrying a Torch – On May 8, Chinese mountaineers raised the Olympic torch at the summit of Mount Everest, producing the triumphant image that China has longed for in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Live television footage showed a Chinese mountaineering team holding up the torch and Chinese and Olympic flags.

The torch was lit from a special canister housing the Olympic flame before the team completed the final icy incline leading to the peak. When the team was near the top, a wand was used to pass the flame to the torch, which was designed to withstand the frigid, oxygen-thin air.

The final assault team included ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese, as well as university students, but a larger team of 36 people took part in the climb.

The Everest torch was separate from the main Olympic flame, which is on a three-month tour of China after a one-month trip around the world.

Everest Climbers Remain Silent – Professional climber Freddie Wilkinson decries the Himalayan climbing community's tacit acquiescence to the will of corrupt Asian regimes in The Huffington Post on May 27 (HuffingtonPost.com)

Wilkinson accuses those climbing on Everest this spring of some small share of complicity in China's human rights violations, and its systematic attempts to cover up those abuses.

“By early April, the Ministry of Tourism announced that it would be issuing permits for Everest, but with a few strings attached. All expedition leaders were forced to sign a document stating that 'the team shall not carry and exhibit any things like flags, banners, stickers, pamphlets or any audio visual devices that may harm bilateral relationship between Nepal and China.'”

Wilkinson, a New England-based professional climber, mountain guide, and outdoor writer, continues, “It went on to specify that until after May 10th, all electronic equipment - satellite phones, computers, and video cameras - was to be temporarily held by the police in base camp and no climbers would be allowed beyond Camp 2 at 21,000 feet onto the upper mountain. All news reports broadcast from base camp first had to be approved by the Ministry of Tourism. To enforce these rules, a garrison of soldiers was dispatched to the mountain.

“… A few voices in the mountaineering community criticized the media censorship surrounding the Olympic torch's Everest climb and China's blatant meddling in Nepal. Reinhold Messner, the grandfather of modern Himalayan climbing and a former member of the EU Parliament decried the ascent as an insult to the people of Tibet. The prestigious French organization, the Groupe de haute Montagne, issued a statement calling on all mountaineers to condemn the ascent,” reports Wilkinson.

“… What's truly remarkable, however, is the degree to which Everest climbers willingly submitted to these strong-arm tactics. Hardly any major expeditions voluntarily canceled their plans to climb Everest from Nepal on moral grounds, and there was virtually no talk of boycotts or organized protest in the Everest climbing community.

“… Once the domain of a few iconoclast, counter-culture adventurers, the Himalayas of today are overrun by commercial expeditions, with wealthy clientele paying a premium to be escorted all the way to the summit by a small army of high altitude Sherpas and western guides. Expedition leaders, anxious for a smooth, hassle-free climb, are highly conscious that they are obliged to cooperate with the government's demands. Today Mount Everest means big business, and few appear willing to put their livelihoods on the line for political conviction.”

Oldest Man – A 76-year-old Nepalese man has become the oldest person to climb Mt. Everest. The Nepalese Tourism Ministry says Min Bahadur Sherchan reached the summit early May 25 with his guides. Sherchan just barely beat out a 75-year-old Japanese climber, Yuichiro Miura, who reached the top of Mount Everest on May 26, one day too late to reclaim his record as the oldest summiteer.

Both met on May 16 at Everest Base Camp and wished each other well. Miura was hoping to reclaim his record set in 2003, when he climbed Everest at the age of 70. That record was beaten last year by a retired Japanese schoolteacher, 71-year-old Katsusuke Yanagisawa.

Wash His Mouth Out with Soap First – We can't wait … foul-mouthed TV chef Gordon Ramsay says he is going to attempt to climb Everest next year. The Sun in the U.K. reports that Ramsay, 41, is already in training and will first tackle the Ironman triathlon in Hawaii in November. His training regime includes two-hour runs wearing a backpack full of potatoes.__

“Everest has always been my dream. I am very keen to do it. As you get older the chances to stretch yourself physically become fewer,” Ramsay said.

But he already has to overcome a significant set-back: an ulcer apparently brought on by eating too much junk food while filming the latest series of Kitchen Nightmares in America.__ “I've just been told I've got an ulcer from eating crap. I swear to God, I'm so p****d off.”

Everest: The Movie – Working Title Films of London has acquired the documentary, Storm Over Everest, directed by David Breashears, 52. According to the New York Times (May 11), the production company has access to its interviews for a feature film about the tragedy that is in “active development” for 2009 or 2010, said Tim Bevan, a partner in Working Title and an executive producer of the documentary. Bevan was also producer of Bridget Jones's Diary, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Billy Elliot, High Fidelity, Notting Hill and Elizabeth. Google It – Those who logged onto Google on May 29 (and who among us don't Google at least a few times each day?) would have seen a cute little homepage drawing of two climbers atop a summit, one holding an iconic image of an ice axe with flags attached. Google calls their homepage decorations “doodles,” which change from time to time to celebrate worldwide events and holidays. “Over the years doodles have become one of the most beloved parts of Google,” a spokesperson tells EN.

It was on May 29, 1953 - 55 years ago - that New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach the summit of Everest after a grueling climb up the southern face.

According to the spokesperson who asked to remain unnamed, “Every day hundreds of millions of people search on Google for information. We chose this year, the 55th anniversary of the first climbers to summit Mt. Everest, because it was timely. Edmund Hillary died in January.”

EXPEDITION NOTES

Malfunction Postpones Skydive From Space – A misfired fuse about the size of a pen thwarted a French daredevil's third attempt to skydive from space. When Michel Fournier's massive helium balloon launched without him early May 27, the launch team said a "freak accident" caused some equipment to strike the ground. That triggered a small explosion and separated the balloon from the capsule and its parachutes, spokeswoman Francine Gittins told a room packed with reporters and Fournier's supporters late that afternoon.

"I'm not about to give up," Gittins translated for Fournier, the 64-year-old French adventurer who wants to free-fall from 131,000 feet above Earth and break four world records in the process. The former French army colonel insists he will try again, likely in August in North Battleford, about 80 miles northwest of Saskatoon. When he returns, he'll use the same balloon design, and will bring two, even though they cost about $500,000 each.

The record for a skydive from space has stood for almost 50 years. The world parachute jump record (102,800 feet set in 1960), was established by Col. Joe Kittinger from Altamonte Springs, Fla. In 1995, he received the Elder Statesman of Aviation Award in Washington, D.C., one of the National Aeronautic Association's most prestigious and distinguished honors.

Washburn Camera Goes Into Space – A flight into space is the final mission for a Zeiss-Ikon Maximar “B” camera used to take all the photographs of Bradford Washburn's 1937 first ascent of Mount Lucania (17,146-ft.) in Canada's Yukon Territory. The American Alpine Club arranged for the recently repaired vintage camera to accompany AAC member and NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld on the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission-4, scheduled to fly in September 2008 on the Space Shuttle. A veteran of four space flights, Dr. Grunsfeld has logged over 45 days in space, including five space walks totaling 37 hours and 32 minutes. The mission will add new scientific instruments and extend the observatory's capabilities well into the next decade.

Images from Washburn's camera will be used to study glacial melt over the years. The camera and its views from space will then be permanently retired to a place of honor in the new Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum in Golden, Colo.

Catmandu – Expedition publications usually can't get enough of kids and animal stories, but we were growing weary of mentioning sled dogs all the time. Imagine our delight when we saw an item in the Stamford, Conn. Advocate (May 18), about Tenzing, a silver and fawn male kitten that was found atop a mountain of rubbish in Stamford. For that, the Friends of Felines named him after the famed Sherpa. Ok, that's it for animal stories this month.

Chinese and American Women on Belay – Five women from China, including Cering Wangmo, the woman who carried the Olympic torch to the top of Everest (see related story), will travel to the U.S. and climb various routes in the Tetons, June 8-18, as part of the Chinese/American Women's Climbing Exchange titled, "The Spirit of Climbing.”

“We will climb for six of those 10 days and spend the free time showing the Chinese some of the local sights of Yellowstone and Jackson Hole,” said team captain Nancy Norris, 64 of Grand Blanc, Mich. Then as a follow-up, from Oct. 18-28, an American team of six amateur women climbers will travel to China to climb. Their sights were set on the Sichuan mountain range, but that will change to a new as yet undetermined location due to the recent earthquake. The American portion is sponsored by the AAC and the Chinese portion of the exchange is sponsored by the Chinese Mountaineering Association. The American team ranges in age from 20 to 64. (For more information: Nancy Norris, sundance2468@yahoo.com)

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey." - John Hope Franklin.

Born in 1915, Franklin is a U.S. historian and past president of the American Historical Association. Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University, he is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continuously updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

EXPEDITION FOCUS

Protecting the Wild Bactrian Camels of Mongolia and China
By John Hare

John Hare, 73, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, is the founder of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF). Since 1993 he has worked full time to save the wild Bactrian camel in China and Mongolia, the only countries in the world where it survives. He undertook five major expeditions into the Lop Nur area of China in the 1990s. In 2000, the WCPF organized a conference at the vice-Ministerial level between China and Mongolia where a Memorandum of Understanding to protect the wild Bactrian camel was signed.

In 2001, as a result of continual pressure from the WCPF, the Chinese government established the 175,000 square kilometer Lop Nur Wild Camel Reserve in the Xinjiang Province of China. This reserve has recently been upgraded to a National Reserve and enjoys the same status as that accorded to the Giant Panda Reserve. In 2003, the only captive wild Bactrian camel breeding program in the world was established by the WCPF on land donated by the Mongolian government. Hare picks up the story from there:

In both Mongolia and China, the critically endangered wild Bactrian camel teeters on the brink of extinction. Although reserves have now been established in both countries, in China there is a strong move to develop the far west. As a consequence, illegal miners enter the vast area surrounding Lop Nur to seek out mineral wealth and use any wild camels that they may find there as a source of food. In Mongolia, the urge to discover mineral wealth has also taken hold in recent years and there is great pressure on the Specially Protected Reserve 'A' authorities to allow miners to enter the protected area. These pressures are currently being resisted, but for how long?

It is with this future uncertainty in mind, that the Wild Camel Protection Foundation has established the only captive wild Bactrian camel breeding center in the world, ten miles from Bayan Toroi where the reserve headquarters are situated. Here 15 wild Bactrian camels are currently held in captivity on land donated by the Mongolian Ministry of Nature and the Environment. This year, during the first full year of operation, the center had five live births.

The wild Bactrian camel, which has a different shaped head and humps from the domestic Bactrian camel and distinct genetic differences, survives in one of the harshest environments in the world. In China's Lop Nur, where there is no fresh water at all, it has fought off extinction by adapting to drinking salt water.

I have just returned from a visit to our Mongolian breeding center near the Gobi desert where we started with 12 captive wild Bactrians in 2004. Now we have 21 and I was delighted to find four healthy one-week-old calves which had been born this year. I undertook a 2,700-kilometer survey of the desert and we found a suitable site for a release program for some of the mature wild camels. They will be put back into the desert in an area where they were living 100 years ago. The Mongolian government has supported this initiative, which is excellent news.

I plan another expedition in 2009 to publicize our activities by walking two domestic Bactrian camels from the Pyrenees to the Cotswold Wildlife Park at Burford near Oxford, England. I will take supporters on the journey which will last for three and a half months. I also have a plan to take camels up from China into the Wakand corridor in Afghanistan, along a route not traveled for over 100 years.

In China and Mongolia, it is only because the wild Bactrian camel inhabits a largely waterless wasteland that it is still just holding its own. But if oil or some other precious mineral is discovered in commercial quantities, who then will care about the future of the wild Bactrian camel?

The mission of the WCPF is quite clear. To give this amazing creature, which has withstood atmospheric nuclear tests and constant harassment by man, a chance to survive and not become another of the planet's lost species.

(For more information: John Hare, harecamel@aol.com, WildCamels.com. A book on his wild camel expeditions, The Lost Camels of Tartary, was published in 1998 by Little Brown. A new book, The Mysteries of the Gobi, will be published by IB Tauris this October).

MEDIA MATTERS

Denali Fever – As the short, intense climbing season begins on Mount McKinley, the thousand or so climbers who have set sights on the mountain this year include Brits giddy over the buying power of the pound, Americans coping with growing old by aiming high, and Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund. According to a story by Beth Bragg in the Boulder (Colo.) Weekly (May 15), 76 climbers, almost all of them American, will pay Rainier Mountaineering, Inc., of Ashford, Wash., $5,195 apiece for guided trips up the mountain.

Guide Paul Maier says a growing number of clients are “… 45-year-old males … who, rather than buying a sports car, wants to test himself on a mountain like this - which I think is one of the healthier things you can do with your mid-life crisis.”

Bragg writes that little more than 50 percent of those who climb the mountain reach the top. Since the early 1900s, 98 climbers have died on McKinley, including two last season. Thirty-five of those bodies have never been recovered.

Smarter Than the Average Bear – An amusing review of the latest in survivalist entertainment, the self-aggrandizing lunacy called Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel, appears in the May 16 New York Times. Bear Grylls deposits himself in a different treacherous landscape each episode to see what it takes to wing it in deserts and wind tunnels and other conditions requiring whole inventories of North Face clothing. Ginia Bellafante writes that the show, “… speaks to fantasies of luxury deprivation, the same ones that drive people to high-priced fasting spas to live on the tap water they could drink at home free.”

EXPEDITION MARKETING

New Geography Award – National Geographic Maps, in collaboration with National Geographic Adventure magazine, has introduced the first annual Outdoor Geographic Awareness (TOGA) Awards to identify and showcase outdoor retailers, manufacturers, nonprofit and government organizations and individuals who are finding new and creative ways to promote geographic awareness and build outdoor participation.

TOGA Awards will be evaluated and awarded based upon the applicant's overall contribution to increasing geographic awareness during the previous calendar year. Awards will be considered in four categories: outdoor retailer, industry manufacturer, nonprofit/government and individual.

Examples of geographic awareness programs include training in mapping, geography and navigation, or educational events, programs and materials related to a particular geographic location or to the environment and stewardship of specific lands.

Applications and nominations will be accepted online at natgeomaps.com/toga through June 27. The awards will be presented on Aug. 8 at the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City.

SCARPA Sponsors Vertical Ethiopia Tour – The Vertical Ethiopia Tour chronicles a trip led by writer, climber and guide Majka Burhardt in March 2007 to northern Ethiopia to climb virgin sandstone towers in a region of the world known primarily for its history of drought, famine and war. Four women participated in the trip. The tour - and a coffee table book by Burhardt of the same name - chronicles their adventures as well as the people, politics and potential of Ethiopia. The book and tour feature the images of outdoor photographer Gabe Rogel. The tour is sponsored in part by SCARPA North America, a Boulder, Colo.-based Italian performance footwear manufacturer.

Already partway through Burhardt's tour dates, which have included venues as diverse as Miami, Seattle, Boston and Banff, the tour will continue through February 2009 with more than 20 confirmed dates, and new ones being added at the rate of one per week. (For more information: MajkaBurhardt.com)

ON THE HORIZON

Explorers Are Ready for Their Close-Up – The dark side of North Pole conqueror Robert Peary's nature (he brought Eskimos back from the Arctic to be “studied” by a museum), three female competitors in the world's toughest dogsled race, and the rediscovery of ancient Hawaiian navigation techniques for sailing across the open ocean are the subjects of winning films in the 2008 Explorers Club Film Festival.

The Festival, which will take place on June 13-14, 2008, features the best films in the categories of Scientific Exploration, Adventure, Film by an Explorers Club Member, Expedition, Environment, Exploration, and People & Culture. In addition, one film was selected for a Special Jury Award.

The two-day event is being held at Explorers Club headquarters, 46 East 70th Street, New York. All-day Saturday passes will be sold for the discounted price of $60. All-Festival passes (all sessions Friday and Saturday) are priced at $95. (For more information: reservation may be made by calling (+1) 212-628-8383, explorers.org)

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

Expedition Public Relations – Alex Foley & Associates specializes in Expedition PR. The London-based firm has executed PR programs for many international expeditions, often to maximise value for the title sponsors, including the 1996 Titanic Expedition, Ice Challenger, Snickers South Pole and recently Expedition 360.

Alex Foley & Associates
Tel: (+44) (0) 20-7352-3144
AlexFoleyPR.com
alex@alexfoleypr.com