Two of the world's best rock climbers coped with frightening falls and the deaths of two fellow climbers on the same rock in a month-long quest to shatter a mythical record in Yosemite National Park. Tenacity paid off June 6 as Alex Honnold, 32, and Tommy Caldwell, 39, reached the top of El Capitan, the most celebrated slab of granite on Earth, in less than two hours, breaking a barrier compared to the four-minute mile, according to an Associated Press story by Brian Melley (June 7).

 

The blistering time of 1 hour, 58 minutes and seven seconds capped weeks of practice and a few stumbles on the so-called Nose route that runs up the middle of the 3,000-foot (914 meters) sheer monolith.

 

Hans Florine, who has held the record on and off between 1990 and 2012 - the last time with Honnold - said the mark is equivalent to the ongoing quest to break the two-hour marathon or Roger Bannister's 1954 achievement in the mile.

 

"We were pushing the five-hour barrier before and then the four-hour barrier and then the three-hour barrier. So which one of those is the four-minute mile?" Florine said before the mark was broken. "I think it is getting close," he tells AP.

 

On June 3, two U.S. climbers in their forties perished on El Cap's Freeblast route horrifying spectators in the valley below who had been hoping to see Honnold and Caldwell. Honnold and Caldwell were not climbing that day and they canceled plans to go for the record and instead conducted a training run.

 

Honnold is the only person to have climbed El Cap solo without a rope or any protection, a perilous feat that earned him both admiration and criticism for being reckless. (See EN, June 2017).

 

Read more about the El Cap speed record here:

 

 

 

A two-and-a-half year expedition in a remote part of Bolivia has uncovered a treasure trove of data on what has proven to be the world's most biodiverse national park, according to LoneleyPlanet.com.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) discovered more than 120 potentially new species of plant, butterfly, and vertebrate during their epic trek. As a result of the work, Madidi National Park is now considered the most biologically diverse protected area on the planet.

In terms of species, it is home to 265 mammals, 1,018 birds, 105 reptiles, 109 amphibians, at least 314 fish, 5,515 plants with 1,544 butterfly species and sub-species also confirmed within the park.

Dr. Robert Wallace of the WCS said: "The massive amounts of images and data collected will provide us with the baseline information needed to protect this natural wonder for future generations of Bolivians and the world." Of all the species recorded in the Madidi landscape, 200 of them were newly discovered in Bolivia while 124 are considered as "candidate new species."

Read the story and view the video here:

 

Ulyana Nadia Horodyskyj was last covered in EN in April 2016, for her study of the difference between satellite images of Baffin Island glaciers, and the so-called "ground truth" research they gather by direct observation at the same sites seen from space.

Recently she was profiled in Rock & Ice magazine (April 26). Horodyskyj's Ph.D. work in glaciology had taken her to the Himalaya to study the effects of climate change on glacial lakes and villages high in the Nepalese mountains. She had participated in and even led alpine expeditions before, participating in climbs up Mount Ranier, Argentina's Aconcagua and Lobuche in eastern Nepal, according to the story by Zoe Rom.

 

She and her boyfriend and climbing partner, expedition guide and musician Ricardo Pena, are constantly training for ambitious climbs. For now, their exploration wish list  includes the Seven Summits, the 50 state high points and the Colorado centennial peaks. On each summit, Horodyskyj will make a short video about science, and Pena will sing a song. 

 

"The pull of mountains even taller than the Rockies drew Horodyskyj to Nepal, where she began researching the effects of climate change on glacial lakes, studying how steadily warming glaciers endangered Nepalese villages near flooding lakes. Leaning on traditional knowledge and collaborating with Sherpa scientists in the mountains was a dream come true for Horodyskyj," Rom writes.

 

"When my scientific work has application and can be used to help people, it holds a lot more meaning for me."

 

Horodyskyj runs Science in the Wild (www.scienceinthewild.com), a Boulder, Colorado, company that takes clients on immersive adventure science expeditions.

 

Read the story here:

 

 

A B-24 D-1 bomber plane transporting 11 American servicemen was shot down over the South Pacific on March 11, 1944. For more than 70 years, the final resting place of the aircraft nicknamed Heaven Can Wait and the men it carried remained a mystery. Now, through the efforts of Project Recover, it has finally been identified.

Project Recover is an organization dedicated to locating the remains of U.S. aircraft that crashed into the ocean during World War II. To find the wreckage of this particular plane, a team of marine scientists, archaeologists, and historians worked together to trace its final flight, according to the story by Michele Debczak on MentalFloss.com. (May 28).

Before heading off to Papua New Guinea to survey the area, Project Recover compiled data on the crash from military reports, diary entries from airmen on associated planes, and extended family members.

With that information in hand, the team traveled to the suspected crash site and searched a 10-square-mile patch of sea floor with sonar, divers, and aerial and aquatic robots. It took them 11 days to locate the wreckage of Heaven Can Wait in Hansa Bay, 213 feet beneath the ocean's surface.

Most touching moment: a memorial service for all 11 servicemen held aboard the research vessel. The documentary concludes with these words:

- Excerpt from "For The Fallen," by Laurence Binyon (1914)

Read the story and watch the video here:

Here's another example of how technology is answering some of the oceans' deepest secrets: The Spanish galleon San José, which went down off the coast of Colombia in 1708, is the so-called "holy grail of shipwrecks." 

The doomed vessel was discovered in 2015 after more than three centuries lying in wait at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, and late last month, researchers revealed how they made their famous find, according to a story by Peter Dockrill on ScienceAlert.com (May 23).

Marine scientists from the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) say the San José - whose sunken riches are estimated to be worth as much as $17 billion in today's currency - was discovered by a 13-foot autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called REMUS 6000, during a survey off Colombia's Barú Peninsula. It has a maximum depth of 19,685 feet (6000 m, hence the model number).

Who gets their pieces of eight remains locked in controversy.

Some contend that since much of the wealth aboard the vessel resulted from the conquest of the Americas, it ought not leave Colombia - while others say other nations still may be entitled to a share of the treasure, based on historical arguments that much Spanish cargo in the late 17th century rightfully belonged to Holland, France, or England.

With the history of these sorts of disputes in mind, the United Nations called on Colombia last month to not commercially exploit the discovered wreck and the cultural heritage it represents.

Read the full story here:

Want your own REMUS 6000? Who wouldn't? Read the sales brochure here:

BLUE, directed, written and produced by Karina Holden, is a new documentary focusing on people defending marine habitats, campaigning for smarter fishing, combating marine pollution and fighting for the protection of keystone species. Among its numerous awards is "Best Impact Film," from the New York Wild Film Festival 2018.  

The way the ocean operates is different to how we thought of it 100 years ago. The film believes we can no longer think of it as a place of limitless resources, a dumping ground, immune to change or decline. Lest watching this makes you, well, blue, the doc shows there is a way forward and the time to act is now.

Watch the trailer here:

Learn about U.S. screenings at:

There's a game we like to play when showing visitors around the headquarters of The Explorers Club in New York. There on the landing is a bust of a distinguished looking gentleman; cover the nameplate and few visitors recognize the man who at one time was the most famous broadcaster in America. In fact, the Club's building is named in his honor, as is an annual award.

Globetrotting writer and broadcaster Lowell Thomas (1892-1981) is the subject of a new documentary by filmmaker Rick Moulton, narrated by Robert Siegel.  If you watch a news video today, listen to a newscast or download a podcast, then you are benefiting from the work of Lowell Thomas. As Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Dalai Lama and many others explain in this lively film about a dynamo of a man, Lowell Thomas invented what is now often celebrated or disparaged as "traditional journalism." 

And he was a great adventurer. In a primetime special after his death, Walter Cronkite concluded that Thomas had "crammed a couple of centuries worth of living into" his 89 years. He returned from Arabia in 1919 with film of "Lawrence of Arabia," a legend he also more or less invented through a multi-media show. After riding a mule caravan up into forbidden Tibet in 1949, just before the Chinese invaded, Thomas returned with his leg broken in eight places but also with precious film of the young Dalai Lama. 

See the trailer at:

 

 

An experience close to home, cheap, simple, short and 100% guaranteed to refresh your life. A microadventure takes the spirit of a big adventure and squeezes it into a day or even a few hours. Source: Microadventures: Local Discoveries for Great Escapes (William Collins, 2014) by Alastair Humphreys, British adventurer, author, blogger, filmmaker and photographer.