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August 2024 – Volume Thirty, Number Eight
Celebrating our 30th year!
EXPEDITION NEWS, founded in 1994, 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.
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EXPEDITION UPDATE
“Mountain Queen” Lhakpa Sherpa is the Focus of Netflix Doc
Readers may recall our story about Lhakpa Sherpa, a Nepali we first learned about in October 2018 (see EN archives) when she was supporting her children working at Whole Foods in West Hartford, Connecticut.
The EN story was read by officials at The Explorers Club and since then she’s become a member of the Club, has received the organization’s Tenzing Norgay Award (2023), and is featured in a Netflix documentary currently available on the streamer titled, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.
Lhakpa, born in 1973 (birthdate unknown), has climbed Mount Everest an astounding ten times, the most of any woman in the world. Her record-breaking tenth climb was on May 12, 2022, which she financed via a crowdfunding campaign. In 2000, she became the first Nepali woman to climb and descend Everest successfully.
In the patriarchal culture of Nepal, girls like her were denied an education; instead of getting her own chance to study, Lhakpa strapped her younger brother to her back and toted him off to class, according to the film directed by Lucy Walker.
On the mountain, she would disguise herself as a young male to get jobs as a porter carrying a hundred pounds up mountains for days on end, and as a so-called “kitchen boy.”
Posts Richard Wiese, former Explorers Club president, “Her story is of sheer determination, perseverance, and triumph over unimaginable odds …. It’s an inspiration overload.”
The documentary is streaming to 190 countries and is reportedly the first content that Netflix has put Nepali subtitles on, according to Walker.
“Everest fixes my soul. Everest is my doctor,” she says in the film.
Watch the Netflix trailer here:
https://youtu.be/0yz5F9WtmsI?si=5qIj-7MgH6LSkQSS
EXPEDITION NOTES
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American Alpine Club Honors Top Search and Rescue Teams
When the you-know-what hits the fan on an expedition, be happy if there’s a local SAR team to save your sorry self.
Recently, the American Alpine Club announced the winners of the 2024 Search & Rescue Awards. Through the award program, Rocky Talkie, makers of mountain and backcountry radios, is donating $75,000 to six underfunded SAR teams across the nation.
Featured Rescue of the Year was by the 39-volunteer member Black Canyon of the Gunnison (Colorado) SAR. When a climber sustained life-threatening injuries on the Great White Wall, the local Search & Rescue Team raced against time to save her life.
Watch the rescue in the nine-minute documentary by AAC member Jon Glassberg:
https://youtu.be/eX4QyP7C76o
The team will receive $25,000 to support training, instructional seminars, gear, and safety messaging in the park to help prevent future accidents.
You can also enter to win $5,000 for your local Search and Rescue team plus a safety prize package for yourself through Rocky Talkie’s SAR Award giveaway:
https://tinyurl.com/SARAwards
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The pilots flew their Ash-25 glider plane to over 8,611 m above sea level in the Karakoram mountain range. (Photo: Marcin Jamkowski / Facebook) | |
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Polish Pilots Set Glider Record Over K2
Sebastian Kawa and Sebastian Lampart made aviation history this month after taking their Ash-25 glider on a flight above K2, over 8,611 meters above sea level in the Karakoram mountain range. They were reportedly the first in history to overfly the world’s second-highest peak in a glider.
The Polish branch of The Explorers Club announced the flight on Facebook on July 20 alongside stunning photos from the glider’s cockpit. It reads, “Today at 16:50 local time Sebastian Kawa and Sebastian Kot Lampart were the first people to fly over the summit of K2 in a glider.”
Before the historic flight, Kawa, who has 24 world championship medals including 18 gold, flew over the Himalayas, including Mount Everest (8,849 meters).
TVPWorld.com covered the news here:
https://tvpworld.com/79403738/polish-pilots-make-history-by-becoming-first-to-fly-over-k2-in-glider
See the Facebook post here:
https://www.facebook.com/marcin.jamkowski
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”
– Wallace Stegner (1909-1993), American novelist, writer, environmentalist, and historian. The quote comes from The Sound of Mountain Water (Doubleday, 1969)
EXPEDITION FOCUS
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Archaeologists study the site of the defining moment of a generation. | |
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Archaeologists Dig Woodstock
We may think of archaeology as a tool to study the distant past, but archaeologists provide insight into human behavior any time people leave things behind. Archaeologists dream of studying the messy, irregular lives of everyday people.
Fifty-five years ago this month, 450,000 mostly young adults gathered on a dairy farm outside the small rural town of Bethel, New York, 90 miles from New York, to listen to music from the leading bands of the time. The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker performed, to name a few. The rainy festival that weekend became an American cultural watershed.
Archaeologists have been hard at work documenting the original Woodstock festival site, working in conjunction with the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts located on the property.
Archaeologist Maria O’Donovan, Assistant to the Director of the Public Archaeology Facility, Binghamton University, was leading the Woodstock dig and says, “There is great value in archaeologists studying the contemporary world. Archaeology interprets the past through the material objects that people used and discarded in their daily life.”
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Excavation near the main stage. | |
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O’Donovan’s work at Woodstock began in 2018 when the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts contracted the Public Archaeology Facility to survey and excavate the festival's main stage. Using leaf blowers, rakes, metal detectors, and excavations, field researchers encountered the remains of a fence line and artifacts that match what one might expect at a music festival, including glass bottle fragments and aluminum pull tabs.
Working with computer-assisted design maps, researchers studied soil disturbances, discolorations, and other evidence to pinpoint the outline of key festival landmarks, including the main stage, performers’ footbridge, and the light and sound towers.
Teams of researchers were also focused on an area called Bindy Bazaar located north of the main stage between two campgrounds. It had trails that served to funnel foot traffic among the venues and hosted 25 rectangular vendor booths to sell or trade items.
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A 55-year-old find only an archaeologist could love. | |
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“There’s still old Christmas light wiring sitting on the trail bed which was used to illuminate the paths,” Julia Fell, Curator of Exhibits, Museum at Bethel Woods, tells EN.
“Thanks to Binghamton University metal detectorists, we’ve found enough to determine with good certainty the precise location of each trail. It’s an active archaeological site, although the exact location is proprietary to protect it from the public.”
Fell continues, “We want to bring that area of the festival to life to understand what happened there and reactivate the space as a visitor experience – it was intended to be a portal from the real world into the festival before it got overwhelmed.”
In 2017, the site of the 1969 Woodstock festival was officially placed on the National Register of Historic Places, joining the ranks of national treasures such as the Empire State Building, the Grand Canyon, and the Statue of Liberty.
Bethel Woods continues to discover, develop, and preserve the integrity of these sacred grounds. Binghamton University will continue its efforts in the future pending further funding.
Read the initial 2017 Bindy Bazaar Mapping Project Report here:
https://www.binghamton.edu/programs/public-archaeology-facility/pdf/bindybazaarreport.pdf
Learn more about festival preservation work:
https://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/museum/preservation-work
• Were You There? – As the joke goes, if you remember Woodstock, you really weren’t there. However if you truly, pinky swear attended, the museum wants to hear from you. Join the Woodstock Oral History Project here:
https://tinyurl.com/WoodstockOralHistory
MEDIA MATTERS
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Photo courtesy DefenderX.com – Mads Tolstrup | |
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Urge to Explore Distant Frontiers is Part of Being Human
“… Given the risks, costs, and environmental concerns associated with extreme tourism, many are still questioning whether travelers should continue to venture to the edge of the Earth – or beyond,” writes Larry Bleiberg on BBC.com/travel (June 18).
"The extreme tourism sector is fraught with high costs, high danger and variable safety precautions," said Melvin S. Marsh, who presented his research paper, Ethical and Medical Dilemmas of Extreme Tourism, to the International Conference on Tourism Research in Cape Town in March.
Despite the interest in boundary-pushing travel, he noted, "the ethical and legal considerations of some of the riskier activities have not yet caught up.”
Still, Marsh and others say they don't expect anything to change, writes Bleiberg.
"Nobody is surprised about any deaths that happen like this. You know it's going to happen," he added. "Very few people are even thinking about the issue," says Marsh.
According to Deana Weibel, a cultural anthropologist who studies religious pilgrimages and space tourism, the urge to explore distant frontiers – be it sailing across the sea or shuttling into space – is part of being human.
Read the story here:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240617-why-humans-are-drawn-to-extreme-tourism
View Marsh’s March 2024 paper here:
https://papers.academic-conferences.org/index.php/ictr/article/view/2154
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The $100 million superyacht Archimedes hosts ocean researchers. | |
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Want to Conduct Ocean Research? Find Yourself a Superyacht
For almost two years, Robert Brewin, a senior lecturer at the UK's University of Exeter, collected data about microplankton – microscopic organisms at the base of the marine food chain – by studying the ocean's color from the bow of a superyacht as it sailed pristine waters from the Caribbean Sea to the Antarctic Ocean.
The Archimedes, a 222-foot "adventure" yacht then owned by the late hedge funder James Simons, boasts a gym, a jacuzzi, and an elevator.
Brewin's was not your typical superyacht itinerary, but he is one of hundreds of scientists to have used an adventure yacht – also known as an expedition or explorer yacht – to research the ocean. In a paper published in Frontiers in Remote Sensing, Brewin, and his co-authors touted the potential of "harnessing superyachts" for science, concluding that "reaching out to wealthy citizen scientists may help fill [research capability] gaps," according to Laurel Chor writing in Bloomberg News (July 8).
The technique is promoted by the Yacht Club of Monaco and the Explorers Club. Last March, the groups co-hosted an environmental symposium that included an awards ceremony for yacht owners who "stand out for their commitment to protecting the marine environment." The Archimedes won a "Science & Discovery" award.
"If a yacht is operating 365 days a year, rather than having it sit idle it'd be much better for it to contribute a positive return through science and conservation," says Rob McCallum, an Explorers Club fellow and founder of U.S.-based EYOS Expeditions, which runs adventure yacht voyages.
Not everyone agrees it’s the best thing for the planet.
"If you want to respect the environment, you can just go surf," says Grégory Salle, a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research and author of the book Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility, and Ecocide (Polity, 2024). Salle is open to the idea that superyachts could be used to advance scientific research but says it's contradictory for anyone to buy a superyacht and claim to be truly concerned about the environment.
See the January 23 paper here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/remote-sensing/articles/10.3389/frsen.2024.1336494/full
Read the Bloomberg News story:
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-boost-ocean-scientists-superyachts.html#google_vignette
EXPEDITION FUNDING
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(Photo: Barry Guimbellot) | |
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Apply for an Explorers Club Grant
Looking for funding for your next project? Honestly, who isn’t? As its 2025 Grant Application cycle ramps up, The Explorers Club has summarized its grant program on a dedicated web page. Last year, grantees hailed from six continents and 24 countries. Hurry. Some deadlines are in September 2024.
Grants include:
Exodus Exploration Without Boundaries Grant – For researchers of all skill levels age 18 or older. Particular interest may be taken in projects led by indigenous explorers, or that benefit and amplify the work of indigenous explorers.
Exploration Fund Grant – Supports graduate/post-graduate students and early career field scientists conducting fieldwork. (Averages $2,500 - $5,000)
Explorers Club Impact Grants – Focuses on the Club’s mission to foster scientific understanding for the betterment of humanity and all life on Earth and beyond.
Fjällräven Field Grant – For explorers under age 35 conducting fieldwork related to conservation, the environment, and/or sustainability. ($5,000)
Rising Explorer Grant – Open to high school students, college undergraduates, and independent researchers doing scientific field work at an equivalent level. (Averages $1,500)
Rolex Explorers Club Grant – Focused on young explorers under the age of 35 who are conducting field research to address a novel scientific, environmental, or historic question. ($10,000)
Stephenson Explorers Advancement Program – Supports exploration and field research for marine exploration and conservation projects. For college undergraduates, graduate students, or independent explorers conducting fieldwork focused specifically on marine research. ($10,000)
To apply for the Explorers Club Discovery Expedition Grants:
https://www.explorers.org/grants
EXPEDITION INK
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Elephants in the Hourglass
By Kim Frank
Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya (Pegasus Books, January 2025), is the narrative debut by conservation and adventure writer and editor Kim Frank. The reader is taken on a moving and adventure-filled tale of one woman’s quest for the truth about endangered Asian elephants in North India and their evolving relationship with humans.
It’s a blend of personal narrative, vivid descriptions, and meticulous research as she illuminates the ways we seek to survive on our rapidly changing planet.
What Frank experienced among one of the most sensitive, intelligent, and awe-inspiring creatures on the planet would change her life. She writes:
“The bathing elephant opens her eye and it bores right through me. I set down my camera. Her eye somehow communicates to me as if we speak the same language. And, we do. The language of mothers. In that eye, I understand that we do our best, and that we can’t always change the conditions we find ourselves in. That we struggle on regardless."
She adds:
"If you want to deeply understand the laws of nature, you must be acutely aware of every detail that surrounds you. And not simply for your own survival, but to let your ego dissolve into a sense of oneness. Only when you are completely attuned to the abundance and variation of scent, sound, taste, light, movement, and even energetic shifts, can you understand what coexistence means."
Frank is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society. She regularly speaks to audiences around the world about Asian elephants, exploration, and the craft of storytelling.
Pre-orders available at:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Elephants-in-the-Hourglass/Kim-Frank/9781639367955
WEB WATCH
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Opening Inspired by The Explorers Club
If there's somethin' strange in the neighborhood, it’s likely Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, now playing on Netflix. In this latest iteration of the popular film franchise, a centuries-old malevolent spirit surfaces from the depths of an orb possessed by the Manhattan Adventurers Society, a group of adventurers who hunted down relics for sport in the early 20th Century.
The Manhattan Adventurers Society is a fictional club in the spooky flick conceived by director Gil Kenan and co-writer Jason Reitman. It was an order of explorers who would go around the world seeking hidden treasures, artifacts, and relics of great historical significance to raise their reputation through their finds. Sound familiar?
Director Gil Kenan, in an interview, revealed drawing inspiration from The Explorers Club where he was married.
“It’s still there, and it was an old British-style Gentleman’s Club but one specifically rooted in gentleman adventurers who would come back from their exploits around the world with some sort of artifact, and then they would sit around in a clubby way with brandy in their hand, and somebody would hold court and talk about the whale penis that they dragged back from Antarctica.”
In the film, the Manhattan Adventurers fall prey to a supernatural entity but,
“Even in the face of danger, they seek to brave the unknown to gain access to forbidden knowledge,” writes Upamanyu Biswas in The Cinemaholic (July 23).
Who you gonna call?
Read the story here:
https://thecinemaholic.com/ghostbusters-frozen-empire-manhattan-adventurers-society/
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The late Bob Newhart remains unrattled by an explorer’s wild claim. | |
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Amazon Explorer Creates Bob Newhart’s Worst Interview Nightmare
Bob Newhart, the deadpan accountant-turned-comedian who became one of the most popular TV stars of his time, died at his home in Los Angeles on July 18 at the age of 94. His passing reminds us of a classic scene from 1984 where as the character “Dick Loudon” in the TV comedy Newhart (1982-1990), he plays the host of a fictional TV show called Book Beat.
The guest author that day was explorer Air Force Col. Lloyd Mennenger (Ret.), who wrote a book called Up The Amazon. However, the Colonel never makes it up the river; instead, he’s distracted by the discovery of a herd of prehistoric dinosaurs and extraterrestrials.
Newhart’s droll reaction is priceless.
See the clip here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2H-9OmErYQ
EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS
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Gravel Biking Terrain Maps That You Can Trust
Gravel cyclists deserve better data. That’s why Slipstream AI was created, a new platform that maps the surface quality of roads and trails to help every cyclist explore with confidence.
Slipstream AI rates the terrain difficulty of gravel surfaces on a one to six Road Surface Rating (RSR, pronounced “razor”) scale and populates this information as color-coded points on a community map. The green and yellow points indicate smooth, easy riding; the orange and red points show rocky and difficult sections of gravel.
Slipstream AI’s technology enables cyclists of all skill levels to access at-a-glance data about the type of gravel they want to ride. Learn more about Slipstream AI and register for a free account at rideslipstream.ai
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Get Sponsored! – Need money for your next project? Read about proven techniques that will help you find both cash and in-kind sponsors. If the trip is bigger than you and is designed to help others, well, that’s half the game right there. Read Jeff Blumenfeld’s "Get Sponsored: A Funding Guide for Explorers, Adventurers and Would Be World Travelers." (Skyhorse Publishing).
Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Get-Sponsored-Explorers-Adventurers-Travelers-ebook/dp/B00H12FLH2
Advertise in Expedition News – For more information: blumassoc@aol.com
EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, LLC, 290 Laramie Blvd., Boulder, CO 80304 USA. Tel. 203 326 1200, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Research editor: Lee Kovel. ©2024 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments are accepted through www.paypal.com (blumassoc@aol.com). Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com.
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