September 2024 – Volume Thirty, Number Nine

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.

EXPEDITION NOTES

Lise Wortley believes historic women climbers need more recognition.

Woman Climber, Filmmaker Has the Right Altitude

Throughout a new age of discovery, the default position for legendary explorers was that they were fearless, powerful… and male. “So where are all the women?” asks Elise “Lise” Wortley, 34, of the U.K., in her documentary film proposal for Higher Than Any Man.

“The answer, of course, is they were always there. Despite fleeting recognition, female pioneers climbed the highest mountains, flew solo around the globe, mapped the sea floor and uncovered some of our earliest civilizations,” says Wortley.

This fall, ­­­­­­­Wortley will climb Mont Blanc wearing historically accurate clothing and boots like those worn by Henriette d’Angeville (1794-1871), the first woman to climb the so-called Roof of Europe without being carried by men. 

(Editor’s note: like all mountaineers at the time, d’Angeville had male guides and porters who joined her on the climb.)

She summited in 1838 in a homemade wool outfit, bloomers, a feather boa, and hobnail boots. Wortley will eschew any modern expedition gear, hiking boots, waterproof clothing, or indeed, modern day sports bras.

Wortley’s planned Mont Blanc climb in period clothing is similar to garb worn in her other climbs to India, Iran, and Scotland, which includes vintage tweed coats and “itchy high-waisted pants.” 

Pictured above is pioneering mountaineer Annie Smith Peck who is

dressed for success in 1906.

Wortley’s Woman with Altitude project has received widespread media attention, although her film now needs to be scaled back due to lack of funding and shuttering of her crowdsourcing campaign.

Watch the trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA4igwnUr5Q

Learn more:

www.womanwithaltitude.com

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Explorers who enter the unknown not only learn about a world no other has ever seen before, but they also discover themselves.”

– Dr. Robert D. Ballard, 82, deep-sea explorer best known by the general public for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998, and the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002.

EXPEDITION FOCUS 

Antarcticans Gather in Colorado to Share Research and Favorite Stories   

The question posed at a conference in Boulder last month:

“How many of you have places in Antarctica named in your honor?”

Twenty-plus hands go up. Obviously, this was no normal conference held at the Colorado Chautauqua, a National Historic Landmark. This was the biennial gathering of The Antarctican Society, attracting 114 participants, mostly middle aged and above, who conducted work or who have otherwise visited the continent since the 1950s.

The 350-member Antarctican Society was founded in 1960, at first mostly by scientists who had been in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, 1957-58. Today its membership includes explorers, scientists, support persons, travelers, and those fascinated by the continent and its history. All are passionate about encouraging increased appreciation of the continent’s global importance.  

Conference participants included veterans of the International Geophysical Year, Operation Deep Freeze, and stations such as McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott South Pole, Palmer, and international science bases.

The three-day event included presentations about freshwater diatoms (scientists estimate 20 to 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe is produced by diatoms), the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctic diving, the Antarctic Treaty, and the Thwaites, the so-called Doomsday glacier considered the world’s riskiest.

Said society president Liesl Schernthanner in her introduction, “Being together with Antarcticans is the next best thing to being in Antarctica.”

Oh, the tales they told.

(Photo courtesy: Kanatous Lab, Colorado State University)

Dr. Shane K. Kanatous, Biology professor at Colorado State University, has been studying Antarctic mammals for 35 years. He says, “What we’ve learned in Antarctica is that animals there are figuring out climate change. They think to themselves, ‘I see my environment changing. Where else can I go?’”

Some are heading north and colonizing land in South America, according to Kanatous.

Rob Robbins prepares to submerge. (Photo courtesy: Mike Lucibella, NSF, 2018)

Robert G. "Rob" Robbins, a professional diver with the National Science Foundation (NSF) U.S. Antarctic Program, has logged 45 years and 2,555 dives on the continent. He praises women for their underwater research on the continent. “Since 1989, 40 percent of the top 10 most experienced divers have been women.”

Robbins reviewed a veritable shopping list of what could go wrong diving under the ice, ranging from the most obvious – loss of hole – to flooding of your dry suit, leopard seal attack, hypothermia and regulator failure. He praised the development of heated undergarments, but says heated gloves are still lacking. “Cold hands more than anything is what drives us up.”

Still, Robbins shared, “Every time I sit at the hole and prepare to dive, I think, ‘I can’t believe I get to do this.’”

For the definitive history of Antarctic diving from 1902-1964, see:

http://www.peterbrueggeman.com/uw/DivingUnderAntarcticIceHistory.pdf

White Out: Wayne returns from a brisk walk.

Wayne L. White, author of Cold: Three Winters at the South Pole (Potomac Books, 2022), retold tales of being manager at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for three winters. When tasked with creating a distinctive pole marker, he had to remember, “When you’re dealing with Polies, these people think differently. I had to tell them, ‘Don't create a design that looks like a penis.’”

White runs movies, starting with the classic horror film The Thing (1951), and events such as a dinner serving traditional foods including hoosh (pemmican, sledging biscuits and snow).

“Every event can’t be a drinking game.”

Palmer Station in 2006 (Photo courtesy: National Science Foundation)

Tom “Frosty” Frostman was amused that the last plane out of Palmer in February 1968, which would leave them confined to the base until that November, left behind eight body bags for the station crew of eight. “There’s got to be a joke there,” Frosty said as he imagined the last deceased Polie zipping himself up. Their worst hardship was no ketchup for 10 months.

Ponant passengers experience Antarctica.

The continent runs the risk of being loved to death. Dr. Polly A. Penhale, an American biologist and Environmental Officer at the National Science Foundation, says tourism is on the rise. Approximately 121,000 visited in 2023-24, a 57% increase over the 2019-2020 season. Of that number, 79,000 made landings, while 43,000 were cruise only visitors (ships carrying over 500 passengers are prohibited from allowing them to disembark).

Penhale believes that the Antarctic Treaty, up for renewal in 2048, is a good model for regulating exploration of Mars and the Moon.

Those EN met at the conference believe it was a privilege and responsibility to work in Antarctica.  

Michael Gooseff, Ph.D.

As Michael Gooseff, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, said, “This barren landscape and the life that thrives there are full of secrets.”

Learn more about The Antarctican Society at www.antarctican.org. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the continent. 

MEDIA MATTERS

Ric Gillespie (Photo by Laurie Rubin)

Ric Gillespie Tries to Convince the World He’s Right About Earhart

Since the late 1980s, Ric Gillespie, a former sales rep and investigator in the airplane insurance business, and now something of an Indiana Jones in search of lost aircraft, has been on a mission to solve the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. His 600-member International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has been frequently covered in EN, including in October 2019 (see ExpeditionNews.com Archives).  

On July 2, 1937, at the end of the most arduous leg of her worldwide journey, Earhart failed to find Howland Island, her designated landing point. The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy spent 17 days looking for Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan, and her Lockheed Model 10E Electra, but found no debris and gave up the search on July 19 of that year.

The theory that emerged in the following weeks, one still endorsed by the U.S. government, is that Earhart exhausted her fuel supply and crashed into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, according to Andrew Zaleski’s piece in Popular Mechanics (posted online on Aug. 20).

Gillespie’s theory about Earhart’s disappearance begs to differ: after failing to find Howland Island, Earhart followed a line of position, trying to find the next closest body of land. She flew north for a bit, found nothing, and backtracked, flying south until she eventually reached Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro). There, at low tide, she landed her twin-engine plane on an outlying reef and later died as a castaway.

“I’m absolutely certain,” he tells Zaleski, “we’ve solved the Earhart mystery.”

Zaleski writes, “Gillespie has become a recognized expert on Earhart, regularly appearing on news broadcasts and in documentaries. His account of what happened in the weeks following July 2, 1937, has received international attention. Yet his steadfast adherence to his own narrative is contested by others who have also spent decades preoccupied with Earhart’s disappearance.

“Now he has a seemingly harder task– convincing the world he is right.”

Gillespie conducted research on Nikumaroro 11 times since 1989, turning up aluminum aircraft skin, pieces of the heel and sole from a shoe, broken glass from a compact mirror, a rusted jackknife, an empty bottle of freckle cream. Studies of radio transmission also hint that Earhart survived her emergency landing. Other researchers found bones in 1940 that could have been Earhart’s, but were discarded before DNA studies could be made.

None of it was conclusive.

Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan.

Even famed marine explorer Bob Ballard failed to locate the plane after a two-week search in 2019.

Zaleski writes, “No matter what Gillespie uncovers, analyzes, or explains, he still finds himself defending his theory, searching for evidence, and attempting to get the world to buy in … In September, he’ll publish One More Good Flight (Naval Institute Press, 2024), a book that will sew all the threads of his Earhart story together. Will it become the definitive text? Or will it be yet another tome in the vast catalog of Earhart discourse?”

In an email to EN that points out several inaccuracies in the PopMech story, Gillespie shares this endorsement from Richard L. Jantz, Director Emeritus of Forensic Anthropology Center, University of Tennessee:

“There is no shortage of books about Amelia Earhart, but One More Good Flight is the only one based exclusively on hard evidence. Those who seek definitive answers about the fate of Amelia Earhart need look no further.”

Read the full story here:

https://www.aol.com/lifestyle/man-knows-truth-amelia-earhart-130000550.html

Learn more about TIGHAR at:

www.tighar.org

EXPEDITION FUNDING

Simona Ruso received an Exploration Fund grant for her comparative study of subglacial channels on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada,

and channel-like features on Mars.

Reminder: Exploration Fund Deadline is Sept. 13, 2024

As Ghandi famously said: “if you don’t ask, you don’t get it.”

So start asking.

Only two weeks are left to submit your application for the Explorers Club Exploration Fund Grant. This category supports exploration and field research for those who are just beginning their research careers. Awards are approximately $2,500 to $5,000.

The grants are targeted at graduate/post-graduate students or an early career scientist conducting fieldwork. Application Deadline: September 13, 2024, 6 p.m. ET  

View previous grantees and apply here:

https://tinyurl.com/TECExplorationFund

WEB WATCH

The solar powered Rattlecam is a durable, high-definition camera, equipped with infrared capability for nighttime monitoring of rattlesnakes and other nocturnal species. With its waterproof fiberglass housing, the camera can withstand extreme weather and even includes a wiper and heated lens to remove any rain or ice.

Rattlers Shake Things Up for Science

Approximately a quarter of the 2,700 snake species are venomous, though about 40,000 annual deaths result worldwide, according to Lizard Bites & Street Riots (Wind Rush Publishers, 2014). Rattlesnakes kind of creep us out; in the field we place hands and feet only where we can see where they land.

Recently in the news is a “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado. Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside are learning more about these enigmatic – and often misunderstood – reptiles. Since researchers livestream their remote camera on RattleCam.org in May, several snakes have become known in a chatroom and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea,” and “Agent 008.”

As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers.

The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services, and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.

Between now and October, watch the livestream here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/3GD3redt9ss

All this talk about ‘rattlers reminds us of our favorite Kirk Douglas film, Ace in the Hole (1951), wherein the butt-chinned actor plays a newspaper reporter who boasts of hiding a rattler in his desk drawer to prolong interest in a story.

Watch him brag here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvPVgwp_M18

Editor’s Note: Yes, we know we digress, but that’s part of the fun writing EN for lo these many years [almost 30]. Don’t miss our commemorative 30th annual issue in October.)

Environmentalist Morad Tahbaz 

Seven Diverse Explorers Tell Their Tales at

Explorers Club Connecticut Library Event

Take seven explorers, ask them to tell their stories at a local library, and the result is a fascinating two hours attracting about 100 members of the public. Attendees of Connecticut’s Westport Public Library’s A Night at The Explorers Club on Aug. 15 came away with a better understanding of the need, the necessity, to explore. 

In the introduction, former Explorers Club president Richard Wiese shared his first impression walking into the Club HQ in the 1980s: “Picture a Harry Potter Hogwarts for adults.”   

Wiese adds, “People think Explorers Club members are incredible name droppers, which possibly they are. The one thing explorers like to do is tell stories.”

Telling stories that evening were:

Richard Garriott, current president of The Explorers Club and a pioneer in private space exploration.

Brendan Hall, documentary filmmaker and creator of Out There: A National Parks Story on telling stories in the natural world and beyond.

Rebecca Hui, entrepreneur, designer, cartographer, and founder of Roots Studio a fashion company that preserves the designs of indigenous cultures around the globe.

Nina Lanza, principal investigator on the Mars Rover's ChemCam who appeared virtually. She has dedicated her career to finding life elsewhere in the solar system.

James Prosek, artist, writer, and naturalist.

Lhakpa Sherpa, who holds the record for the most Everest summits by a woman, and star of Netflix’s Mountain Queen (see EN, August 2024). She now wants to touch the tallest mountains in all 50 states.

Morad Tahbaz, environmentalist and co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, wrongfully jailed for five years in Iran in pursuit of wildlife conservation.

Watch a recording of the entire evening here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/eI2Cxm4Q4ZY

Picking a Rock Fight

Rock Fight, an irreverent outdoor podcast “that aims for the head,” recently took a pot shot at Roaring Twenties-era climbers (see above image).

Dressed in bespoke woolens, armed with the finest tools money can buy, and lauded by his social peers, he’s an Ivy League Man of Action.

The 1920's Mountaineer is ready to tackle the wilderness with an upper lip as stiff as a single malt breakfast. Finally, an action figure that embodies the rugged, adventurous spirit of the age—a time when the world was your oyster, provided you were well-funded, well-connected, and preferably, well, a white male.

Comes with:

Articulated Limbs: Set arms to wave off porters or adjust a cravat.

Ice Axe: More for dramatic climbing poses, handcrafted by artisans.

Climbing Rope: Draped fashionably and made from the finest hemp.

Mountaineer’s Journal: Half-finished notes of “achievements” that reveal his PTSD from the Great War.

Zephyr Sun Shield: The promise of progress, never mind the rash.

Whiskey Glass: Because liquid courage is sound science.

Hand-Rolled Cigarette: Allow a company to roll my heaters for me? No thank you!

Don’t see critical equipment? Never fear! Someone else will carry it for you! You’ve got a peak to bag. Now scram!

Learn more about this new take on the outdoor world:

 www.rockfight.co

BUZZ WORDS

Jamesway hut summer dorms at McMurdo

Jamesway Hut

A few presentations at the Antarctican Society gathering referred to these cold weather shelters. The Jamesway hut is a portable and easy-to-assemble hut, designed for polar weather conditions. A version of the Quonset hut, it was created by James Manufacturing Company of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. A Jamesway hut had wooden ribs and a type of insulated fabric covering.

ON THE HORIZON

SES “Oscars of Exploration, Oct. 16, 2024,

Royal College of Surgeons, London

Each year the Scientific Exploration Society (SES), a British grant-giving charity dedicated to exploring and conserving the planet, celebrates its Explorer and Honorary Award winners. The Explorer Awards encourage “Scientific Trailblazers” and “Pioneers with Purpose” by supporting projects that will leave a lasting legacy and raise awareness of the environmental issues faced today.

The SES Honorary Awards celebrate amazing achievements in the world of science, conservation, adventure, and exploration.  

Lifetime Achievement recipient is Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Meet the honorees here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI1ldAvbQi0 

Awards will be presented at the Oscars of Exploration on October 16, at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, sponsored by RSK and supported by Base Camp Foods. For tickets see:

https://ses-explore.org

Students from around the world attend the Explorers Festival in Iceland. The marker (above right) is the Astronaut Monument that commemorates the training of Apollo astronauts in northern Iceland in 1965 and 1967.

10th Explorers Festival Comes to

Remote Husavik, Iceland, Nov. 6-10, 2024

The Explorers Festival celebrates its 10th edition from November 6-10, 2024, with the theme Earthrise, honoring the impact of space exploration on Earth. Highlights include the GeoSpace student training program, a mini film festival, and the Leif Erikson Awards recognizing achievements in exploration.

The full program will be announced by mid-September. Husavik is a fishing village located on the northeast coast of Iceland with a population of 2,485. October 10, 2024, is the final deadline to submit a film to the festival. Films screened at previous editions of the festival have featured First Man, Kon-Tiki, Into the Inferno, Cosmic Birth, Secrets of a Frozen Ocean, and more.

To submit a film to the festival, go to:

https://filmfreeway.com/HusavikExplorersFestival 

For more information:

https://www.explorationmuseum.com/

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. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com.