Indholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2017 i The Explorers Journal

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS

While the talents and achievements of members of The Explorers Club—both past and present—are remarkable, it’s a big world and to continue to operate as a world center of exploration, we need to seek opportunities to join forces with those of similar goals and passions. To this end, our sponsors have proven to be our most important partners. This year, for example, Rolex provided $50,000 in emerging explorer funding through our grants committee; travel partners Adventure Canada and Kensington Tours contributed time and resources to our first international Lowell Thomas Awards Dinner in Toronto and supported World Oceans Week at The Explorers Club; Adventure Canada has also brought more than 20 young explorers to the Arctic through our Young Explorers Program; and Fjällräven has sponsored chapter meetings and featured our…

2 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

THE ORIGINS OF ANTIKYTHERA

The late summer dive season did not disappoint for an international team of underwater archaeologists exploring the remains of an ancient cargo ship, which foundered in 52 meters of water off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea during a violent storm in the mid-first century b.c. Discovered by sponge diver Ilias Stadiatis in the spring of 1900, the ship, which was carrying a large cargo of bronze and marble statues and other luxury goods, is best known for yielding the famed Antikythera Mechanism. Dated to the late third to early first century b.c., the geared bronze device was designed to track the Metonic cycle and used the Babylonian Saros cycle to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon. It also calculated the timing of the Olympic…

4 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

RAFTING THE ALSEK

Cited by wilderness guides as the “wildest river in North America,” the Alsek River flows westward for 386 kilometers and descends 655 meters from Canada’s Yukon Territory to Alaska’s Glacier Bay. Preserved as an UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Alsek lies to the south of the largest non-polar icecap in the world, receiving glaciers on its flank for most of its course. The river is protected by four wilderness parks: Wrangell-St. Elias and Glacier Bay National Park in the United States, the Kluane National Park and Reserve in the Yukon, and Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in British Columbia, creating the world’s largest biopreserve. For all its stunning beauty, however, it too is a landscape being transformed by global warming, the resulting diminution of its glaciers evident in a simple comparison…

9 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

BITING YOUR TONGUE

What happens when you are flying on your expedition or ascending a mountain and your colleague or a complete stranger starts to have uncontrollable muscular movements and is not aware of their surroundings, or becomes unconscious? Witnessing a seizure is upsetting because it comes on suddenly and seizures are variable in duration and severity. Seizures are caused by abnormal electrical brain activity and may be barely noticeable or may cause strong involuntary muscular contractions and possibly unconsciousness. Understanding seizures and knowing what to do is important because you may witness these anywhere. Seizure can be caused by many conditions including scar tissue in the brain, brain tumors, injury, bleeding (causing a stroke), infections, lack of oxygen, drug abuse and withdrawal, very low blood glucose or sodium, high or low levels…

4 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

THE EXPLORERS CLUB CHAPTER CHAIRS

46 EAST 70TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10021 I 212-628-8383 I WWW.EXPLORERS.ORG ALASKA L. Michelle Ridgway Tel: 907-957-2277 mishridgway@gmail.com ATLANTA Steve Pigott Tel: 770-337-5450 jagter@msn.com AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND Todd Tai todd@mivision.com.au CANADA Ray Hyland chapterchair@explorersclub.ca CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA Jimmy McSparron jimmy@trekkingnut.com CHICAGO/GREAT LAKES Robert A. Shuchman, Ph.D. Tel: 734-649-0937 shuchman@mtu.edu EAST AND SOUTH ASIA Steven R. Schwankert Tel: 86-1350-116-3629 steven@sinoscuba.com FLORIDA Aida “Idee” Belau Tel: 321-243-8448 chair@floridaexplorersclub.org GEORGE ROGERS CLARK Leonard A. Weakley, Jr. Tel: 513-702-0725 lweakley@rendigs.com GREAT BRITAIN Eleuthera du Breuil Tel: 44-2036036974 eleutheradb@hotmail.com GREATER PIEDMONT David N. Brinkman dobrink@bellsouth.net HONG KONG Michael E. Barth mebarth@explorershk.org Tel: 852-9618-8850 NEW ENGLAND Gregory Deyermenjian Tel: 781-968-5174 paititi@alumni.clarku.edu NORTH PACIFIC ALASKA Mead Treadwell Tel: 907-258-7764 Fax: 907-258-7768 meadwell@alaska.net NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Stephen E. Smith, Ph.D. Tel: 925-934-1051 ecnca@oceanearth.org NORWAY Synnøve Marie…

1 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

POLARITY

There is little doubt in the scientific community that the extraordinary weather events we experienced this past summer—a quartet of category 4 and 5 hurricanes and raging wildfires in the Americas and catastrophic flooding wrought by cyclone-driven rains in South Asia—are merely portents of things to come as a result of climate change, with warming seas exacerbating what were once rare yet normal seasonal phenomena. It is clear too that these disastrous events have been made all the more deadly due to poor urban planning and unbridled development. This edition we catch up with three expeditions launched to document the changing nature of Earth’s now-vulnerable frozen zones, which have played a key role in keeping our planet’s weather in check, their stark white ice reflecting rather than absorbing the overabundance…

1 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

OPERATION ICEBRIDGE

On September 20, NASA’s Operation IceBridge completed its second summer survey—and the third carried out this year—of the Greenland Ice Sheet, where a team of researchers has been measuring changes in surface elevation due to seasonal cycles of melting and freezing. Arctic sea ice, the layer of frozen seawater covering much of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent bodies of water, has been often referred to as the planet’s air conditioner—its white surface cooling the globe by reflecting solar energy back into space. The ice cap changes with the seasons, growing in the autumn and winter and shrinking in the spring and summer. Its minimum summertime extent has been decreasing, overall, at a rapid pace since the late 1970s due to warming temperatures. Operation IceBridge has focused its monitoring on multiyear…

3 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

EXPEDITION ANTARCTICA

For more than a decade, I have been drawn to Antarctica and its icy waters—the extraordinary wildlife that inhabits such a seemingly inhospitable environment, the powerful geophysical confluence of rock and ice, and the formidable physical challenges presented by the wind and currents. Perhaps most of all, Antarctica, being a political no-man’s-land, represents an otherworld, a place where one can abandon the “homosphere” and engage with nature face-to-face on its own terms. With its low impact on the environment, traveling by kayak affords a direct and deep view of this pristine and fragile landscape. During my first Antarctic kayak expedition in the winter of 2008-09, I traveled some 900 kilometers along the western edge of the Palmer Peninsula, exploring the Danco Coast and its offshore islands over a two-month period.…

4 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

BOOK REVIEWS

WOLF NATION BY BRENDA PETERSON 304 PP • NEW YORK: DA CAPO PRESS, 2017 • ISBN-10: 0306824930 • ISBN-13: 978-0306824937 • $27 “Wolves are the most misunderstood and maligned of animals and at the same time among the most majestic and mysterious of all our fellow creatures,” writes Brenda Peterson, who grew up in a cabin in the Nevada’s Plumas National Forest, where she learned to “love what was wild and would never belong to me.” The author’s passion for wolves was sparked in 2012, when a lone wolf returned to the mountains of her youth after a wolvine absence of nearly a century, and is now the subject of her new book, Wolf Nation. Patterson recounts her time spent in Yellowstone National Park, where she saw firsthand a landscape…

5 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

THE EXPLORERS CLUB LEGACY SOCIETY

My wife, Nancy Nenow, MN’04, and I are both members of The Legacy Society. Knowing that our support of The Explorers Club will continue once we move “on to higher exploration” provides us with great peace of mind and satisfaction.” David A. Dolan, FE’03 John G. Alexander Alan B. Albright Robert J. Atwater Capt. Norman L. Baker Barbara Ballard Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D. Samuel B. Ballen* Mark Gregory Bayuk Daniel A. Bennett Josh Bernstein Bruce Blanchard John R. Bockstoce, D.Phil. Jack Aaron Boggs Bjorn G. Bolstad* Capt. Bruce M. Bongar, Ph.D. Brian M. Boom, Ph.D. Jill Botway Garrett R. Bowden Capt. Lawson W. Brigham, Ph.D., USCG (ret.) Harry Davis Brooks Lt. Col. Jewell Richard Browder* August “Augie” Brown John C.D. Bruno Lee R. Bynum* Virginia Castagnola Hunter Julianne M. Chase,…

3 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

CONQUERING K2: VANESSA O’BRIEN

AFTER THREE TRIES, VANESSA O’BRIEN ON JULY 28, 2017, BECAME THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO SUMMIT PAKISTAN’S K2, AT 8,611 METERS, THE WORLD’S SECOND-HIGHEST PEAK. O’BRIEN, 52, HAD HELD THE WOMEN’S EXPLORERS GRAND SLAM RECORD IN 2012 WHEN SHE CLIMBED ALL SEVEN SUMMITS (HIGHEST MOUNTAIN ON EACH CONTINENT) PLUS SKIED THE LAST DEGREE TO THE NORTH AND SOUTH POLES, DOING SO IN JUST 11 MONTHS. WE CAUGHT UP WITH THE FORMER MORGAN STANLEY BANKER, A MEMBER OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2013 WHO RESIDES IN NEW YORK WITH HER HUSBAND JONATHAN, TO TALK K2. JC: What does it mean to be the first American woman up K2? VOB: It means a lot to me, personally. And it didn’t come easy. I had to work for it – three overall years…

2 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

PULLING FOR THE PLANET

When you’re someone born with an exploration gene, you’re always planning your next project, even before your current one is completed. Such is the case with Lonnie Dupre, 56, of Grand Marais, Minnesota. We first met the indefatigable explorer in 1989 during the Bering Bridge Expedition. Since then, his projects have been covered often in these pages. His next adventure is a 100-day, 1,850-kilometer dogsled expedition in Greenland, beginning in January 2019. Based out of Qaanaaq, the northernmost community in the world, the team will travel to Warming Land, a series of unexplored icy fjords located on the northwestern tip of Greenland. The team plans to push onto the northernmost islands of Greenland, with a mission to discover the cairn built in the early 1900s by Robert E. Peary—who, with…

5 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

SACRED STONES OF SAIMALUU TASH

RETURN OF FLAG Nº71 FLAG Nº71 WAS FIRST CARRIED INTO THE FIELD IN 1937, WHEN IT ACCOMPANIED JAMES P. CHAPIN TO WHAT WAS THEN THE BELGIAN CONGO. SINCE THEN, THE FLAG SPENT THREE SEASONS IN EGYPT’S VALLEY OF THE KINGS WITH A PROJECT DIRECTED BY DONALD P. RYAN OF PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY; WAS TAKEN TO OMAN BY SIMOM DONATO; AND FLEW OVER THE NAN MADOL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE ON THE ISLAND OF PHONPEI IN MICRONESIA DURING AN EXPEDITION UNDERTAKEN BY LYNN DANAHER. For thousands of years, humankind has left its mark on the global landscape in the form of petroglyphs—images etched into rocky outcrops, initially with stone tools and later metal instruments. Often carved over the course of several millennia at a singular locale, these ancient markings attest their historical relevance…

11 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

ACROSS ANTARCTICA

THE EXPLORERS JOURNAL: How did the idea of crossing Antarctica by car come about? PATRICK BERGEL: In 2015, when Hyundai proposed driving the first passenger car across the Antarctic, they asked if there was somebody from the family who’d be interested to get involved, and I was very keen. EJ: Did you feel that the adventure served to continue Shackleton’s legacy? PB: My grandfather, Shackleton’s son, was an explorer in his own right. My mother is on the board of the James Caird Society, which is named after the boat Shackleton used to rescue his crew who were marooned on Elephant Island during his famous Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. However, I’m not a polar explorer per se. I’m an indoor guy. I start companies in the digital space. So it’s a…

7 min

The Explorers Journal|Fall 2017

BE IMMORTALIZED at THE EXPLORERS CLUB

JOIN THE “EXPLORERS IMMORTALS” AND ENGRAVE YOUR NAME OR DEDICATION IN STONE ON NEW PAVERS FOR THE LEFRAK TERRACE AT EXPLORERS CLUB HEADQUARTERS. ADORN OUR LANDMARK OUTDOOR SPACE AND HELP PAY FOR URGENT WORK FOR PHASE II RENOVATIONS BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION OF $2,500 PER DEDICATED PAVER TO OUR LOWELL THOMAS BUILDING FUND. THE EXPLORERS CLUB WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING WHO HAVE PURCHASED A PAVER: Robert Ashton, James H. Alexander, John G. Alexander, Darlene T. Anderson, Jeanne D. Andlinger, Barbara Annan, Robert J. Aresty, Atlanta Chapter, Robert J. Atwater, Norman L. Baker, Andreas Bender, Josh Bernstein, John Bierley, Bruce Blanchard, John R. Bockstoce, Brian M. Boom, John R. Boreske Jr., Gary W. Bowersox, Lawson W. Brigham, Diane Britz-Lotti, Julianne M. Chase, James M. Clash, Allen S. Counter,…

2 min