National Geographic ADVENTURE

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro The Buzz: Three New Gadgets For Longer Weekends

1) Made of used coffee grounds and wax, Java-Logs fuel low-carbon-monoxide campfires and divert 20 million pounds of coffee from landfills annually ($3.50).

2) There are scads of rechargeable units, but the Duracell Mobile Charger has a handy USB slot to juice iPods, cameras, and phones. It plugs into wall outlets and car power ports ($25).

3) The Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card is a slick way to transfer photos to your computer with out cables ($100).

A Deeper Connection: Facebook for Fish

Text by Ryan Bradley
Photograph by Joshua Scott

Threatened by drift nets and habitat destruction, fish need all the friends they can get. A consortium of marine biologists has decided that to know the fiercest and fastest creatures in the sea is to love them. à la MySpace and Facebook, TOPP.org (Tagging of Pacific Predators) is an interactive website that posts personal pages—with names, stats, even blogs—for radio-tagged animals being tracked by TOPP’s field researchers.

Omoo, for example, is a great white shark currently swimming off Honolulu. Dislikes: aquariums. Mood: unfairly judged by his looks. The site’s most compelling feature is a satellite display that lets visitors pinpoint their finned friends’ locations around the globe. Can personifying pelagics make us rethink our next sushi dinner? The scientists at TOPP hope so. And somewhere off the coast of Hawaii, a misunderstood, doe-eyed killing machine named Omoo does too.

Arctic Eyewitness: Back From Ellesmere Island

Photographer Ben Horton, 25, reflects on 60 days dogsledding across Ellesmere Island with Will Steger and five other young explorers for Global Warming 101’s second expedition.

Text and photographs by Ben Horton

The contrast of coming home from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Artic reminds me of a light switch being thrown on in the early morning. The body recoils in sensory overload from the nonstop noise, motion, and the number of unchecked emails. I guess it didn’t help that our first real stop was in New York City. While on the expedition, it was normal to ski alongside the dogsleds for 25 kilometers without seeing a single sign of man for days in a row. Now we are forced to confront our “normal” lives, weaving in and out of people on busy sidewalks, crossing car choked streets, and choking on the smog that churns out of them.

See more photos and continue reading this story>>

Beyond Green Travel with Costas Christ Destination Report Card: Dubai

Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

Some deserts bloom with flowers. Dubai’s desert blooms with outrageous tourism attractions.

With air-conditioned indoor ski slopes, lush golf courses, giant man-made islands shaped like palm trees, and plans to recreate the Seven Wonders of the World, Dubai wants to become the tourism center of the planet. And, as long as 240,000 barrels of oil a day keep pumping in the United Arab Emirates, only the sky is the limit for Dubai—actually, maybe not anymore, given they've nearly finished building the world’s tallest tower.

But can it possibly be sustainable? Just one of Dubai’s golf courses requires a million gallons of desalinated water a day to keep the grass green under a scorching sun.

Continue reading this story>>

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear Review: This Mug is Hot Right Now, So Hot

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

A journalist could spend all day hunting and gathering statistics and in the end not be able to verify them anyway, so I’m going to save my energy and tell you that I’ve read, but not confirmed, that the United States consumes 14 billion paper coffee cups a year. And whether you care about this obligatory Earth Day hook and its sneaky concomitant pressure to waste less, you need to know that the Thermos Leak-Proof Travel Mug is the best coffee container I’ve ever used. And this is coming from a guy who’s used a lot of coffee containers...14 billion, perhaps.

The unbreakable LPTM rocks because it doesn’t leak. I’ve carried this sucker all over the world. I’ve carried it full of joe inside my camera pack. I take it with me when I travel and hand it politely to every barista I meet. Not one drip, though I can’t say the same for a few of the baristas.

It also keeps liquids hotter, longer, than any thermal mug I’ve used. And the design of the lip means that I rarely slosh coffee on myself. And this is coming from a guy who knows sloshing.

It costs 28 bucks and you can buy it online directly from Thermos. I’ve given one to my wife, my mom, and my sister-in-law. I’d give one to you, too, but I don’t know your address. Oh, and the “Ski Wyoming” modification? I'm afraid that costs extra.

Kiting Across the Great Plains—Snow Optional

As the windiest state in the continental U.S., North Dakota could very well become the country's snow kiting capital one day. What's more, according the American Wind Energy Association, the state has the potential to produce more than 25 percent of the country's electricity needs. These two ideas came together last month in the To Cross the Moon (aka 2XTM) expedition, the first successful traverse of North Dakota by kite.

Over 18 days, a trio of athletes covered 300 miles from Canada to the South Dakota border by kite. "North Dakota has more wind-power potential than any state, but people don't seem to know it and there isn’t any leadership for its development, like there is for oil and coal," says team member Sam Salwei, 26, a North Dakota native who lives in Grand Forks. "We wanted to get the message out there in a cool way with this cool, unknown sport."

The crew, which included Paul Cassedy, 19, and Jason Magness, 32, first attempted this feat last year, but a lack of snow made it impossible. This time, however, with good snow cover and temperatures dropping to 54 below, it seemed frostbite would be their greatest worry.

Continue reading this story >>

Photographs by Blake Gordon

From the Field: Kayaking Antarctica

Just back from paddling at the bottom of the world, we asked the intrepid Jon Bowermaster to tell us about his trip. Stay tuned for the upcoming feature story.

The Explorer: New York-based ADVENTURE Contributing Editor Jon Bowermaster 

The Adventure: Five weeks sea kayaking the Antarctic Peninsula, the final of expedition of his OCEANS 8 project, a decade-long endeavor to explore the world’s oceans and coastlines. In January, the team went to Antarctica for an up-close look at how climate change is impacting this very rugged, fragile part of the world.

Most Exciting Moment: "We were at about 66 degrees south, past the Antarctic Circle, when we spotted a sizable iceberg with a beautiful sculpted arch when we decided to get closer for a look. By incredible coincidence, as we sat in our boats, the iceberg the arch began to collapse, ice block by ice block, dropping with a huge bang into the sea. As we watched the entire arch collapsed in front of our eyes, which none of us–-with more than 100 collected years in Antarctica-–had ever seen before."

Most Underappreciated Piece of Gear: "Thermos. Nothing like a hot drink in the middle of a cold paddle to revive fingers, toes, energy, and psyche."

Strangest Animal Encounter: "We paddled through the beautiful Lemaire Channel, known as “Kodak Channel” by many for its incredible picturesque qualities, and passed an ice floe bearing an 800-pound leopard seal. Initially we were cautious about paddling too close, knowing that it could split our kayaks in two with a single bite, but eventually we did get close enough to hear him snoring. At one point he lifted his head and stared us down, but with the knowledge that he was definitely at the top of the food chain … he went straight back to sleep."

Favorite Expedition Meal: "The advantage of traveling in sea kayaks is that you can take lots of stuff. A memorable tent-side meal was spring vegetable soup, with rice and parmesan cheese accompanied by chorizo and pate. More typical, of course, was a handful of nuts and hunk of jerky."

Best Way to Keep Warm: "Don’t change clothes. Despite the temptation after a long, cold paddle, it’s best to stay in your paddling gear while your tent is set up, camp is made, etc. That way you are left with one wet set of clothing and another that remains perfectly dry until you get into your tent and change. Though I don’t use them, several of my teammates are firm believers in hand and toe warmers, the kind you put inside gloves and shoes. Just make sure the expiration dates are still valid!"

Photographs, from top, by: Fiona Stewart; Sean Farrell

Young Explorers Prepare for Ellesmere

This week, legendary polar explorer Will Steger (our Lifetime Achievement award recipient, along with Richard Branson) brought news of his upcoming Ellesmere Island emerging leaders expedition to the New York City ADVENTURE editorial office. In tow were teammates Sam Branson, 22, the down-to-Earth son of Sir Richard, and champion Norwegian musher Sigrid Ekran, 27.













In March, while retracing the footsteps of Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, and Otto Sverdrup, Steger's team of six young leaders (no one is over 28) will be dogsledding 1,400 miles over 60 days to document the sorry state of ice in the Arctic. As they cross fjords, mountain ranges, ice shelves, and sea ice, they will be sending in daily dispatches to Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace networks via Globalwarming101.com. "It all has to do with social engagement. We don't have ten years to take action against global warming," said Steger, who hopes his hand-picked team (which includes Nat Geo Young Explorer grantees Ben Horton, 24, and Sarah McNair-Landry, 21) can bring the message to a new audience. "My bets are on the 17- to 24-year-olds making the necessary lifestyle changes."













Young Branson, who joined Steger and his dad on last year's Global Warming 101 Baffin Island expedition, spoke about wanting to bring this message to his generation. "It would be a shame to win people's minds only to find out that it was too late," he noted at the Explorer's Club on Wednesday night. Branson, no stranger to the media circus surrounding pops, commented on how his time on the Baffin expedition, without cell phones, TVs, or other distractions, brought a clarity of mind missing from daily life.

For Ekran, who lives without running water or electricity in the company of her dog team in the Alaskan outback, the Ellesmere lifestyle will be familiar territory. "I spend 90 percent of my time with my dogs, which is probably why I am not so good at talking to people." Chatterbox skills aside, her expert mushing will be an invaluable addition to the team.

Stay tuned for more on this expedition.