National Geographic ADVENTURE

Expedition News: Exploring Gabon's Subterranean Caves

This summer, National Geographic Young Explorer grantee Trevor Frost will lead a six-week expedition to Gabon in search of undocumented caves, archaeological discoveries, amazing photographs, and underground kayaking. In addition to finding clues about life in the cradle of humankind, their efforts could help Gabon’s unexplored subterranean caves receive UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Follow the expedition here and at blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/gabon-caves.

Text and photograph by Trevor Frost

Seven years after National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Mike Fay walked across Gabon on the Megatransect, this small tropical country still has many secrets. Some of those secrets are locked in an area with hundreds of caves that few people have visited or even know about. Over the past 20 years, the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement's Dr. Richard Oslisly and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Dr. Lee White (Mike Fay’s partner in establishing Gabon’s National Park System) have been exploring the caves and have made some incredible discoveries.

In 1994, while deep inside one of the caves, Paouen 1, they found stone tools, stone arrows, and charcoal. Carbon dating placed the tools and arrows to roughly 7,000 BP. In analyzing the charcoal, Dr. Oslisly and Dr. White also found that two of the plant species harbor deadly toxins used to poison arrows, while the third plant species was used for intoxication. They concluded in a 1994 Nature article that these caves held elaborate weapon-making rituals. This discovery, and a host of others, has placed the caves under consideration for Gabon's second UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today, there are still many caves and archaeological sites to be found and explored. Our team will be trekking through dense rain forest, navigating 30-foot waterfalls, and documenting the secrets inside these mysterious caves. Stay tuned for updates.

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>>

Video in the News: Jennifer Lowe-Anker on Hope, Passion, and Living Life to the Fullest

This morning, The Today Show's Ann Curry interviewed Jennifer Lowe-Anker about her new memoir, Forget Me Not. Jenni's story captivated many after her first husband, Alex Lowe, died in an avalanche on Shishapangma in October 1999. Conrad Anker, his best friend, survived the accident. In their grief, Jenni and Conrad—much to their surprise—fell in love, married, and are now raising Alex's three sons together. This love triangle of sorts has sparked much curiosity over the years. Here, see the couple speak for themselves about building a life together.

Field Reports: ADVENTURE Contributors at Large

Photographer Aaron Huey's Sufi Survival Guide: 11 Essential Dance Moves

Text and video filed by photographer Aaron Huey from Cairo, Egypt

I knew I was in pretty good with the Sufis when they started putting their snakes on my head (see it for yourself in the video posted above). They don't just give their snakes to anyone you know. It was Imam Hussein's birthday, I was in Cairo, Egypt, at the place his head is supposed to be buried. I was ten hours into my second night of dancing.

See more video and continue reading this story>>

Kayakers Find Big Water on China’s Salween River

Filed April 28 by Kyle Dickman
Photographs by Adam Mills Elliott

It's been a phenomenal week of kayaking for the Epicocity crew on southwest China's Salween River. Himalayan snowmelt left the Salween swollen with rapids that were the biggest and most exciting we've paddled over the past two months.

Continue reading this story>>

Read previous stories about this expedition>>

Kayakers Risk Detainment to Paddle 220 Miles on Tibet's Uncharted Mekong

Filed by Rivers in Demand team member Kyle Dickman

After we'd been in Tibet for two days, all travel was restricted and foreigners and nationals alike were prohibited from entering the province. No amount of negotiation would open the gate between us and our goal of kayaking the Upper Salween River.

So we changed plans to try an undocumented section of the Mekong still within Tibet that, in 2004, a kayaker had allegedly soloed during peak monsoon. He had lost all of his photos and video from the trip, so this would be an opportunity to film it for the first time.

Continue reading this story and see more photos >>

Photograph courtesy Adam Mills Elliott

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

Kayakers Attempt First Descent of Tibet's Last Unexplored Whitewater

Loaded up with kayaks and filming equipment, the Rivers in Demand crew began making the overland journey across China this week en route to the Tibetan Plateau for the first part of their ambitious new expedition. Today (March 14) Trip Jennings (one of our 2007 Adventurers of the Year) and his teammates will begin a first descent attempt of the upper Salween, the last unexplored section of whitewater draining the Tibetan Plateau.

On its upper reaches, the crew expects to encounter severe Class V rapids with dangerous levels of commitment and exposure. The glacier-fed Salween cascades down from some of the highest mountains in the world, frothing through profound slot canyons, guarded by underwater boulders, torrential rapids, and waterfalls.

The last free-flowing major river in South Asia, the Salween flows between Myanmar and Thailand to the South China Sea, but controversial plans exist to build a Chinese-funded hydroelectric dam on its lower stretches. The group hopes to draw attention to the consequences that this development would have on the millions of people who depend on the river.

If all goes according to plan, the crew will drop in on the Salween today at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet (3,353 meters). Keep tabs on the their progress at china.riversindemand.com. The site features a bit of context for the Rivers in Demand project, along with regular audio and text reports from the crew as they descend through Tibet and China. We’ll keep you posted as they move on to the Great Bend in the Yangtze and the middle Salween.

--Lucas Pollock

Photograph by Travis Winn, taken on a 2007 scouting trip of the Salween

Psyching Up: Adventure Therapy on Film

The mountain is high, the ocean is wide, and that which does not kill us makes us stronger—at least according to Nietzsche, and to a spate of newly released documentaries that put this premise to the test.

Everest: A Climb for Peace contrives to solve geopolitics through mountaineering as Israelis and Palestinians scale the peak together ($20). While bonding proves inevitable, the film’s most honest moment comes when Israeli alpinist Micha Yaniv admits: "I’m basically just here to climb."

Mountaintop enlightenment makes for compelling drama in Blindsight (in theaters in April). Erik Weihenmayer—the first sightless man to summit Everest—leads six blind Tibetan teenagers and their teacher up Everest’s neighbor, 23,114-foot Lhakpa Ri, to show the world what they’re made of. The teacher (also blind) frets for their safety, and Weihenmayer urges them onward, while the kids are caught in the middle, in the dark, and on high.

An equally tense ordeal plays out in Deep Water—one of the best documentaries of 2007 ($16). In 1968 Donald Crowhurst entered the first nonstop, solo around-the-world sailing race despite an utter lack of experience; the film traces his quixotic voyage and his descent into madness at sea.

Do you have an all-time favorite adventure therapy flick? Let us know.

Photograph courtesy Robson Entertainment

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