Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

As we gear up for the Himalayan climbing season, the "Three Sopranos"—namely Edurn Pasaban, Gerlind Kaltenbrunner, and Nives Mero, who have each climbed eleven of the world's 8,000 foot peaks—are readying themselves for the final sprint in the race to be the first queen of all fourteen. They swear there is no competition involved (k2climb.net). 

On Baffin Island, another group of intrepid ladies, the eponymously named Baffin Babes, finally got their expedition to research climate change and indigenous cultures underway—and are already dealing with a broken GPS (theadventureblog.blogspot.com). 

All the equipment is working fine for intrepid Scot Pen Hadow and Co. on the Caitlin Arctic Survey, but the weather and the ice are acting up a bit (news.bbc.co.uk). You can follow all their -40 degrees-falling-through-the-sea-ice-fun on Twitter (twitter.com/ArcticSurvey). 

A little snow isn’t slowing everyone down though. At around the halfway point in the Iditarod, Alaskan Lance Mackey (news.bbc.co.uk) and 16 of his closest canine buddies have jumped into the lead (iditarod.com). But he still needs to watch his back. Race favorite, Canadian Sebastian Shnuelle, who looks like a bit of a wolf man himself, is stalking Mackey from third place (news.bbc.co.uk).