Born to Explore: Richard Wiese on Cultural Exploration and His Hardest Expedition Yet--Fatherhood

Photograph courtesy Born to Explore/ABC

Some people seem to have exploration hard coded into their DNA. This is true for Richard Wiese, whose globetrotting parents took him to some of the world's most far flung places starting at an early age—including climbing Kilimanjaro at age 11. We spoke to Wiese, former president of the Explorers Club and a lifelong adventurer and field scientist, about his new TV show, Born to Explore (Saturdays on ABC, check local listings). Once admittedly fueled by testosterone, Wiese is now a family man, and it shows. Here he explains his shift away from adrenaline to a slower, more deliberate approach to experiencing the Earth's amazing places, cultures, and creatures. Tune in this week to see Australia's rugged Northern Territory (see a preview below).

Adventure: By the time we publish this interview you’ll be Iceland. What’s going on there?
Richard Wiese: We're shooting episodes of Born to Explore about volcanoes and looking into Viking ancestry. Iceland is very interesting because the Mid-Atlantic Ridge goes right through Iceland, so y ou have the North American plates and the European plates colliding or spreading apart from there. So everything in Iceland is predicated on volcanoes. In fact, the term "geyser" comes from Icelandic.

A: You’re kind of a volcano hunter, aren’t you?
RW: I actually studied geology at Brown; I've done quite a few projects with volcanoes—and quite a few active ones: Cotopaxi in Mexico when it was erupting; Etna in Sicily, Italy; Soufriere Hills in Montserrat; Kilauea in Hawaii. Volcanoes seem to chase me around ... or the other way around.



A: Which volcano would you recommend for a first-time lava trek?
RW: Kilauea in Hawaii is probably the most active and the safest one to go up to. But Etna is interesting, too, because you are in Sicily. There are more complex volcanoes out there, but they are beyond the Volcano 101 trip.

The Amazing Race: A Previous Winner Tells All

Imagine a chance to travel all over the world with your best bud and share a million dollars—if you can handle the obstacles that true adventure travel throws at you. Well that’s The Amazing Race, which pits teams of two against each other as they race around the globe for the pot of gold at the finish line. With the premiere of season 15 at 8 pm EST on CBS, we wondered, what does it mean to win the race? ADVENTURE caught up with season three winner Zach Behr in New York. Behr, now a supervising producer on MTV’s Made, explains what you do when you win half a million dollars, the importance of experiencing local color, and the simple pleasure of eating Vietnamese chicken satay from a street cart.

So you won The Amazing Race and split a million dollars with your partner, Florinka Pesenti, a friend from your days at Vassar College. What'd you do with the money?

I took a chunk of it with my then girlfriend, now wife, and went to Costa Rica for ten days and traveled around. 

Ken Burns's New National Parks TV Series Begins This Weekend

"If you love the outdoors and American history, you simply have to watch it," to quote a review by editor in chief John Rasmus after the premiere of The National Parks at Mountainfilm in Telluride last summer. Award-winning director Ken Burns spent a decade in the parks, capturing 800 hours of jaw-dropping footage and interviewing scores of people, famous and unknown. The new twelve-hour, six-part series will begin airing this Sunday, September 27, on PBS. 

Burns wrote about the making of his new documenary, which looks at American history through our unique natural heritage, for our national parks cover story. He notes, "I prefer to think of...all national parks, a bit differently—not only as something this nation has preserved, but also something we've accomplished: one of America's best ideas." Read his essay here.

Photograph courtesy of Paul Barnes / Florentine Films

Alone in the Wild - Day 38: Ed Recalls Advice From Polar Explorer Rune Gjeldnes

Text by Annie Hay

Here's the latest from Ed Wardle, who voluntarily wound up in the Canadian Yukon, alone, unsupported, for three months for the National Geographic Channel's new TV show, Alone in the Wild. Currently just 38 days into his journey, the show is revolutionizing reality television. Gone are the days of waiting for the show to tell you what happens, now you can keep track on your own time. By logging onto the website before the show airs, viewers can follow his one-way tweets and see short videos he has made from the field.

Nat Geo Explorer Mireya Mayor on Expedition Africa, Mark Burnett's New Show

Anthropologist, television host, former NFL cheerleader, National Geographic Emerging Explorer . . . Mireya Mayor is many things. A homebody isn’t one of them. In the past year, she has led expeditions to Madagascar (where, in 2003, she discovered the smallest primate on Earth, the mouse lemur) and helped set up a program to protect lowland gorillas in Congo (“Have you ever had a 300-pound silverback run at you?” she asks. No. No, we have not). Oh, and she also squeezed in a trek from Zanzibar across Tanzania, re-creating Henry Morton Stanley’s 1871 quest for David Livingstone while filming a new History Channel show produced by Survivor’s Mark Burnett. The making of Expedition Africa: Stanley and Livingstone (which premieres on Sunday) will be particularly grueling: Mayor and her three traveling companions were given nothing but a compass, a few maps, and Stanley’s journals from the original trip to guide them. Someone almost died, she tells us, but you’ll have to watch to find out who. 

Read our interview with Mireya Mayor >>

Ken Burns' The National Parks - American History Told Through Our Unique Natural Heritage

Text by John Rasmus. See a Mountainfilm photo gallery >>

Here at ADVENTURE, we're big fans of the national parks (we do a cover feature on them every year). We're also big fans of the definitive, iconic documentaries of Ken Burns (The Civil War and Jazz are two favorites). Knowing that Burns had just completed a new series on America's national parks, we asked him to write an introduction to our section this year, and he graciously agreed. So you could say we've already bought into this thing.

But still.

Last weekend at the world premiere of Burns' The National Parks at the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, we were blown away.

The twelve-hour, six-part series doesn't air until Labor Day, so I won't give away too much, but if you love the outdoors and American history, you simply have to watch it—and buy the DVD set, which will be released at the same time. The cinematography, of course, is enthralling. After the first ten minutes of Episode One, you'll want to quit your job, pull your kids out of school, and spend the next six months visiting all 58 of them. (Well...maybe not.) But there's so much more to it than that.

Of all Burns' series, The National Parks may be the most powerful subject through which to tell the story of post-Civil War America: How our unique natural heritage defines this country to ourselves and the world. How the fight to establish a park system brought out the best and the worst of us—greed and rapaciousness, idealism and generosity, often colliding head-to-head on the valley floor of the Grand Canyon or the forests of Great Smokies. How the automobile really did change America, swiftly and drastically. How we worked ourselves out of the Great Depression. How our country evolves, fails, starts over, and moves on, constantly and relentlessly. Sometimes there are huge historical forces at work—the transformative power of the railroads, the tragic dispersal of Native Americans. Sometimes great individuals, like John Muir, just make great things happen. Thankfully, in the case of the parks, it's worked out pretty well. So far.

One challenge Burns has with these Big Iconic Subjects is that we think we already know the stories, the themes, the broad strokes. And we do. But Burns' storytelling is powerfully affective. In Episode Four, a couple from Nebraska spends every summer for decades traveling the parks with their dog, Barney. She keeps marvelous journals, capturing their love of these special places. He takes the photographs—5,000 of them. The first Parks Director, Stephen Mather, despite his own bouts of depression, manages to save and expand the system time and again, and sets the bar for generations to come. Seeing it all through their eyes, you start to understand how just important and wonderful these places are. When the lights came up after that episode with the story of the couple from Nebraska, Burns himself was choked up. He's seen that segment, he said, a couple hundred times. "And," he said, "it happens every time." A young African American man, Shelton Johnson, interviewed on screen about his job as a park ranger, left the theatre for a few minutes after the section on his hero Stephen Mather, who understood that rangers were the human face of the parks, and did everything he could to help them. I asked Johnson if he'd seen the section on Mather before, and he said, "Yes, three or four times, and it's always difficult."

Twelve hours and six episodes may seem like a big commitment, especially if you know you're going to choke up a few times along the way, like Ken Burns, Shelton Johnson, and the rest of us did. Trust us, it's worth it.

David de Rothschild: Environmentalist, Author, Explorer, Now TV Host

Text by Daniel Grushkin

For Eco-Trip: The Real Cost of Living, de Rothschild investigates how everyday items can be environmentally destructive. The eight-part series premiered April 21 on the Sundance Channel.  

ADVENTURE: After watching a few episodes, I’m certainly more hesitant to eat salmon, but what’s the larger goal of this series?

DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD: Simply put: If you don’t know where something comes from, don’t buy it. Our role as consumers is to ask a lot of questions, to the point of being annoying. 

A: Isn’t that putting a lot of responsibility on the customer?

DDR: Yes. Being a responsible shopper means more than buying a pair of natural fiber jeans or an organic low-fat muffin—there’s a false sense of security in that. When the Greenland ice sheet slips off, organic moisturizer is going to be as useless as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

A: That’s awfully dire.

DDR: But I’m an optimist. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t.

Read about David de Rothschild's upcoming Plastiki expedition, when he will sail 11,000 miles in a plastic-bottle boat from San Francisco to Sydney.

He's baaaaaaaack! Captain Planet's Triumphant Teturn

The early 90s brought many great things: acid-wash jeans, grunge music and associated plaid wear, and, of course, the eco-fighting Saturday morning cartoon hero Captain Planet. The series, created by Ted Turner, has been picked up and modernized (only slightly) by the Mother Nature Network—which has posted the first episode here. For this writer, a child of the 1980s and early-1990s, this has been a long time coming and cause for major celebration.—Ryan Bradley

Get Ready For Lost: Essential Survival Skills - Part 2

We admit it: We don't have any tested survival advice for what to do if you find yourself on a tropical island that spontaneously travels through time, which is the challenge Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and most of the characters on Lost must confront tonight. But since our lives are rooted in the present (we hope), here's our second installment of skills to make you ready for anything (except time travel). Read last week's survival skills (#1 - 3) >>

#4 Start a Fire in the Rain

Vaseline-soaked cotton balls, dry twigs in your fuel canister, a wax candle, EZ-Lite fire-starter packets: These handy shortcuts are all lifesavers—if you’ve prepared them in advance. “But one day,” says Outward Bound course director J.D. Signom, “it’ll be just you, the match, and the rain, and you’ll want the know-how to spark a flame au naturel.” For tinder in the Northeast, peel birch bark into thin strips, less than a quarter-inch wide; they’ll light even when wet. For fuel, layer on some dry but not quite rotting wood from inside stumps. In the West, look for crystallized amber on pine and spruce trees. “Those resin nodules are like gold,” says Signom, who picked up the trick in a Nepalese Sherpa village. Place the nodules among dry leaves and in pinecones and ignite them beneath a small pile of pine needles. As a last resort, snap off the small dry twigs growing at the bottom of a tree and think warm thoughts.

#5 Swim a Raging Rapid

“Swimming a rapid can be a gnarly experience,” says Rebecca Giddens, the 2004 Olympic whitewater slalom silver medalist. But if you can remember four key things—no small task when Mother Nature is trying to drown you—the experience will be a lot less unpleasant, and perhaps even fun. Keep your feet up. Trying to stand, a common tendency, is a bad idea as rocks, twigs, and other debris can create a foot-entrapment underwater. Go with the flow. No matter how buff you are, the current will be stronger, so resisting it is futile. That’s not to say you should ride the rapid to the ocean. Pick a safe exit downstream and swim toward it, working with the current, not against it. Don’t breathe under water. “I know it sounds obvious,” says Giddens, “but it happens when all of a sudden you find yourself swimming.” If the current starts to take you under, let it. But first, get as big a breath as possible and hold it. The goal is to relax so your air will last longer. Don’t waste energy pawing frantically to the surface. Usually you’ll pop up quickly (though it will seem like forever while you’re under). If you don’t see sky after five to ten seconds, then swim your way, with the current, to the surface. 

#6 Pack Your Pack
Everyone has a personal method for loading their pack. But with all due respect, we—along with Jim Sano, president of Geographic Expeditions—are happy to share the very best way: ours. First off, it’s not overly anal to weatherproof in the height of summer. “I got snowed on in Yosemite last August,” says Sano. Line your pack with a plastic garbage bag. Line your sleeping bag stuff sack with a trash compactor bag, and fill it with your bag and clothes for camp. Second, concentrate the weight in your pack at your waist so you’re less likely to get thrown off balance. This way, your strongest muscles, those in your legs, do the most work. For ideal distribution, stow the lined stuff sack at the bottom of your pack, followed by food and fuel, and then the rest of your clothing. Keep storm gear and a snack at the top for easy access. Lastly, attach your sleeping pad up high and your tent low, so you don’t look like a big dork.

Excerpted from "Ready For Almost Anything," by Melissa Wagenberg; Illustration by Mark Bodnar

Field FAQs with Holly Morris Light Travel Reading Advice (and LIVE CHAT Tomorrow)

Holly Morris is a TV host (Treks in a Wild World, Globe Trekker), and the author of Adventure Divas and founder of the multimedia company Adventure Divas. Post your travel questions here and they could get answered in the magazine.

LIVE CHAT ALERT: Ask Holly Morris your burning travel questions tomorrow, September 19, at 1 p.m. EST. More info >>

Q: I’ll be backpacking through Southeast Asia for six weeks this fall, and my stack of country-specific guidebooks is almost as tall as I am. What’s the most efficient way to pack, readingwise, when heading out on global adventures?

A. At the risk of offending Lonely Planet, Moon, Rough Guides, and Rick Steves (don’t let the boyish smile fool you; the man’s a powder keg), I would not recommend loading up on 80 dollars’—and 80 pounds’—worth of books. I’ve tried that, and instead of serving me well, they nearly herniated my L7 disk before I even cleared customs. Opt instead for a single, comprehensive guide; or better yet, photocopy its pertinent pages and rely on Internet cafés for on-the-spot research and local people for updates and inside scoops.

Even better, think beyond guidebooks. I like to bring one light paperback—poetry or prose—from or about the region or culture I’m headed into. Africa? Dave Eggers’s What Is the What, or anything by Chinua Achebe. Indonesia? I’m partial to The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher Koch. My New Zealand sojourn was fueled, in part, by Keri Hulme’s The Bone People. I also make it a habit to buy a blank journal of some kind once I’m in-country—a little Peruvian school notebook, say, or a Zambian diary made from elephant-dung paper. It’s a utilitarian keepsake that comes in handy for writing, sketching, or—in dire straits—wiping. So, my ultimate verdict: Whatever you decide to bring along as literature should pull its own weight. And remember, don’t judge a trip by its cover. Real adventure always happens between the lines.