100 Miles of Wild: Madagascar's Limestone Labyrinth

Following dramatic rescue by Madagascar Military, Adventure Science team discovers new dinosaur tracks, 1.6km cave system, and ancient archaeological site in the Tsingy de Bemaraha From October 1 -17,2014, the Adventure Science team, combining the backcountryskill of endurance athletes with academic research experts, travelled deep into the Strict Nature Reserve of Madagascar's Great Tsingy a UNESCO world heritage site, and dangerous limestone labyrinth that can only be accessed by teams of qualified academic researchers. The expedition also had the honour of carrying flag #112 of The Explorers Club, of which several participants are members. This was Adventure Sciences third flag expedition for The Explorers Club. With support from Kensington Tours and Delta Airlines, the expedition entitled 100 Miles of Wild: Madagascars Limestone Labyrinth, required the Adventure Science team to trek, climb, crawl, and navigate 100 miles of dangerously sharp rock, towering cliffs, and unknown cave systems, in order to accomplish the expedition goals which were to provide the first detailed map of the region, identify Lemur species native to the region, observe and record the locations of caves and caverns, and to identify geologically significant features, such as dinosaur tracks, along this 100 mile route. The expedition began on October 1st, 2014, when Dr.Simon Donato lead a highly experienced 3 person team into the tsingy as an advance survey team, tasked with doing a 6-8 hour reconnaissance of the area in order to refine the research plan (teams would accomplish their goals by walking transects through the tsingy daily). As the area is poorly mapped , the small team was caught off-guard by the difficulty and sheer dangerousness of the terrain.

The explorers were Kensington Tour Explorers in Residence, Dr Simon Donato, and Travis Steffens, Primatologist and Lemur expert joined by Canadian adventure racing legend, Jim Mandelli. Upon completing their eight hour trek to their destination, it was realised that the dangerous landscape prevented them from directly returning to base camp, leaving them without adequate hydration and food supplies. The Adventure Science communications team was able to notify the Malagasy Army to complete a full rescue with the assistance of Ed Holder, MP London West and Minister of Science and Technology for Canada, and Major General Dominque Jean Oliver Rakotozafy,Minister of National Defense for Madagascar. Once returned safely to base camp, the team was examined by the medical team members and Travis Steffens was treated for dehydration. For the next 10 days, the Adventure Science teamexplored and mapped an unexplored section of the Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve ~10 kmnortheast of the village of Antsalova. During this exploration they discovered and mapped a massive, 1.6km cave system below the karst, which the team aptly named Anjohibetsara Big Beautiful Cave.

Completely unknown to locals, park agents, and researchers, the cave is thought to be the 3rd largest in the Tsingy, and35th largest in the country. Filled with bats, water filled passages, and beautiful stalactites, the find was significant for the region. Within the tsingy labyrinth, the Adventure Science team also discovered a clay vessel, believed to date to the 1600s, and thought to be left by the Vazimba the first inhabitants of Madagascar.In addition to the archaeological discovery, the team made a significant paleontological find, identifying two dinosaur trackways between the remote villages of Antsalova and Bevary. Verified by dinosaur track expert Dr. Alexander Wagensommer, these tracks are the mostnortherly known in the tsingy, adding support to the theory that this region hosts a rare mega tracksite. The tracks were made by a medium sized theropod (bipedal)dinosaur as they walked across ancient mudflats during low tide, likely in search of their next meal. Stories, photographs, and the official expedition report will be broadcast through the Adventure Science Facebook page, and as with any Adventure Science undertaking, all findings will be documented and made available free of charge to groups interested in learning more about this incredible part of the world at www.adventurescience.ca."

Evac insurance for Arctic Kayak expedition

A group of us are planning a 2000km sea kayak expedition in the Arctic next year. We are struggling to find anyone to insure us for the trip - Global Rescue is the closest we have gotten, they will insure for evac up to 80 degrees North but we are planning on paddling up close to 81 degrees north. The few companies that I have found which might cover all only cover for UK citizens which isn't going to work- two of us are from New Zealand and one from Norway. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!

Jungle equipment

Hi everyone,

I have signed up for Expeditions leader course starting in April next year for 16 weeks, which two are in wales and in mountain terrain, and then 14 weeks in jungle terrain. I now seek some advise of what kind of kits, etc that I would need to prepare myself for, since this is the start of something new for me and I'm very excited but also a bit scared:). All help and advise are very much appreciated!! Cant wait for the challenge and then hopefully change my career to become an expedition leader.I really think this website can be of very much help in the future.

Kind regards

Sophie Myhr

fia.myhr@yahoo.com

Sea kayak and surf expedition

This will be an exploratory expedition to find surf along some of the more remote areas along the British Columbia coast. We will be facing open ocean conditions, and swells as well as camping along the beaches until we reach our destination.

Olmurrani Ultra

100 mile race finishing at Tanzania's most incredible Volcano crater Ngorongoro, you will be competing against Maasai warriors as well as heat humidity and the elevation...

http://olmurrani.com

Northeast Greenland Caves Project

We are crowdfunding to try and raise the remaining funds that are needed for this climate-research expedition. Please visit http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/northeast-greenland-caves-project to support this highly-important work! During the summer of 2015, a highly-motivated 5-person British team will aim to visit the Arctic Circle to explore, survey, photograph, and sample caves of Northeast Greenland for the purpose of climate-change research.

This much-needed record of past climate change will be the first of its type from caves of Greenland, and will contribute significantly to our understanding of long-term climate change in Greenland and the Arctic by covering a time period that is out-of-range of the Greenland ice cores. We have been working hard to put a crowd funding project together that will go live very soon. Keep checking back here for updates about the crowdfunder and the project. The Science The main aim of our project is to obtain the first record of past climate change from Greenland caves. This important record will provide information about a past period of warm climate, and will be older than the current limit of the Greenland ice cores, thus contributing significantly to our understanding of long-term climate change in Greenland and the Arctic. Why is there a need for past climate-change records? The Earths climate is changing. How will it develop in the future? What will be the effects on environmental, ecological, and socio-economic systems?

These are simply a couple of questions related to the changes that the Earth system is about to face. In order to help us answer them, we look to the past. Records of past climate change hold useful information regarding the Earths natural climatic response; they help us understand how the Earth system has changed on timescales longer than short instrumental records; they enable us to document changes from one climate state to another; they provide a baseline against which we can assess whether or not the current changes are unusual, and; their information can be fed into predictive climate-change models. One way of trying to understand what scenarios are possible in a future warming climate, is to look at past periods of warm climate known as interglacials. The last interglacial period took place about 130,000 to 118,000 years ago, and during this time air temperature in Greenland was about 3-5C higher than today. Deep ice core climate records drilled from the Greenland ice sheet extend back continuously 123,000 years, to the final stages of the last interglacial (NGRIP core). The NEEM ice core extends back 128,500 years, to the early stages of the last interglacial, but the basal ice is folded and incomplete making interpretation difficult. The need for information about climate dynamics during past interglacial's is thus still a major, and increasingly important concern. How will this project advance our knowledge of climate change? Using cave deposits in Northeast Greenland, we have an opportunity here to improve our knowledge of climate dynamics during a past interglacial.

The cave record will most certainly cover a time period that pre-dates the last interglacial and hence the oldest limits of the Greenland ice-core records. Water drips onto a stalagmite containing information related to temperature, moisture, and vegetation processes above the cave. Calcite cave deposits are formed from drip waters that have percolated from the surface, through soil and limestone, and into a cave. Since the drip waters were once connected with the atmosphere and soil above the cave, they contain valuable information related to temperature, moisture, and vegetation processes, which are then locked layer upon layer into the cave deposit. An analytical track passes through the stalagmite. The climate record is created by analysing the chemical signature of each layer. For high-resolution studies, the Innsbruck Quaternary Research Group typically analyses between 4-10 samples per millimetre, allowing us the greatest chance of capturing rapid climate change events in our record. Understanding how fast the climate is capable of changing from one state to another is currently one of the key questions that climate-change scientists are working to answer.

The Expedition - Hopefully, all being well with the organisation, logistics, and finances, our expedition will take place during the summer of 2015. Thanks to Clive Johnson, polar explorer and winner of the Polar Medal (2001), we have a fabulous plan in place for undertaking the expedition and maximising research whilst we are there. We intend to land on a small air strip in Northeast Greenland, close to the southwestern end of a c.10 km wide lake. From here, we shall cross the lake in an inflatable boat to the eastern shore where we will set up our main base camp. In order to reach the caves containing the deposits of interest, we will then trek over difficult shattered terrain for three days. Once our work sampling deposits is complete, we will retrace our steps back to base camp and across the lake, searching all the time for new previously undiscovered caves. Our main objective will be to sample cave deposits for use in construction of the first record of past climate change from Greenland that is older than the current limit of the ice cores. Scientific partner Prof.

Christoph Sptl of the Innsbruck Quaternary Research Group, has pioneered a method for sampling cave deposits that causes minimal damage, and it is this method that we shall adopt during the course of our expedition. In addition to sampling deposits, all caves will be surveyed and photographed to a high standard. During our expedition, Project Leader Gina Moseley will lead the scientific assault, Clive Johnson will act as the local expert and guide, Robbie Shone will document the story of the expedition and in particular any new discoveries, Mark Wright and Chris Blakeley will offer support and technical caving expertise, particularly with regard to entering caves located in cliff faces. 

Carstensz Pyramid Expedition - December 2014

Hi, A great opportunity to join a team this December to climb Carstenz Pryamid, the highest mountain in Oceania, and one of the Seven Summits. This professionally led expedition is run by Denny Engka of www.carstensz-Pryramid.com, a highly experienced guide on CP and personally recommended by friends who have used his services before, with a high summit success rate. The expedition avoids the commercial setup and overheads, reducing typical advertised costs from international operators.

You'll be joining two experienced UK mountaineers - myself who has already successfully climbed 4 of the Seven Summits. Looking for experienced team mates to join a fantastic mountain adventure.

Thanks,

Pete 

Live Free, Big Dreams

Why are we cycling across the world? On one of our first dates Chris asked me if I had ever thought about doing a long distance ride. It turned out he was thinking of L-E-L or similar, so when I said Id love to cycle back to Perth along the Silk Road one day he was intrigued with the idea. We didnt talk seriously about doing it, but a couple of months later he bought me a pass for the Adventure and Expedition Planning Expo at Earls Court which we went along to and spoke to a few adventure professionals about our idea.

As it turns out, the idea is far from original, but it was encouraging that in this day and age people are still travelling safely through Central Asia and it hasn't all succumbed to wars and terrorists. We continued to talk about it on and off but never with real conviction. I guess neither of us were certain the other really wanted to do it, or that it was a good time to do it, or whether it was even a good idea anyway. Then this Easter we drove to Amsterdam. Easter traffic turned a four hour drive into seven and by the time we arrived at our camp site we had committed to a September departure and that night we got engaged! I bought the Cycle Touring Handbook as soon as we got home and we started planning. It didnt take long to realise there is a lot to think about! So many countries, so many climates, so many bike options! We decided to play to our strengths so Chris has the responsibility of bikes and gear and I am planning our route and getting the visas.

The reason we need so many visas in advance is because we want to cycle the Pamir Highway. This is described brilliantly in our Handbook as being a high altitude adventure that is like the Karakorum Highway on steroids. My favourite sentence of the whole book! Obviously I want to do this if nothing else. I suspect Chris still hasn't clocked on to what hes getting into but he will! To describe it, the Pamir Highway is a 1,200km road in Tajikistan which climbs and winds its way through the Pamir Ranges. The Pamir Ranges being a knot of 7,000m peaks which extend into the Himalayas of Tibet and Nepal, the Karakorum of Pakistan, the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, the Tian Shan of Krygystan and the Kunlun Ranges of China. A lot of the road is above 4,000m, some of it is unsealed, all of it is remote and it culminates with huge descents into Krygystan which appear to be at least partly unsealed and without crash guards to keep you from falling off the edge. Armed with this knowledge it is important, I think, that we get there before the Northern Hemisphere winter really takes hold of the region which apparently happens in November.

We have therefore changed our departure time to as early as possible which is 17 August. We don't want to wait for a week at a time in big cities for visas but rather enjoy our exploration across Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, a corner of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan before, if all goes to plan, reaching the border of Tajikistan and the Pamir Highway on 8 October."

Mystery Adventure

7 days in a strange place with one team member and a video camera. Make it interesting! Looking to put 5 pairs together and send them on an adventure to different mystery places. Think like the Heineken Beer commercials where people play air-plane roulette.

Once there you have 7 days to make it a great experience and film it all. We will then take the combined films and create a documentary. You have to pay your own way but everyone will share in the profits of the film (if any). My brother and I have been doing planned adventures like this the past 10 years and want to add this mystery twist.

Planning for August, 2015