June 2025 – Volume Thirty-One, Number Six 

Celebrating our 31th year! 

EXPEDITION NEWS, founded in 1994, is the monthly review of significant expeditions, research projects, and newsworthy adventures. It is distributed online to media representatives, corporate sponsors, educators, research librarians, explorers, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts. This forum on exploration covers projects that stimulate, motivate, and educate.



Taken during a training expedition in Arctic Norway. That's Lumb (l) with Slevin.

UNSUPPORTED SOUTH POLE EXPEDITION TO STUDY DIRTY ICE

Darren Slevin, 46, and Nathan Lumb, 42, of the UK and Ireland, plan to ski to the South Pole starting November 2025 to attempt to be the 4th and 5th persons in history to ski a return (roundtrip) unsupported expedition to the South Pole. The start and end point of the Frozen Horizons Expedition is Hercules Inlet on the inland side of the Ronne Ice Shelf where it connects to the Antarctic landmass.

They will fly in from Union Glacier in the Ellsworth Mountains to begin their journey. The team says this will make it the longest unsupported South Pole expedition ever undertaken by a British and Irish team – to test the limits of human endurance and conduct pioneering climate science. The approximately 1367-mi. (2200 km) trek is expected to take three months.

Co-expedition leaders are Dr. Darren Slevin, a Data Scientist for NatWest Group in Edinburgh; and Nathan Lumb, a Project Manager at the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) in Manchester, England.

During the expedition, the two will collect snow samples along the expedition route to study light-absorbing particles (LAPs) that accelerate glacial melt. They will then collect samples from identical locations on their return, providing comparative data on LAPs.

Falcon Scott is the official patron of the expedition, the only grandson of Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Scott and son of naturalist Peter Scott. Science lead is Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj Pena, a glaciologist with extensive experience in science communication. She received her master's from Brown University, Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder, and completed a post-doc with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The £200,000 ($269,000) expedition will benefit The King’s Trust, a UK charity supporting young people facing disadvantage or adversity. Sponsors are being sought at various levels. Supporters to date include Summit to Eat, Mountain Equipment, and Brynje of Norway.

For more information: www.frozenhorizons.co.uk

Photo taken in Kenya. (Credit: THRP)

THE ALL-WOMAN HUMAN RESILIENCE PROJECT BEGINS

The Human Resilience Project (THRP), affiliated with the California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas, Calif., has embarked on a 10-nation investigation into human resilience with the Gabra (population 116,000), a tribe of nomadic camel herders who reside in the Chalbi Desert in northern Kenya. This three-year project seeks to learn from some of the most remote cultural groups in the world, to better understand how communities face the intersection of climate change and potential trauma or resilience.

The project’s goal is to uncover common threads across environments and cultures that can inform global mental health solutions. The result will be a popular press, creative nonfiction book to share the commonalities between groups that can improve human resilience worldwide.

Led by Explorers Club member Dr. Constance Scharff, 52, of Washington state, this 21-day expedition, continuing through mid-June, will build from Dr. Paul Robinson’s remarkable 40+-year longitudinal study of the Gabra’s oral history pertaining to elders’ knowledge of climate, drought, and rangeland management.

Of particular interest is understanding the changes camel herding has undergone in the last forty years and how the push to settle the Gabra has impacted mental health and wellbeing. Dr. Scharff visited the Gabra as an undergraduate, more than 30 years ago.

The THRP team is comprised solely of women, providing a unique perspective. Its Kenya expedition has three members, Dr. Scharff, Julianne Shaffer, and Lisa Courtnadge. In addition, the team is partnering with former Kenyan MP Frances “Chachu” Ganya and Gabra research assistant Wata Ibrae. The expedition carries both an Explorers Club Flag (#12) and a Rolex watch. 

For more information visit www.THRProject.com or contact Lisa Courtnadge, THRP Research Specialist, lisacourtnadge@gmail.com.

EXPEDITION UPDATE

Richard Weber (l) and Mikhail Malakhov take a break during their never repeated unsupported roundtrip expedition to the North Pole in 1995.

1995 Weber Malakhov Expedition 30 Years Later

by Richard Weber

Vernon, British Columbia

Special to EN

We can debate whether Robert Peary truly reached the North Pole in 1909. But one fact is beyond dispute: he had no choice but to plan a round-trip journey. Starting from Ellesmere Island, Peary had to cross the shifting sea ice of the Arctic Ocean and return the same way. There were no aircraft waiting at the Pole. No possibility of a one-way evacuation. Success meant survival – failure could be fatal.

In 1990, we began planning our own North Pole expedition. For us, the only expedition that honored the spirit of those early explorers was one that went to the Pole and came back unsupported, on foot, carrying everything we needed. On June 15, 1995, Mikhail Malakhov and I completed that journey. (see EN, July 1995).

It was incredibly tough, but we encountered no insurmountable problems or setbacks. We just did it, one step at a time. We never rationed food, yet when we finished, we had zero food remaining and two-thirds of a MSR bottle of fuel. When I look back there were so many opportunities for failure. Some might say we were lucky, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen would have called it good planning. I was sure that others would follow in our tracks. Yet, in the 30 years since, no one has even attempted it. Not once.

Weber and Malakhov today.

Today, it would be extraordinarily difficult to repeat our journey. Climate change has reshaped the Arctic Ocean. Temperatures are warmer, the ice is thinner and more fractured, and leads of open water are far more common. The ice off the coast of Ellesmere turns to virtually uncrossable “porridge” much earlier in the season than in mid-June 1995.

Airlines and bush pilots now refuse to land fixed-wing aircraft on the ice. No commercial airline will land an expedition on northern Ellesmere in the polar darkness of February. The last full-length trek to the Pole was in 2014. Even the Russian ice station Barneo – once a key logistical hub for North Pole travel – has not operated in six years, hampered by permits, politics, and war.

It appears increasingly likely that the era of modern North Pole expeditions, which began in 1965, has come to an end.

Learn more about Richard Weber’s Arctic Watch Wilderness Lodge on Somerset Island in Nunavut at: https://weberarctic.com. Email him directly: richard@arcticwatch.ca

EVEREST ROUND-UP

786 Summits Reported During Spring 2025 Climbing Season

At press time, according to AlanArnette.com, 468 foreigners received climbing permits for Everest’s Nepal side. Based upon Arnette’s estimates and public sources (for unknown reasons, the Nepalese government no longer publishes statistics), the unofficial 2025 summit numbers indicate 678 summits, comprising 257 clients supported by 421 support climbers, resulting in a client-to-support ratio of 1:1.6.

This is the second-highest number of summits after 787 in 2024. India, the U.S., and China represent the largest permit holders, at 87, 83, and 68, respectively.

On the Tibetan side, conditions were much calmer, with over 150 summits split, about 40% for clients and 60% for support climbers. The Everest total for 2025 is 786.

Five people died on the Nepal side, lower than the previous two seasons of eight in 2024 and 18 in 2023, a record death season. This year’s total is less than the average of seven since 2010. No deaths were reported in Tibet. There were numerous rescues, along with reports of frostbite and injuries, many of which went unreported.

“Nepal's winter was warmer and drier than any in the earlier decade. Temperatures rose above the winter average, while precipitation levels were below average. Mountains, notably the Himalayas, are geologically unstable. These warm, dry conditions may have affected the Khumbu Icefall, creating challenges for the Icefall Doctors in terms of rockfall while attempting to establish fixed lines,” according to the website.

For more information: AlanArnette.com

Four British climbers pose on the summit of Mount Everest last month after preparing for the climb with xenon gas, as well as undergoing more than 500 hours of hypoxic training, including sleeping in a hypoxic tent and training with a mask. (Photo: Associated Press)

It’s a Gas

Xenon, an odorless gas, is believed to help the body adjust to lower oxygen levels at high altitudes more quickly than the traditional method of spending weeks at base camp and higher camps. Or at least, that’s the general idea. Putting that theory to the test last month was a team of British men who traveled from London to the summit of Everest and back in less than a week with the help of xenon gas.

Summiting Everest usually entails a six-to-eight-week expedition.

The gas was once used as an anesthetic but is now more commonly found in rocket propellant.

Mountaineers and the Nepalese government weren’t pleased, according to a New York Times story by Jonathan Wolfe and Bhadra Sharma (May 27).

“Their feat has roiled the world of mountaineering and prompted an investigation by the Nepalese government, as use of the gas is fiercely debated. Some research has shown that xenon can quickly acclimatize people to high altitudes, even as some experts say the benefits, if any, are negligible and the side effects of its use remain unclear,” reports the Times.

In 2026 one outfitter plans to offer two-week round-trip excursions to Mount Everest using xenon gas, cutting the typical time needed to scale the mountain by several weeks.

Mike Shattock, a professor of cellular cardiology at King’s College London, tells the Times, “Xenon probably does very little and there is virtually no reputable scientific evidence that it makes any difference.”

Read the story here (may be firewalled):

https://tinyurl.com/EverestXenon

Emma Schwerin at Everest base camp. (Photo: Schwerin Family)

Connecticut Student is Youngest American Woman to Summit

Emma Schwerin, from Bozeman, Montana, has become the youngest American woman to summit Mount Everest, as well as the youngest woman to climb the Seven Summits. She achieved this feat on May 15, 2025, at the age of 17 years, 2 months, and 24 days, thus surpassing the record set by Lucy Westlake of Naperville, Illinois, who was 18 when she summited on May 12, 2022.

Schwerin tells CTInsider (May 22) that Everest wasn’t the hardest mountain to climb, though it took the longest. The hardest was Mount Denali in Alaska. Unlike Everest, which has well-established base camps at several stages to help climbers, there isn’t any similar infrastructure on Denali, requiring hikers to bring up everything they need by sled. Standing at 4 '11'’, Schwerin had to bring up more than her body weight in supplies the full way, according to reporter Christian Metzger.

Jordan Romero from Big Bear Lake, California, set the record for being the youngest person to climb all Seven Summits (the highest peak on each continent). He also holds the record for the youngest person to climb Mount Everest. He reached the summit from the Tibetan side on May 22, 2010, at the age of 13 years, 10 months, and 10 days.

Mitch Hutchcraft took his time.

No Hurray

Not everyone was in a rush to summit. Mitch Hutchcraft, a 31-year-old former Royal Marine from Cambridgeshire, England, completed what is believed to be the longest-ever climb of Mount Everest, and a record-breaking triathlon from the shores of the UK to the summit.

Calling his expedition Project Limitless, Hutchcraft left Dover, England, on Sept 15, 2024, swam 35 km nonstop across the Channel, cycled over 12,000 km through Europe and Asia to Digha in India, ran 900 km to Kathmandu, Nepal, and trekked 360 km to Everest base camp – all before embarking on his ascent. (Ed. note: After writing this we were too exhausted to convert these distances to miles, but trust us, it was a lot.)

His 240-day challenge ended when he summited at 7:30 a.m. local time on May 11.   

Beneficiary was SAVSIM, a non-profit organization centered around wildlife conservation.

For more information:



@_mitchhutch, https://givestar.io/gs/limitless 

EXPEDITION NOTES

Artist conception of Kosmos planetarium coming soon. (Photo: Kosmos Resort)

“Disney World” of Astronomy Opens in South-Central Colorado

Over five years in the making, the $13 million Kosmos Stargazing Resort in south-central Colorado held a soft opening this spring on its 40-acre sagebrush- and shrub-covered grounds. Its $700/night 1,200 sq. ft. villas include transparent domes, use of professional telescopes, guided tours of the sky and such luxury amenities as Jacuzzi, bathrobes, kitchen and heated floor. 

Kosmos is located 23 miles from the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Mosca, a Bortle 2 “Truly Dark Sky” site in the San Luis Valley. The nine-level Bortle scale ranges from Class 1, the darkest skies available on Earth, through to Class 9, inner-city skies. The terrain is so flat, people joke you can see your dog running away for three days.

Telescopes are provided in each villa for guest use.

In keeping with its commitment to sustainability, the villas are built from hempcrete, a lightweight material made of the inner core of the hemp plant and mixed with construction materials.

Can the area sustain a luxury resort offering an immersive stargazing experience? Consider that its current Indiegogo campaign has raised $1.9 million from 1,654 backers; one couple held a surprise engagement in the first of 20 planned glass-domed stargazing villas; the nearby national park attracts approximately 400,000-500,000 visitors annually, and there are some bookings well into 2027.

For those staying elsewhere, Kosmos also conducts two-hour laser-guided constellation tours with an astronomer for $75.

Jennifer Geerlings, Marketing Operations Manager, tells EN, “Cloudy weather does pose a challenge so they (guests) can reschedule for another night during their stay, reschedule with one of the public group sessions, or receive a credit to access the planetarium when it opens.”

The resort is the brainchild of former Miami and now Alamosa County businessman Gamal Jadue Zalaquett.

“It's meant to be an otherworldly experience from the very beginning. You're entering the cosmos. You're entering the universe,” he said. “The end experience, once it's all built by 2027, it's going to be the Disney World of astronomy,” he tells the Colorado Springs Gazette (Apr. 16).

For more information:

www.kosmosresort.com

Eric Larsen recently faced his biggest challenge of all.

Larsen Believes Exploration is Inherent in Humans

Eric Larsen, 53, is an American Polar adventurer based in Crested Butte, Colorado, who is known for his expeditions to the North Pole, South Pole, and Mount Everest. But perhaps his biggest challenge of all was one that adversely affected his health. In January 2021, Larsen was initially diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer, but upon further biopsies was categorized as Stage 3b. After a year of intensive chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, he is currently NED (No Evidence of Disease).

He tells podcast host and outdoor journalist Doug Schnitzspahn on Rock Fight’s Open Container, “… when I guide, I call myself a World War I vet because when I started doing adventures, it was just for the sake of doing adventures. Nobody was watching me, nobody was sponsoring me. I was just curious about the world around me. And I wanted to be outside and have cool experiences.

“It was very old school compared to now.

“I love being out in these places where few people are – I love wilderness. I love feeling like a small person in a big place. As crazy as it sounds, I love feeling insignificant.

“I call myself a polar adventurer, not a polar explorer. Just for the reason of the fact that we have mapped the whole world. There’re satellite images of pretty much everything. And so, I think in that historical sense, there is no place left to go.

“But there are all these unique ways to string together adventures in different styles, in different sports, in different timelines. I think just the simple act of going into a place as an individual and experiencing it for yourself is exploration. And I'm a huge believer in that.

“That being said, I think exploration is inherent to us as human beings, and being in nature is also an important part of us as human beings,” Larsen says.

Open Container is the outdoor podcast trekking deeper into outdoor culture than the headlines. The podcast focuses on conversations with people who look to nature to find inspiration and solutions.

Listen to the podcast interview here:

https://www.rockfight.co/post/walking-the-path-what-adventure-and-cancer-can-teach-us

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

– A quote of relevance to long-range expedition planning that is attributed to Malcom X (1925-1965), African American revolutionary, Muslim minister and human rights activist.

BUZZ WORDS

Captain James Cook (1728-1779)

Negative discovery

Finding nothing where something was widely presumed to be. As one biographer put it, Captain James Cook (1728-1779), British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer, was an “executioner of misbegotten hypotheses.”

“Cook made multiple dagger thrusts deep into the southern seas – at one point reaching latitude 71° 10’ South. He did not encounter anything that could be deemed a continental landmass, although he drew within a hundred miles of Antarctica, with towering icebergs floating around him, the ship’s rigging rimmed and ice.” (Source: The Wide Wide Sea [Doubleday, 2024] by Hampton Sides.

Orange is the new black. Galdikas and her orange pal.

Long calling

The long call, which is only given by adult male orangutans, is the most frequently uttered orangutan vocalization and the only one which can be heard over long distances.

At the Orangutan Research and Conservation Project study area in the Tanjung Puting Reserve, Central Indonesian Borneo, long calls functioned primarily to mediate dominance relationships among adult males who rarely came into direct contact with one another. In addition, long calls may have been helping sexually receptive females locate males. (Source: Biruté M. F. Galdikas, Lithuanian-Canadian anthropologist, primatologist, and conservationist. (See related story in EN, May 2025.)

Philosopher William of Ockham.

Occam's Razor

A principle of problem-solving and science that states the simplest explanation is usually the best. For example, if someone has a headache, it's more likely they're dehydrated than they have a brain disease. (Source: Britannica)

Pop singer and space tourist Katy Perry kisses the ground after her safe return to earth on April 14, 2025. (Photo: Blue Origin).

EXPEDITION MAILBAG

Astronauts or Astro-NOTS?

Dear EN:

An Astronaut is NOT four bimbos in designer jumpsuits being carried to the edge of space for a few minutes – women have studied and trained for years to be REAL astronauts – the bimbos were a stunt! And have no right to call themselves astronauts (see EN, May 2025).

Karyn Sawyer

Explorers Club member and former chapter chair

Boulder, Colorado

In a related story online, Jim Clash, former Explorers Club board member, writes that the lack of space suits on Blue Origin flights puts passengers in additional peril.

“… what's missing from the coverage is any mention of space suits, other than the tight designer things the six women wore. I’ve been harping on the subject for a while, and this is the perfect time to revisit it. If there were a sudden depressurization in the capsule during flight, the women likely would have been dead within seconds. Blood boils above 58,000 feet, the Armstrong Line, and these folks went quite a bit higher than that.”

Read his story on Forbes.com:

https://tinyurl.com/NoSpaceSuits

EDITOR’S NOTE

Listen to EN on the Go

Hear this month’s 21-min. Expedition News Deep Dive courtesy of those puffy vest-wearing, kombucha-drinking whiteboarders at Google NotebookLM (give it 10-sec. to load):

https://tinyurl.com/ENJune2025DeepDive

EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS

Visit Cuba this Fall

Longtime Explorers Club member and international documentary photographer Daryl Hawk has been leading tours to Cuba for five years now. “The Unconventional Travelers” is a personalized tour company that focuses on inspiring travelers to see Cuba in new ways by experiencing their culture and lifestyle firsthand.

Hawk has chosen all his favorite places in the greater Havana area and the agricultural areas of Vinales and Trinidad for unforgettable 5- to 10-day immersive experiences. The humanitarian assistance of visitors change lives.

For more information:

www.theunconventionaltravelers.com,

daryl.w.hawk@gmail.com

203 939 3169

Travel With Purpose, A Field Guide to Voluntourism (Rowman & Littlefield) by Jeff Blumenfeld ­– Travel has come roaring back and so has voluntourism. Be ready to lend a hand wherever you go. How to travel and make a difference while you see the world? Read excerpts and “Look Inside” at: tinyurl.com/voluntourismbook

Get Sponsored! – Need money for your next project? Read about proven techniques that will help you find both cash and in-kind sponsors. If the trip is bigger than you, and is designed to help others, well, that’s half the game right there. Read Jeff Blumenfeld’s "Get Sponsored: A Funding Guide for Explorers, Adventurers and Would Be World Travelers." (Skyhorse Publishing).

Buy it here:



http://www.amazon.com/Get-Sponsored-Explorers-Adventurers-Travelers-ebook/dp/B00H12FLH2

Advertise in Expedition News – For more information: blumassoc@aol.com

EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, LLC, 290 Laramie Blvd., Boulder, CO 80304 USA. Tel. 203 326 1200, editor@expeditionnews.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. Research editor: Lee Kovel. ©2025 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1526-8977. Subscriptions: US$36/yr. available by e-mail only. Credit card payments accepted through www.paypal.com. Read EXPEDITION NEWS at www.expeditionnews.com.

Research past issues of Expedition News dating back to May 1995 courtesy of the Utah State University Outdoor Recreation Archive. Access is free at: https://tinyurl.com/ENArchivesUSU