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November 2025 – Volume Thirty-One, Number Eleven
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.
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Timm Döbert and Leanna Carriere will bike bird migration flyways from
Alaska to Patagonia. (Photo: Bill Ault)
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WINGS OF SURVIVAL –
CYCLING THE PATH OF MIGRATORY BIRDS
Wings of Survival is a trilogy of expeditions across the world’s major flyways, the inter-continental migration corridors traveled by billions of birds twice a year. The concept was developed by Dr. Timm Döbert, 44, from Edmonton, Alberta, an Explorers Club member in the Canada Chapter, Royal Canadian Geographical Society fellow, and conservation scientist.
In June 2026, Döbert will set out on the first expedition, a 30,000 km, 9-month cycling expedition from Alaska to Patagonia, following the world’s greatest endurance athletes: migratory birds. Döbert will be joined by fellow Edmontonian Leanna Carriere, 40, a Canadian pole vaulter and heptathlete. The expedition will incorporate scientific exploration, youth education, and impact storytelling, and will be documented by an international film production team.
Scientific data collection will include human performance metrics, bird migration tracking, and ecosystem soundscape monitoring. A tech company has offered to sponsor five GPS Argos tracking units which will collect migration data to better understand what locations across the flyway provide important habitat for these birds. They will also plot progress using bike computers, and carry acoustic monitoring devices to record the soundscape along the Alaska-Patagonia natural history transect.
In partnership with Exploring by the Seat of your Pants (exploringbytheseat.com), the expedition will reach youth and classrooms across the Americas using virtual storytelling.
Key partners include Trek Bikes, Gorewear, and Alpacka Rafts, in addition to a broad range of partners in the environmental NGO and exploration space.
For inquiries about partnership opportunities:
timm.dobert@gmail.com, www.wingsofsurvival.com
EXPEDITION NOTES
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Launching in late January 2026, the “1896 Cabin” will be available exclusively aboard HX Expedition’s MS Fridtjof Nansen throughout the 2026 anniversary year.
(Photo: HX Expeditions)
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Sleep Like It’s 1896
Some cruises feature water slides, climbing walls and ice-skating rinks. Next year HX Expeditions, based in London, offers an attraction that’s, well, not for everyone aboard its MS Fridtjof Nansen. What it calls an “immersive vintage cabin experience” offers passengers the chance to sleep for one night in a replica of an 1896 cabin right on board.
Launching in January 2026, and for a limited time, guests can get some shut-eye amidst period furnishings, authentic scents (body odor perhaps?), and curated touches that capture the spirit of early explorers.
It promises to be an authentic, yet comfortable night that will transport guests back to the time of Otto Sverdrup, who captained HX voyages after leading the legendary Fram expedition toward the North Pole, and went on to map more Arctic territory than any other explorer of his time.
It’s offered as an exclusive add-on to any voyage for €450 per night (approx. $523 US), in addition to the cost of a regular cabin, with 50% going to the cruise line’s charitable foundation.
Pack your scratchiest wool pajamas and read more:
https://www.travelhx.com/en/campaigns/1896-cabin-experience/
| | Jeff Bozanic with a colony of king penguins in Salisbury Plain, South Georgia Island, showing both brown-plumed juveniles and adults (Photo: courtesy Jeff Bozanic) | |
Join the Shag Rocks & Antarctica 2026 Explorers Club Flag Expedition
From February 16 to March 9, 2026, the Shag Rocks & Antarctica Flag Expedition – an Explorers Club flag expedition – will travel from Ushuaia, Argentina, to the Falkland Islands, Shag Rocks, South Georgia Island, and the Antarctic Peninsula. Led by Jeffrey Bozanic, Ph.D., the multidisciplinary team will conduct both above- and below-water biodiversity research, combining scuba-based collection with photographic and observational surveys.
The mission reportedly includes the first-ever scuba dives at Shag Rocks, a remote chain of islets in the South Atlantic named for the colonies of blue-eyed shags (members of the cormorant family) that nest on their cliffs. Scientists and trained participants will document species diversity across interconnected ecosystems – linking avian, intertidal, and subtidal communities to assess environmental health in one of Earth’s least-studied regions.
Participants will receive field training to assist in sample collection, species identification, and data recording. Those who contribute to the research will become eligible to apply for membership in The Explorers Club, joining the ranks of explorers who have advanced global scientific understanding.
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The trip is organized by Jeffrey Bozanic, Ph.D., of Fountain Valley, California. He is an experienced Antarctic diver, having spent multiple seasons working on the ice as the Dive Locker Technician supporting the scientific diving for the U.S. Antarctic Program, and having led numerous ecotourism trips to the continent’s peninsular region.
The trip is being hosted by Next Generation Services and Oceanwide Expeditions aboard the ice-strengthened M/V Plancius – 293 feet long, 3211 tons, and carrying a maximum of only 108 passengers. Expedition fees range from $18,375 to $26,375 for vessel transit. Air and land-based accommodations a re not included.
Learn more:
Jeffrey Bozanic, Ph.D., JBozanic@gmail.com or 714 747 2727
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2026 Bolivia Expedition Seeks Researcher to Study Hunting Structures
The Achachilas Expedition is launching a three-week June 2026 project to Bolivia's northern Cordillera Real mountains and is seeking a researcher to study an archaeological site discovered during its 2025 exploratory work in the area.
The site consists of a series of ancient stone hunting structures, including a stone animal diversion wall running from a cliff to a bofedal (wetland) with a small gap for animals to pass through.
There are at least three stone hunting blinds within 15m of an animal path. The site is located at about 4,900m in a restricted access area with no previously recorded expeditions. Further site exploration and mapping will be needed.
Team leader Matthew C. Johnsons tells EN, “I have yet to find reports of other similar sites at high altitude in Bolivia, so this may be a first.”
The Achachilas Expedition is part of the Bolingbrook, Illinois-based Sustainable Ascents Foundation, which uses climbing-based tourism to drive sustainable development and social empowerment in previously marginalized pastoral communities. (Achachilas are spirits in the Andean belief system.)
Preference will be given to an anthropologist, likely a Ph.D. candidate looking for material for their dissertation, or someone later in their career seeking an interesting (but not too time intensive) research project.
The cost of participation is $800 per person plus airfare.
Contact:
Matthew C. Johnson, m.johnson@sustainableascents.org, 619 990 4249,
https://www.sustainableascents.org/
FEATS
| | Mountaineer Jim Morrison, left, with filmmaker Jimmy Chin. (Photo: Savannah Cummins) | | |
Everest Skier Recalls Horrific October Snowpack
“It was a spectacular four hours of skiing down a horrific snowpack,” American mountaineer Jim Morrison, 50, told The Associated Press of his historic Oct. 15 run down Everest’s “Super Direct” route without supplemental oxygen.
Morrison climbed the mountain’s North Face through the Hornbein Couloir alongside 10 other mountaineers and documentarian Jimmy Chin, who is co-directing a documentary about Morrison’s run. Chin also filmed Alex Honnold’s ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without ropes for the documentary Free Solo, according to the Oct. 29 AP story by Jesse Bedayn.
This adventure is “the skiing equivalent to free soloing,” said Chin. “If your edge blows out or you slip anywhere on the line, you’re gone. You fall 9,000 (vertical) feet.”
Morrison adds, “It’s the ultimate ski run on planet Earth.”
Said Jeremy Evans, who wrote a book about the last person to attempt the run from the summit says, “When it comes to big mountain stuff and climbing, it’s like landing on the moon.” The young snowboarder, Marco Siffredi, subject of Evans book, See You Tomorrow (Falcon Guides, 2021), disappeared on its slopes in 2002.
The Everest adventure was conceived by Morrison and his life partner, accomplished ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson. They planned to do it together until her death at age 49 while skiing eighth-highest Manaslu (8163 m / 26,781 ft.).
At several points, Morrison used ropes, including where there was only rock, but he relied on them less than he had anticipated.
Davo Karničar (Slovenia) in 2000 is often credited with the first full ski descent from the summit to Base Camp without removing his skis – using supplementary oxygen and rappelling the Hillary Step.
The 1975 Academy Award-winning film called The Man Who Skied Everest tells the story of Japanese skier Yuichiro Miura's 1970 attempt to ski down the mountain. That didn’t end well. Miura skied 6,600 vertical feet in less than two and a half minutes.
To slow his descent, he used a parachute. His ski run ended with a fall that stopped just short of a major ice cliff. Tragically, eight members of his expedition died during the ascent and preparation.
Read the story and watch the video clip:
https://tinyurl.com/MorrisonEverest
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
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“You fear you are not strong enough to do the hardest thing.
Only because you don’t yet know that doing the hardest thing
Is exactly what will help you know your strength.”
– Andrea Gibson (1975-2025), American poet and activist. Gibson and their wife are the subjects of the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, which documented their marriage and how they dealt with Gibson's terminal cancer diagnosis. Directed by Ryan White and produced by comedian Tig Notaro, the film won the Festival Film Favorite Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
EXPEDITION FOCUS
| | Michael V. Konshak and samples of 7-ft. presentation slide rules still used in classrooms to teach logarithms –useful in multiplying or dividing large numbers. | | |
Retired Engineer's 2,000-Piece Slide Rule Collection Seeks Buyer
Visit the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and there on a replica of the desk used by German American aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, is a Space Rule brand slide rule, the rocket pioneer’s manual calculating tool used before electronic calculators and computers came along.
As director of Marshall Space Flight Center, he used the slide rule extensively in the development of American space launch vehicles, including the Saturn V.
The Apollo 13 astronauts in April 1970 used a 5-in. metal Pickett N600-ES slide rule as backup to an on-board computer, performing both routine and critical calculations during the mission.
The use of the slide rule for some calculations, like the mission-critical maneuver after the oxygen tank explosion, was critical to the crew's survival, according to an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Few know as much about these handheld analog computers as Michael V. Konshak, founder and curator of the 22-year-old nonprofit International Slide Rule Museum (ISRM), based in his home in the Denver suburb of Louisville.
A Vietnam veteran who received his first slide rule at age 13, Konshak, now 78, has collected approximately 2,000 of these pocket-size handheld math devices, plus 500-plus slide rule books and manuals – over 40 of his manuals are currently available on Amazon.
Now the assemblage, including two dating to the 1700s, are spilling out of bankers boxes and plastic tubs in his living room and garage. The collection is being sold for an asking price of $30,000 in hopes of keeping the museum intact and its extensive online presence alive for years to come.
| | Part of a 2,000-piece collection for sale. | | |
The variety is stunning: there are slide rules made of magnesium, bamboo, mahogany, aluminum, stainless steel and plastic. In his garage are oversize presentation slide rules for classrooms, cases for engineers who commonly wore slide rules on their belts, even slide rule tie bars.
These days, he occasionally loans slide rules to schools through the ISRM's Slide Rule Loaner Program and sells parts – slides, cursors, braces, and stators (the non-sliding part) from companies such as Acu-Math, Castell, Keuffel & Esser, Nestler, and Pickett – to other collectors.
| | Engineers would never leave home without their slide rule tie bars. | | |
Konshak, a self-described “hairy-eared” former electromechanical engineer, views the slide rule not just as a tool, but as an artifact of a bygone era in mathematics and engineering, a perspective he shares on the ISRM website.
“The slide rule, with its origins in the 1620s, possesses an historical and practical importance that should not be overlooked. Its deployment by generations of students, educators, scientists, and engineers – from past decades to the current day – was and remains instrumental in global betterment and technological progress,” Konshak tells EN.
For more information:
Sliderulemuseum.com, curator@sliderulemuseum.com
| | Mike Vergalla after a recent paraglide flight in Chelan, Washington. Up where the sun is most intense, he wears a venison leather nose cone, among the merch that FFRL sells online along with beanies and ballcaps. (Photo courtesy Mike Vergalla). | | |
Free Flight Lab Provides Researchers Access to the Skies
Free Flight Research Lab (FFRL), a nonprofit research institute founded in 2016, was created to leverage the unique perspectives of the free-flying sport of paragliding and apply it to weather science and forecasting; conservation and resource preservation; aerospace science; and free flight safety.
Created by Michael Vergalla, 39, of Sunnyvale, California, FFRL’s long-term goal is producing continuous technical solutions for understanding the natural world. Early projects included flying eagle experts on tandem flights with wild golden eagles, and using multispectral cameras that capture not only visible light but also those invisible to the human eye, to studying wildfire damage in Kings Canyon, Calif., site of over a dozen wildfires over the years.
Vergalla is also researching the causes of motion sickness on himself, something scientists conducting research at sea (and often seasick newsletter editors) can appreciate. (https://michaelvergalla.com/motion-sickness/)
Vergalla is an aerospace engineer by academic background but has always been drawn to curiosities related to the atmosphere, land, space and the oceans. While flying in paragliders and seeing how insects and birds cue off each other to find the best lift, the idea of returning to the skies with flocks of scientific sensors was born.
He first tested a high-altitude paragliding robot in 2019 flown at an altitude of 18km (59,055-ft.). The technology eventually involved using 300g (.66 lbs.) fixed wing, hand-held gliders that capture weather balloon measurements and can fly (releasing from 30 to 35km [98,425- to 114,829-ft.]) home to their launch location.
In 2024, Vergalla’s group won a NSF/NASA Innovation Corp grant to determine a market for these remote sensing systems; greatest response was from researchers seeking wildfire science support.
“I see the atmosphere as our second ocean with a billion cubic miles of volume. It is an essential link between Earth and space that we still have significant knowledge gaps to fill,” he tells EN.
As with many nonprofits, FFRL is seeking funding to continue their work.
Have a project that needs access to high altitudes? Contact FFRL:
mike@freeflightlab.org, freeflightlab.org
MEDIA MATTERS
| | Spike Lee’s son Jackson Lewis Lee vogues in the Clark Room (Photo: Thomas Concordia) | | |
Oh Contraire Mon Frere – Spike Lee’s Son Casts
Shade on The Explorers Club
Filmmaker Spike Lee’s son cast some shade on the Explorers Club when he walked the runway at New York headquarters for upper crusty Ivy League clothier J. Press. Jackson Lewis Lee, 28, appeared during the first day of New York Fashion Week on Sept. 11.
In an interview with Eileen Cartter of MSN.com, the first-time cat-walker said of the Club, “This is the Explorers Club, so it’s all the old white men and they were like, ‘discovering America’ and all the other places.
“So there’s a whole hall of white men upstairs, a bunch of dead animals from Africa everywhere, all dedicated to white men. Which honestly makes sense for a preppy fashion show.”
Ouch. Maybe that was then. Now the Club is 31 percent female, according to a Club membership official.
Read the story:
https://tinyurl.com/spikeleeson
EXPEDITION MARKETING
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Send Your Name to Space
NASA is inviting the public to join the agency’s Artemis II test flight as four astronauts venture around the Moon and back to test systems and hardware needed for deep space exploration. As part of the agency’s “Send Your Name with Artemis II” effort, anyone can claim their spot on an SD card by signing up before Jan. 21.
Participants will launch their name aboard the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Artemis II is a key test flight in the effort to return humans to the Moon’s surface and build toward future missions to Mars. The approximately 10-day Artemis II project, launching no later than April 2026, is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign. The collected names will be put on an SD card loaded aboard Orion before launch. In return, participants can download a boarding pass with their name on it as a collectible.
To add your name:
https://go.nasa.gov/artemisnames
To learn more about the mission visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
EXPEDITION INK
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Tritan Gooley Unlocks a New Star Map to Find South
Ok, let’s review. To find north through star navigation, locate the Big Dipper and use its two "pointer stars" to find the North Star (Polaris). Extend an imaginary line from the two stars at the end of the dipper's "bowl" (Dubhe and Merak) and then continue that line about five times the distance to find Polaris. Facing Polaris is facing north. Got that?
Now there’s a newly discovered way to find south in the Southern Hemisphere, via the Taurus and Sagittarius constellations, according to Tritan Gooley’s new book, The Hidden Seasons: A Calendar of Nature’s Clues (The Experiment, 2025) which includes the first published record of these discoveries.
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Never lose your way Down Under.
A new way to navigate south has been hiding in plain sight.
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Eco-Anxiety
Extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change. Symptoms: Anger or frustration (e.g. due to the inaction of governments, large organizations and industries; self-directed anger; anger because of concern for younger generations and feeling unable to cause systemic change). (Source: The American Psychological Association [APA] has described eco-anxiety as a "chronic fear of environmental doom.")
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Earthrounders
An informal, elite group of pilots who share one unifying achievement: they have successfully piloted a light aircraft around the entire world. Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the globe in 1933. (Source: Earthrounders.com)
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Iceblink
Brightness on the horizon reflected from ice. Under certain conditions in the high latitudes, sunlight could reflect off a large ice pack, illuminating the undersides of distant clouds. It’s an unmistakable sign of ice ahead. It’s akin to an early warning system that Inuit paddlers had long used to anticipate trouble while navigating near floes. (Source: The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Doubleday, 2024).
IN PASSING
| Kanchha Sherpa in Nepal in May. He carried 60 pounds of gear, fixed ropes and scouted the trail for the 1953 expedition up Mount Everest. (Photo: Jason Gulley) | | |
Kanchha Sherpa, 92, Last Surviving Member of
Historic 1953 Everest Summit
Kanchha Sherpa (1933-2025), who was the last surviving member of the historic 1953 Everest expedition, was cremated last month with full Buddhist rites in Teku, Kathmandu. The respectful ceremony was attended by dignitaries, mountaineers, and admirers, all paying tribute to the legendary figure. He passed away peacefully at his home in Kapan in the northern part of Kathmandu, marking the end of an era for Nepal’s mountaineering legacy.
Kanchha Sherpa was among the 35 members of the team that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the peak on May 29, 1953. A mountain guide for most of his life, he was one of three Sherpas to reach the final camp before the summit with Hillary and Tenzing.
He never climbed to the summit of Everest himself, as his wife considered it too risky, he shared in a March 2024 interview. He forbade his children from becoming mountaineers.
EN reached out to Tenzing’s son for comment. Norbu Tenzing, president of the American Himalayan Foundation (Himalayan-foundation.org) in San Francisco, says, “I met Kanchha many years ago during one of my visits to the Khumbu. He was a warm-hearted man who spoke thoughtfully about the future of Everest.
“He was fond of my father who I understand, helped him when he first came to Darjeeling looking for work and, of course, gave him his opportunity to be part of the historic 1953 Everest expedition.
“His passing truly marks the end of an era in Everest history,” comments Norbu Tenzing.
View scenes of his elaborate funeral:
https://nepalmountaineering.org/last-surviving-member-of-the-1953-historic-everest-summit--kanchha-sherpa--cremated
EXPEDITION CLASSIFIEDS
| | Travel With Purpose, A Field Guide to Voluntourism (Rowman & Littlefield) by Jeff Blumenfeld – People are traveling in record numbers and many include voluntourists. 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
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