Category: News

The recent Titan tragedy appeared in media worldwide and mesmerized the nation, perhaps because the Titan represented a collection of humankind’s greatest fears (drowning, claustrophobia, darkness, cold, a ticking countdown clock, etc.) all wrapped up in a carbon fiber cocoon. By one account, CNN alone had over 100 people interviewed on their network during the week, including Captain McLaren. Coverage spawned…

The Rocky Mountain Chapter of The Explorers Club broke a five-year dinner attendance record when it changed up the format of its typical bi-monthly dinners. Instead of one speaker, the evening featured nine speakers – all members – presenting their most recent projects with no more than a five-year look-back of previous projects. Each speaker…

The Andes crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 happened exactly 50 years ago on October 13, 1972. A rugby team heading to Chile crashed straight into an Andean peak at 14,200 feet. Sixteen of the 45 passengers survived 72 days trapped on a glacier, isolated from civilization and having to resort to eating the bodies…

Congratulations to chapter member Peter W. Van Arsdale on the publication of his book:  Encounters: 50 Fascinating Strangers From My Life on the Road(Amity Bridge, 2022).  While neither memoir nor autobiography per se, this book nonetheless covers half a century of personal encounters – most of them unexpected – across the globe. In these 50…

Frustrated as we all are about Covid restrictions, the Rocky Mountain chapter requested that Club archivist and curator Lacey Flint conduct a live, virtual tour of the Research Collections. As the mid-September event came together, we naturally thought to open it to all 3,600 of us worldwide. The 60-minute event offered insight into some of…

Rocky Mt. chapter members spent the better part of a September Saturday “exploring” a large historic lead and silver mine dating to the late 19th century in the hills above Boulder. The White Raven Mine, owned by Club member Markus Raschke, a physics professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, has been part of the Captain Jack…

Flower Power – Congratulations to Jim Pisarowicz and Mary Menz on publication of Common Wildflowers of the San Juan Mountains (2019). All the wildflowers in the book are found in the San Juan Mountains and specifically in Ouray, Hinsdale, San Juan and San Miguel counties – from the montane zone of 8,000 – 10,000 feet to the subalpine…

TEC national fellow Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj traveled with Alpine Expeditions (Ricardo Peña) in January 2018 to the crash site of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571. The Fairchild 227 went down in the Andes on Friday, October 13, 1972 due to pilot error. 45 people were onboard the plane and only 16 survived. The survivors lived…

Chapter Chair Jeff Blumenfeld, FN’89, was director of communications for the Dooley Intermed International – Operation Restore Vision Gift of Sight 2017 expedition to Nepal’s Upper Gorkha region, epicenter of the 2015 earthquakes. Read his daily trip reports here: https://dooleyintermed.org/the-adventure-begins-off-to-qatar-then-nepal-for-the-2017-dooley-intermed-gift-of-sight-eye-care-medical-mission-led-by-scott-hamilton-of-dooley-intermed-flying-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-with View the 11-minute trip documentary produced by SkyShip Films here:

Explorer, conservationist and educator, Mikki, a resident of Longmont, Colorado, was honored by the group recognizing women divers who have made outstanding contributions to the exploration, understanding, safety and enjoyment of the underwater world. The WDHOF also promotes opportunities in diving through grants, scholarships, internships and mentoring, as well as a worldwide network of industry…

Chapter members and guests welcomed former Club president Alfred McLaren and his wife Avery (back row, third and fourth from left) back to Boulder for a terrific lunch at the Hotel Boulderado on July 19. Fred, who recently celebrated his 91st birthday, regaled us with his tales of military service as a submarine captain. He…

Members and guests of the Rocky Mountain chapter traveled to Arvada on June 3 for a tour of the Clive Cussler Car Museum. This extensive collection of 105 significant automobiles, ranging in years from 1906 to 1965, was started by the late best-selling author Clive Cussler (1931-2020), a beloved member of The Explorers Club. The…

“Like a giant model rocket, it goes boom and it’s gone,” says University of Colorado, Boulder Professor Jim Green in explaining his early work with solid fuel missiles at the White Sands Missile Range, the United States Army military testing area and firing range in New Mexico.Green has experienced a front-row seat on the assembly,…

The multi-hyphenate Coloradan Alan Arnette, climber-coach-public speaker-blogger-author, provided an update on the state of climbing in the Everest region to the Rocky Mt. chapter, held appropriately enough, at a Boulder Nepali restaurant on April 29, 2022, Arnette, who runs the alanarnette.com blog which covers the annual Everest season each spring, climbed the Seven Summits in one year…

The Rocky Mountain chapter tiptoed back to some degree of normalcy with its first in-person meeting in 17 months at a Boulder restaurant’s outdoor heated patio.  Jake Norton, a climber, filmmaker, photographer, writer, and activist, spoke about 100 Years of Everest: Pre-World War II Expeditions From the North, including witnessing the discovery of the remains of British climber…

Boulder, CO (June 26 – 27, 2021) – Fellow Explorers Club member, Will Steger, appeared on Saturday and Sunday during the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF). He is the subject of a new documentary, After Antarctica, containing never-before-seen footage of his historic 3,741 mile coast-to-coast crossing of Antarctica. As political tensions reached a critical tipping point in 1989,…

HUSAVIK, Iceland (August 18, 2020) – The sixth annual Leif Erikson Exploration Awards, sponsored by the Exploration Museum, this weekend recognized Canadian George Kourounis, and Americans Ulyana N. Horodyskyj and Jeff Blumenfeld. Also recognized was Scottish private space company Skyrora that launched their Skylark rocket from Langanes near Húsavík in northern Iceland on Aug. 16. The Leif…

It is an honor for me to shine a light on the significant work of chapter members. Andrew, who has hosted the chapter to summer picnics at his home in Ward, has been working with The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) for the past 30 years on the coldest aviation case of them…

Mehgan Heaney-Grier, a lifelong ocean adventurer with more than 20 years experience working above and below the waterline, talked to the Rocky Mountain chapter on Feb. 25, 2020, about “The Power of Adventure.” In 1996, at the age of 18, Heaney-Grier established the first constant weight free-diving record in the U.S. with a dive to…

Wherever explorers and adventurers travel these days, there are scientists and researchers back home desperate for hard-to-obtain environmental data that would otherwise be unavailable for conservation.  That’s the premise behind the formation of Adventure Scientists (AS) in 2011, a nonprofit that equips partners with data collected from the outdoors that are crucial to addressing environmental and…