Ed Viesturs and John Stetson Going Back To The Arctic

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Famed mountaineer Ed Viesturs and renowned polar explorer and dog musher John Steston will be heading back into the Arctic this Friday, April 25th. The two men will be heading to Baffin Island, where they’ll pull their sledges for 150 miles, over the course of 20 days, as they explore some of the most remote, and untouched regions of the Canadian Arctic, in an effort to raise awareness about global climate change.

In what’s being called the “Healthy Planet = Healthy People” expedition, Viesturs and Stetson intend to document the effects of global warming on Baffin Island by visiting remote Inuit villages and interviewing the people that live there, much the way that Will Steger did last year with his Global Warming 101 expedition.

That’s not the only reason the two men are heading out to Baffin however. It seems a bigger expedition is in the works for further down the line. Ed and John intend to use the Healthy Planet = Healthy People expedition as a shakedown cruise for a future unsupported expedition to the South Pole. They’ll test out their gear and use the 20 days as a training session for the 600 mile journey they could experience Antarctica, possibly as soon as this Winter.

Ed and John expect to check in daily by satellite phone, and you’ll be able to read their dispatches from the field at EdViesturs.com and exclusively at GreatOutdoors.com. I guess once you’ve finished knocking off all of the 8000m peaks, there’s nothing left to do but go to the Poles huh?

Kraig Becker

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