"Time° ° °" "That relentless force that transports us from what was to what will be." "Though no one can say exactly what time is we do know what time it is." "5 4 3 2 1" "For Millennium, this is a landmark a special moment in time." "But far from all the commotion millions of others count their years very differently." "For Buddhists the year 2000 came and went more than five hundred years ago." "ln the Muslim world it was only the year 1 420." "While for many Jews it's the year the date was 57 60." "Nevertheless the observance of this year 2000 is a singular opportunity° ° ° to listen to the heartbeat of the planet." "The National Geographic Society has long been capturing time:" "making it stop, slowing it down, and speeding it up..." "All to better comprehend the relentless flow from what was to what will be." "We invite you now to see the world through our eyes as we explore the epic adventure of life through time." "For Time is the measure of our universe° ° ° and only over time can we understand the natural world." "And it is our unique grasp of Time that helped give rise to science and culture° ° ° to civilization itself." "Take time, add exploration and the quest for knowledge and you have the human story." "A story of constant and accelerating change." "But now perhaps we are at a most critical point on the verge of controlling nature and on the brink of destroying it." "What kind of world will we leave to our children?" "Only Time will tell." "ln a single, ferocious instant an explosion of heat and light" "Time, as we know it, began." "It was the big bang." "Some thirteen billion years later the cosmos defines our sense of wonder° ° ° strewn with things unimaginable like black holes and towering nebulae trillions of miles high spawning countless stars." "About two-thirds of the way through the history of time our own solar system was born." "A handful of planets and assorted debris orbiting an unremarkable star." "ln this immense universe our own planet is like an insignificant blue ornament tenuously protected by a paper thin atmosphere." "But a closer look reveals that there's something wonderful going on here something rare perhaps or even unique." "Something called Life." "To see the origin of life we need only look beneath the waves." "Here, hundreds of millions of years ago the sea was a living soup of tiny organisms." "ln this vast incubator life slowly evolved from the simple to the complex." "Then, about 540 million years ago there was an explosion of innovation." "Quite suddenly, entirely new forms of life began to emerge." "ln the millions of years that followed armor plate and prickly spines appeared to protect creatures from a new threat:" "predators." "ln time, deadly jaws appeared ° ° ° and sinewy creatures who muscled their way into the arms race." "Some animals have changed very little over millions of years." "Among these living fossils are sharks:" "part time machine, part killing machine." "We still are trying to understand the elusive ways of these remarkably well-adapted predators." "On the windswept Farallon Islands off the coast of California researchers have spent years following the hunting patterns of individual great white sharks." "° ° °this bite looks like it could be a seal or a sea lion, you know" ""Over seven years up to forty great whites have been identified." "Some are observed in one season and then never seen again." "While others come back every year." "One of these is a massive eighteen-foot female named Stumpy - so called because the tip of her tail fin is missing."" ""We don't know where Stumpy is during most of the year, but we do know that she shows up here every Autumn at the Farallons."" "... soprettyconsistent." "She's almost always in the same area."" ""What's more she appears to come each year to the same spot to hunt." "How do you know Stumpy is here?" "You set the board out..." "and she lets you know° ° °" "This is how a great white kills an elephant seal in the first hit° ° °" "ln one precise torpedo-like blow the shark hits the prey from below." "The stunning impact of the first lightning strike may incapacitate the seal." "This strategy saves energy and may minimize the rise of injury to the shark."" "This surprising sequence of attack retreat and feast has served the shark well for a very long time." "But Nature was not content to have only the seas populated with living things." "After hundreds of millions of years of preparation out of the water crept life." "It took countless generations for gills to become lungs and flippers to evolve into wings or feet." "Eventually, a profusion of crawling flying and running creatures claimed the land for their own." "Reptiles began a one hundred and fifty million year sovereignty over the planet." "It was the age of the dinosaurs." "They were the biggest creatures ever to walk the earth." "Gone now some 65 million years° ° ° they live on in our collective imagination." "Among the departed was one of the strangest dinosaurs that ever lived." "It was called Ovirapto and it was swift, smart and lethal." "This expedition is traveling to a remote part of Mongolia to uncover the secrets of the Oviraptor's world." "Michael Novacek and Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History come to this desolate place to piece together a puzzle of evolution and extinction." ""One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, nine... "" ""... andthenthreeoverthere...twelve." "Twelve eggs..." "Allright."" "You know this is really a great fossil find because it's one of the rare instances where we can capture a little bit of behavior that's 80 million years old." "Here we have a- a sort of a day in the life or or the death of a- of a creature of a dinosaur in association with something it did during its life." "This one was fossilized where it dropped and it happened to drop right on top of its own nest." ""She didn't just drop there." "The good mother oviraptor was sitting on the nest." "They probably brought food to their nest as birds do." "And the good mother tended her eggs." "Like a bird, she prodded them into a circle." "The fearsome carnivore of the Gobi was parenting."" "Then, with remarkable swiftness the age of dinosaurs was over." "What happened exactly remains a mystery." "Many scientists believe an asteroid perhaps six miles wide slammed into Earth and helped snuff out the masters of the world." ""From our perspective, of course, this mass extinction event is not a big problem because we're part of the group that survived ° ° ° and started evolving into bats and and large hoofed animals and lions and tigers and bears."" "With the great reptiles gone, smaller but more adaptable creatures took over." "Each learned to succeed in its own way." "Some rely on speed and powerful jaws." "Others, strength and a thick skin." "But no matter how adaptable a species may be --- in the savage struggle between life and death, there is but one simple rule:" "Those who survive pass their traits to their young." "Those who die do not." "Every creature is a history book of genetic code." "These living ghosts are the product of all the life and death moments endured by all the generations before them." ""An ancient species related to both antelopes and pigs the water chevrotain has been feeding on flowers fruit and fungi here for over twenty million years." "All that time predator and prey have been evolving together" "Honing skills and strategies that make them well-matched in the game of survival ° ° °" "Under sharp-eyed surveillance the chevrotain submerges again." "She is completely at home here." "She doesn't swim but simply walks on the bottom just like a little hippo." "Her huge eyes are open wide but she sees rather poorly - probably much as a human does underwater° ° °" "Keeping her belly close to the ground to avoid being lifted by the flow she simply walks away from danger. ." "four feet below the surface."" "ln the most extreme environments we find the most astonishing adaptations." "Forbidding deserts call for new tools for survival." "Out-maneuvered by a hungry coyote this creature seems ready to accept its fate." "But the horned lizard has evolved a surprising solution to a desperate dilemma." ""The swelling below his eye is not a wound it's the lizard's last defense." "Squirted from a specialized tear duct a stream of blood is aimed at the coyote's face." "The blood is laced with substances that are so distasteful the coyote wants nothing more to do with the lizard."" "Here on the barren ice floes of the Arctic it's hard to imagine any creature - much less a thousand pound brute --- finding sustenance." "But the polar bear is a resourceful predator with infinite patience." ""The seal is safe for the moment but each new trip to the surface to breathe could end in another ambush." "It's an over-sized game of cat and mouse."" "Mammals thrive by capitalizing on a key innovation rarely found in reptiles: parental care." "They are capable of bonding mother to child, parent to parent to herd, pod or pack." "But as youth gives way to maturity animals demonstrate other important capabilities as well ° ° °" "Many of these battles are to seize the most critical moment in animal time:" "the moment their genes are passed to the next generation." "The next chapter in the Book of Life began with creatures that could grasp" " not only branches - but complex ideas as well." "It is here, among the primates, that we begin to see ourselves." ""We know that the earliest stage of human evolution happened in a habitat just like this, East African woodland that's got open areas° ° ° onto which our ancestors eventually moved and adapted to." "So to be able to study hunting here is the best way to give us some kind of window onto the earliest origins of meat eating in our own ancestors four or more million years ago." "As colobus monkeys are pursued by a band of chimpanzees we witness the terrifying tenacity of both predator and prey." ""As the chimps climb up the colobus retreat to the highest branches, too slender to bear the chimps' weight." "The male colobus stand their ground against chimps up to four times their size." "They will even take the offensive momentarily driving the chimps back." "Holding his tail out of the chimp's reach this male buys precious time for the escape of the females and young." "With chimps climbing everywhere one monkey leaps into the arms of death." "Even a rear attack by the defending colobus cannot save him."" "Resourceful, sociable, intelligent the chimpanzee has been content to remain in the forest for millions of years." "Only occasionally do they wander out into open areas." "But one related species - the ancestors of early humans - left the forest for good ° ° ° and the world was changed forever." "Genetically, all humans, no matter what their heritage are 99.9% identical." "It is not what we are, but who we are, what we learn, believe and create that determines our group identity." "And that identity often determines our relationship with time." "ln many places, time seems to have accelerated at a maddening pace." "ln other societies, though time is like an easy traveling companion, as one moves through life in the eternal "now"." "ln the highlands of Papua New Guinea, lives a remote society with their own understanding of time." ""For thousands of years, this Stone Age group had been hidden from the outside world." "As time and exposure worked their changes on most other peoples" "Hagahai culture remained more or less the same." "A living secret deep in the highlands of Papua New Guinea." "Possibly the last unknown group on earth."" "Carol Jenkins, a medical anthropologist, began working with the Hagahai helping them cope with malaria and other diseases that threatened their very existence." "She found their concept of time fascinating." ""Their sense of time is much more like what people say of the Australian aborigine time the dreaming that is it's always the same it goes over and over again it's a connection in an almost mystical sense" "between the ancestors and today." "Much of human culture is anchored in our traditions and often, these traditions are linked to our sense of time." "Everywhere, we commemorate rights of passage and shared beliefs that mark our voyage through life° ° ° and we celebrate them in the language of music and dance." "Like it or not, much of our precious time on this planet is consumed by work." "The sheer diversity of labor reflects the vast scale and scope of the human experience." "On the Indian subcontinent much work is still done by hand." "Here north of Mumbai mostly barefoot workers disassemble giant steel ships, reducing them to scrap." "The work is dangerous the rewards are meager but to make a living they persist." "But all work in India is not this punishing." "ln sheer numbers lndia has the world's largest middle class." "The country's railways are a lifeline for all of India's one billion people crossing not only vast distances but bridging diverse cultures." "Over one and a half million workers keep the trains running on schedule." "ln many ways, the railway has become the country's grand and reliable time keeper." ""At Borivli Station fifteen men have been meeting up for ten years." "They call themselves the '8:54 Group' and every morning they stake out strategic spots along the platform." "With speed and luck they can claim a few seats that they'll share between them." "They have only thirty seconds before the train pulls out again and consider their daily ritual like a workout at the gym."" "Very few of us choose to risk our lives on a regular basis." "For those who take up hazardous occupations the excitement, danger and rush of adrenaline can be addicting." ""When does a job become a mission?" "A career become a quest?" "How do you face each day at work when you know it could be your last?"" ""Who was Al?" "Al was our friend." "And I'm gonna miss him a hell of a lot."" "The way we live our lives is often shaped by our attitude towards death." "But few embrace the dead as wholeheartedly as the Ngaju Dayaks of central Borneo." "Anthropologist Anne Schiller has spent almost 1 5 years studying the death rites of the Dayak peoples." "She takes part in a ceremony called Tiwah during which the villagers dig up the bones of their dead parents spouses and children." "They do this so the spirit of their loved ones might go in the afterlife to what they call the prosperous village." ""lf the head of a family hasn't been able to hold a Tiwah he is very troubled and unsettled in his mind." "He asks himself, how can l save my parents so they can go to the prosperous village?"" ""This is all about taking care of their parents I mean what these people are doing is they're- they're giving life to their parents in the way their parents gave life to them ° ° ° so they're caring for them the way you care for a child." "You- you're washing it° ° ° and you're nurturing it and you're making sure it's comfortable."" "Now that the bones have been exhumed the Tiwah progresses to the ritual blood sacrifice." ""Blood protects you from illness it protects you from evil supernatural beings that might bother you and so sacrifices are held because you need that blood of the chicken or the pig or the cow or the water buffalo in order to anoint people" "and to anoint things to make sure that the people and the things remain safe." "From a culture that honors death to the death of cultures themselves° ° °" "All over the world unique societies are under threat their cultures as vulnerable as endangered plants or animals." "According to some estimates nearly half of the world's six thousand languages will disappear in the next century." "The realities of an emerging global culture and economy often provide little incentive for preserving them." ""Good morning, sir."" ""Good morning children." "How do you do?"" ""How do you do?" "Thank you."" ""Sit down."" ""Thank you, sir."" "How does a people hold on to its own identity its own traditions and still remain open to the outside world?" "Disappearing cultures have much to tell us." "If only we can take the time to listen." "Long before maps and compasses those who ventured into unknown places would leave a sign for those who followed that said "We were here"." "The idea of being first of leaving one's mark in time and space inspires modern explorers as well." "They helped to define and describe our world." "The exploits of 20th century adventurers continue to fascinate and inspire." "Many indeed have achieved a measure of immortality." "Among them, Admiral Robert Peary and pioneering African-American explorer Matthew Henson --- considered to be the first men to reach the top of the world." "Admiral Richard Byrd was credited as being the first to fly over both poles." "Hiram Bingham discovered the fabled lost city of Machu Picchu." "While William Beebe and Otis Barton were the first to probe the deep ocean." "ln our own era, Jacques Cousteau allowed us all to be explorers of a wonderful new realm and championed our need to preserve it." "Today, being first is the passion of many." "But the goal is often not a place on the map." "For these brave souls it's not so much where they're going as how they get there." "Mount Everest, first conquered in 1 953 has been climbed by the hundreds." "Still for every seven that reach the summit one climber will die." ""lt's a mountain that you regard with considerable respect."" ""l don't know anybody who has a feeling of affection uh, for the mountain."" ""You could climb it° ° ° three times, five times, a hundred times you don't conquer it, you survive it."" ""lf there is a cold day it's not twenty below, it's forty below." "Forty-five, fifty below say of Celsius° ° ° and this is hard for human beings." "If there is a storm coming it's much stronger because you're much higher up."" ""Windy° ° ° very cold." "Strong." "Really cold." "ls difficult."" ""lt's really very difficult to do anything." "All you wanna do is lie down and even that's hard work."" ""Physically I experienced an awful lot of problems." "I had a- an ulcerated toe with the bone° ° ° showing, an intestinal parasite I lost thirty-five pounds in five days going to the summit."" ""l'm nearly at the summit." "Just a few more steps° ° ° not far now."" ""But this overwhelming feeling ° ° ° incredible difficulty, pain, suffering is suddenly over."" ""Well I'm on top!" "I've made it!"" ""lt's difficult to really understand how important it is to be there." "And I know instinctively I really wanted to stand ° ° ° on the highest point of earth as I think most climbers do."" ""l'm on the summit."" ""You're both great heroes." "We're absolutely proud to death."" "If the roof of the world is becoming a little crowded much of the deep ocean remains a mystery to scientists like Dr. Robert Ballard." "His early expeditions included the first exploration of the mid-Atlantic ridge and the discovery in the eastern Pacific of hot water vents surrounded by incredible new life forms." "But Ballard is perhaps best known for exploring the most storied shipwreck of the 20th century." "And since Titanic he's been probing further and further back in time." ""We're sitting right now in- in ruins that are on the island of Sicily." "To travel from civilization to civilization here in the Mediterranean you must cross the Mediterranean and many of those ships didn't make it." "Many of those ships went to the bottom and many of them went into the deep sea." "Between ancient Carthage and Rome it's twelve thousand feet deep."" "Using the remotely operated vehicle Jason, and a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine" "Ballard has led a team of archaeologists to the largest concentration of ancient shipwrecks ever found in the deep sea." "Almost a half a mile below an ancient trade route thousands of artifacts from eight ships were found strewn all over the sea bed." "Later they returned to the site and recovered Roman clay jars that once contained ancient trade goods like olive oil and wine." "There's glass. I- l'm just" "Among the bounty were glass cups traded by Arab merchants who sailed these same waters fifteen hundred years later." "What has surprised me the most is that uh we thought this was one event that this was a fleet of ships a group of ships that sank together and it's not at all." "We have° ° ° ships spanning over one thousand five hundred years of history." ""l feel very good, I- l feel that this really is a historic expedition." "This is the first major deep sea archaeological expedition."" "The Age of Exploration is still far from over." "Ian Baker and Ken Storm are in search of a hidden waterfall that others claimed to have glimpsed from afar but none have ever mapped or measured." "They follow footsteps from the past." ""ln 1 924, British botanist Frank Kingdon" " Ward, led an expedition to Tibet searching for a waterfall as grand as Africa's Victoria Falls." "He pushed his way through much of the wild and forbidding Tsangpo gorges but never found what he was seeking." "On this expedition Ken and lan are determined to finish" "Kingdon-Ward's journey. "" ""lt's a place that gives life but it's a place also of enormous danger that can take life at any moment."" "The Tsangpo gorge can plunge over sixteen thousand feet three times deeper than the Grand Canyon." "A single misstep could send a traveler a thousand feet to his death." "It was near here that Kingdon-Ward's exhausted guides insisted on turning back." "And sure enough this modern team had doubts as well." ""l think we all reached a point where we were suddenly questioning whether it was really going to be possible at all."" "Despite seventeen days of difficult trekking the expedition decides to press on." "Finally, they punch their way through a clearing." ""Oh, all of the Tsangpo is° ° ° pouring into that energy." "Can you imagine?" "!"" ""lncredible!" "Every drop° ° ° from the Kailas Mountain all the way past Mount Everest all the way to this point!"" "After a century of speculation the great falls has finally been placed on the map." "Named Hidden Falls of Dorje Phagmo it measures between a hundred and a hundred fifteen feet with an enormous volume of water that makes it so extraordinary." ""To actually come upon something new and undiscovered late in the 20th century is remarkable."" "Even in places that are mapped there are new worlds to explore like the lush rain forest canopy." ""l realized at that moment that first rope climb I knew where l was goin' for the rest of my life." "I was going up to the canopy."" ""lt takes hard work and courage to conquer this new world." "But when they climb Nalini and other canopy researchers are also returning to a very old world."" ""We really felt like pioneers." "We felt like we were frontiersmen going to where no human had ever gone before and everything we picked up was something new and something different" " new species, new interactions."" "For aerialist Philippe Petit a life in balance is a challenge in itself." "Here he undertakes a daring walk over three hundred feet above the medieval Swiss village of Saillon." ""l am discovering, conquering uh a new world a world that is actually no-man's land." "It is dangerous - yes --- if I miss the wire I am not here anymore but it's so simple, so beautifully simple the left or right, the center, the balance." "It's the essence of life. ." "What I do is seemingly useless but actually is an inspiration." "Looking up is, is flying your own way." "People who don't have wing they can fly by looking up."" "The earth is some four and a half billion years old yet little time remains to undo the damage that we've wrought in our own brief moment on the planet." "The oil fields of Kuwait 1 991 ° ° °the aftermath of a brief but destructive war." "The fires have now raged for months." "The damage to the environment is nothing short of catastrophic." "But much sooner than anyone expected an international team of workers snuffed out the flames one by one." "Many of these people had never done such work before." ""We have proved so many things that we- nobody took a chance before to do it." "Nobody was daring before to do it." "We proved that yes, we can do it." "Once you have the will, you can do anything you'd like to do and we were given a chance to prove this and we did prove it."" "All over the globe concerned citizens have mobilized to preserve and protect endangered species and habitats." "The power of such dedicated people is proved today by the continued existence of creatures once nearly annihilated by man:" "the great whales." "Today, they are known and loved with such passion that the survival of most species of whales seems assured." "But for other creatures time is running out." "ln central China, Professor Pan Wenshi dedicates his life to the imperiled population of giant pandas remaining in the wild." ""My friends in Beijing always ask why do you continue to work in the field year after year?" "When will it end?" "Your work has been published why don't you stop?" "I tell them my goal is to protect the panda and to establish a refuge for them in the wild." "That is my mission but it will be difficult." "Achieving this goal may take my entire lifetime and even that may not be enough."" "ln suburban Atlanta Sue Barnard tries to overcome popular fears about a creature valuable to the ecosystem." ""We're gonna see some bats, okay?" "Are you ready?"" ""Yeah... " "Are you ready?" "All right." ""The children, the children are our future and they're marvelous." "They're open to learning." "They see and they form their own opinions by what they're seeing." "The bat's got friends but the bat's got to have more friends."" "From the suburbs to the inner city, conservationists are often where you least expect to find them." "Arthur Bonner, ex-gang member spent seven years in juvenile detention and prison." ""Good morning." "My name is uh, Arthur and uh you guys are out here to help us out to save an endangered species." "It's called a Palos Verdes° ° °"" "When Arthur got out of jail he joined the LA Conservation Corps." "His life was soon turned around by a tiny 6-legged companion called the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly° ° °" "Arthur is one of just three people who are permitted to gather the butterflies° ° °" ""l'm very dedicated to coming down here." "I love to do what I'm doing l love my work."" ""He uses all his powers of persuasion to help his captives reproduce."" ""Okay girls, which one of you laid some eggs for me today?"" ""The uh, 5 females I collected out in the wild." "I bring them in I have to watch them lay their eggs° ° °"" ""There you go, you gave me one° ° °"" "The butterfly only has a five day life span ° ° ° and it's up to me to keep her baby alive." ""For ten years the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly was thought to be extinct." "It is still considered one of the rarest butterflies in the world."" ""Those are my girls." "I love them all." "They actually kept me from being extinct as much as I'm saving them from being extinct." "They're saving me and I'm saving them."" ""lt's very easy to dismiss° ° ° the bugs and the weeds of the world but science is revealing every year° ° ° just how important are these little things on which we and other larger organisms depend." "They cleanse the water they create the soil, they generate the very air we breathe."" "The case for protecting all life forms has been made powerfully by Dr. Jane Goodall." "She now speaks to the next generation for it is our children who must carry the message forward." ""lt's terribly important I think that children should grow up not having this incredibly arrogant view that the world was made for us humans." "We all matter we all have a place in the world." "Each species whether it's human or non human has been evolved over countless thousands and thousands of years into a perfect organism and we should respect that."" "Our growing understanding and respect for all life is the key to a sustainable future for planet earth." "For it inevitably means that the human animal like all others must respect certain limits." "If we make the planet safe for every creature it will be safe for us." "Then, only the searing fire of a dying sun can put an end to us and that's not for billions of years." "If we make the planet safe for every creature there will be plenty of time." "Even as a little kid I was always curious you know what was the next yard like what was it like on the next street over the next neighborhood the next town lt just snowballs" "Ever since I was a kid I was interested in animals l really liked to get up close and personal with animals" "I was a little boy who grew up on the shore lines of San Diego l wanted to be Captain Nemo l wanted to command the Nautilus" "Growing up in a small town in Alabama l never thought that I would do this" "Just amazing l think there is in all human begins this essence of exploration this desire to explore" "We all have this hidden two-year-old in us that wants to just kind of reach up and really feel the world around us" "I really think that there are too many places to explore too many things to discover to sit around lf it is easy it would have been done before I think there are plenty of places to explore" "A lot of those places are going to be the most difficult to sustain yourself" "There's so much of the planet that is unexplored that I can't imagine we're gonna be out of work any time soon" "July 1, 19,9" "Apollo Eleven escapes the earth's gravity and sets its course for the moon" "Our urge to explore has finally outgrown our small planet" "But as the people of the world look up the astronauts on board look back" "They marvel at earth lt looks as strange as the place they're headed" "Below them is a planet still to be explored" "The spirit of exploration is as old as humanity itself" "Brave people have always ventured out into the darkness and come back to enlighten us" "And in the last century the pace of accomplishment has been astonishing" "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first to summit Mount Everest" "Robert Peary and Matthew Henson first to the North Pole" "Amelia Earhart?" "first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic" "That's one small step for man...." "And a thousand years from now they will still know the name Neil Armstrong" "But has everything been discovered?" "ls the age of exploration over?" "This is the story of ten explorers who believe that the spirit of exploration still thrives" "It is the story of what compels them to venture out time and again into the unknown" "Ian Baker believes that at the end of the millennium there are still places on earth that have never been named that have never been plotted on a map" "Somewhere in this vast Tibetan jungle he hopes to find a giant waterfall" "He's been searching for over a decade" "Ancient Buddhist prayer books hold that deep within a gorge is a cascade that shrouds the passageway to paradise" "I first heard about it from a very old lama who had spent much of his life meditating in these very remote valleys" "He had always told me the greatest of these was a place called Pemako in the far southeastern part of Tibet" "Baker made six expeditions in search of the falls" "He has never managed to reach them" "He is not the first to fail ln 1924, British Botanist Frank Kingdon" "Ward tried to find the falls only to be defeated by the terrain" "Where he failed Baker hopes to succeed" "He knows Kingdon-Ward was unable to descend the sheer cliffs along more than five miles of the gorge" "Could the falls be located in this unexplored area?" "Baker and his expedition partner" "Ken Storm, have won the trust of local hunters who will lead them down paths that no Westerner has ever followed" "The gorge is a treacherous place teeming with leeches stinging nettles and deadly snakes" "Why do people like Baker risk so much to explore the unknown?" "that I'm different from anybody else in the sense that I think the spirit of exploration is intrinsic to human nature" "Exploration is really one of the very very few things that makes us human" "Once you get a taste of it you can't go back to the simple life" "I did become tensely irritated at the endless rain being soaking wet never drying out" "Leeches all over your legs and just scratch marks all over your bodies and face just because half the time you're moving up through a pathless terrain" "But I think anybody who's given to a life of exploration has to feel some sense of embrace of this kind of wild existence where, you know the comforts of the civilized world are suddenly stripped from us" "As a young boy, Baker loved adventure" "He yearned to be the youngest to reach the top of famous mountains" "And he drew pictures revealing dreams of mystical places places with hidden waterfalls" "My more recent explorations in the Himalayas have been in that sense a continuation of my earliest childhood activities which was really to explore the forests and marshes behind the house" "There is still a first out there for Baker to claim" "But reaching the great falls of the Tsang-po is an epic journey away" "Now that the weather is clearing a little bit we're going to try to make our way down into this unknown section" "And for 75 years it has been believed to be an impenetrable wilderness lan Baker's expedition to find the falls has been slowed to a mile a day ln this terrain the difference between life and death can be a single careless step" "We had on previous expeditions seen from a long distance what appeared to be a waterfall" "But even when we were a thousand feet above it a year earlier we were still not able to determine whether in fact, this was the great falls of the Tsang-po that Kingdon-Ward had been looking for" "And there was the sense that unless you went down to the falls itself we would never be able to answer or resolve that question" "The jungle thickens" "The terrain gets even steeper" "Then, finally in the distance they hear the river falling" "All of the Tsang-po pouring into the energy" "Unbelievable" "A century of speculation is over" "They have filled in one of the last blank spots on the map" "These are, indeed, the great falls of the Tsang-po" "They name it the Hidden Falls of Dorje Phagmo?" "after the region's most powerful goddess" "What this discovery of the waterfall has done actually, is to evoke from people almost a subconscious need that we all have for magical places in the world for a sense that there are still places to be discovered" "I don't understand why people think that exploration is finished" "For me it's really just started I think there's plenty of places to explore" "A lot of those places are gonna be the most difficult places to really sustain yourself within and make a real contribution I love this expression:" "The last place on earth" "And that's what I'm really trying to bring back" "The best explorers have always brought back to us with their words with their pictures that last place on earth" "When the film Congorilla opened on Broadway in 1932, audiences flocked to the theater." "Most people had never seen moving pictures of such exotic animals" "You are going to see and hear the first pictures in natural sound ever made in the jungles of Central Africa" "There will be the roar of the lion herds of elephants millions of flamingos and rivers alive with the vicious crocodiles" "The film was made by Martin Johnson and his wife, Osa ln 1917, they quit the Vaudeville Circuit left their New York home and began two decades of exploring and filmmaking" "When they began shooting Congorilla in 1929 wildlife was so plentiful they needed only to drive into the bush and turn on their cameras." "The abundance is long gone" "To capture what remains, it took" "National Geographic photographer Nick Nichols weeks of brutal trekking through the jungles of Central Africa" "I have no interest in wildlife photography for the sake of it lt's just not justifiable in this time when we've got so many habitats and creatures that are endangered ln our case, we're going out in an unexplored part" "of the African forest" "We really know what's out there but we want to come back and show everybody and say "Let's save it."" "The job that I do is considered one of the most romantic jobs on earth" "Everybody wants to do it" "But nobody sees it for what it really is being hot, insects diseases" "People see the glamour of the finished product or the glamour of the travel and they want to do it" "But they don't really want to do it" "Why do explorers subject themselves to such hardship?" "You've got to have something that drives you because you are getting into the suffering the hardships, being away from home" "So if you don't feel like you've got a mission I don't think you can put those feet in front of you when the going gets tough" "There's difficult cultures difficult political situations difficult physical circumstances and no guarantee of anything except that there's gonna be an endless number of hurdles that you're gonna have to pass over to pull something out and make it meaningful" "And that is enough to really deter any but the most hardened explorer" "There's fleas that burrow into your feet and lay eggs" "You gotta deal with those" "You may get 166 a night that you gotta deal with" "There's other animals that go into your privates and burrow away" "Shuffling in the mud, looking for animals" "There was heat and there is piranhas and there is caimans and there is crocodiles and killer bees" "Then there is the mosquitos that bite you and cause all the different kinds of malaria" "Then there is flies biting that cause blindness and elephantitis lt's just endless lt's five a.m." "and I'm going out to photograph in the fig tree that (Neil) just rigged a tree platform in I'm trying to get pictures of monkeys and birds which are real elusive I have no assurance that they'll be there" "I just hope so I studied art as a young man l was a painter and I wasn't very good at it" "As soon as I picked up a camera and took my first photographs when I was 18 in college I decided at that moment that's what I was gonna do" "There's something in nature that is out of our realm of control I'm not sure what it is lt's an essence" "That's what I have been looking for all my life" "Who knows how to get a frog to stand up?" "It is this word "wild" which means not controlled" "What's behind that is trying to find an essence that I can't define but we all know what it is" "We all know that there's something edgy out there that keeps us whole because we come from wildness, too" "ln 1997, when Nichols was photographing tigers in India his journey embodied the new creed of exploration" "Unlike earlier explorers he is not driven by a desire to return with animals in cages or trophy heads... but with pictures?" "pictures he hopes will save these animals from extinction" "When I see an elephant in a zoo or a tiger in a zoo I'm looking at a specimen lf we had five gazillion tigers in zoos we have no tigers lf they're not out walking around in the forest" "that forest is not even whole" "Tigers are part of the package, the chain" "A tiger won't pose while Nick snaps its portrait" "So his crew rigs intricate camera traps to capture a tiger's image" "They hope one of the big cats will trigger the motion-sensors on the cameras" "We're trying to find a way to take pictures of tigers on their terms." "Actually, the tigers are taking their own pictures" "That's what it gets down to" "There's no humans here they come along whenever they want to" "We really wanted just to find a way to get into their world it's such a secret world" "Weeks pass.?" "No tigers." "Go in!" "Oh, my God, yes!" "Yes!" "C'mon!" "Go in!" "My mission is definitely to look at the earth as a finite thing and say let's celebrate this thing" "Let's find a way to realize that it's so precious and so fragile" "The new edge to exploration is that we must know how the planet works" "Like Nichols, Sylvia Earle is driven by the desire to preserve what she finds" "What drives me to explore?" "It's the need to understand what we're doing so that we perhaps might be able to do better in the future" "Earle is the Chuck Yeager of oceanography a pioneer of undersea exploration" "Five species of marine life have been named after her" "Earle was raised on a farm in New Jersey in a time when girls weren't expected go grow up and have professions, let alone become explorers." "For me, my playground was the sea I knew from the moment I first saw a horseshoe crab sort of crawling up a beach in New Jersey that I had to know more about where it came from and how it lived" "and how it spent its days and nights" "And I've been intrigued with that ever since" "Seventy percent of the earth's surface is water but most of it remains as unexplored as the New World was to Columbus" "No place on the planet is more difficult to explore than the deep" "There's nothing more frustrating for a biologist a scientist such as I than to go down to 156 feet or even push the limits and go over to the edge of a drop-off into the sea and know that you just have to stop" "People have always dreamed of exploring the ocean" "But for centuries anything below a few hundred feet was impossible to reach until William Beebe and" "Otis Barton invented the bathysphere a steel ball they hoped would take them a half-mile below the surface" "It took four years of testing before the bathysphere was ready" "Finally in 1934," "Beebe and Barton jammed themselves in not knowing if it would be submarine or a coffin" "As they were slowly lowered into the depths the pressure built up to more than 1,366 pounds per square inch lt was so cold, Beebe recalled it was like sitting on a cake of ice" "But they did it" "The bathysphere went a half-mile below the surface" "The record stood for 15 years" "Building on the accomplishments of Beebe and Barton" "Earle has pushed the limits of underwater exploration" "ln 1979, untethered and alone she dove to over 1,266 feet lt was as daring a feat as the early space walks" "Back in 1976, it was uncommon for women to do some of the sorts of things that I found myself hankering to do" "There were no women astronauts going to the moon ln fact, there were no women astronauts at all at that point in time" "And aquanauts were also an iffy sort of enterprise" "Earle was one of five women selected to join a team of aquanauts who lived and studied in an underwater laboratory anchored in the Caribbean" "They called us aquabelles, they called us aquababes" "They had a hard time calling us aquanauts I didn't care what they called us as long as they let us go, and they did" "Earle has never let anything stop her" "Her passion for the ocean is too strong" "For me the lure of the deep is the lure of the unknown lt's that curiosity that all children have but scientists never lose you just have to know what is going on ln order to satisfy that curiosity" "Earle, like so many explorers is at the mercy of technology" "For years, she has teamed up with engineer Graham Hawkes." "Together, theyhave helped revolutionize underwater exploration" "You know, it's said that there're more footprints on the moon than in the deep ocean" "That's kind of literally true" "Once you step foot in the oceans you are just back where early man was you're back looking at a piece of the planet no one's seen before" "When Earle and Hawkes conceived of deep flight a new fast-moving submarine they had to build it themselves" "There is no NASA of the deep seas" "You know, I was born to be an engineer looking back I grew up with the nickname professor I apparently was always taking things apart" "Numerous rockets, numerous experiments, numerous little explosions" "My parents were both from London" "My father was postman" "And the small part of London Tootting the wrong side of the railway tracks went to the wrong schools" "Hawkes was the first in his family to go to college" "Over the past 26 years he has become one of the leading inventors of submersibles" "Hawkes's and Earle's dream is to literally swim with the fish" "It's the counterpart of flying you fly into that other atmosphere" "There's this moment of discovery that this is not just water this is water filled with life" "There are jellies, there are fish, there are eyes all around" "There you go as an explorer not alone for a moment... not even for an instant are you alone" "Oh, my God, it's coming right at me" "Oh, my gosh" "Oh!" "?" "Just so close." "He was just beautiful" "Funded in part by the National Geographic Society" "Earle is now diving in a remarkable new machine lt is the tool for the next generation of deep sea exploration" "ln July of 19,9, four simple words expand forever the limits of human potential" "The eagle has landed" "The calmness of the voice masks the terror of the moment" "Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have only seconds of fuel left when they land on the moon" "Armstrong's pulse races at 15, beats per minute" "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" "The triumph seemed complete but landing was the easier part" "NASA couldn't guarantee the safe return of the astronauts" "President Richard Nixon had prepared a eulogy in case the men were stranded on the moon's surface lt read, in part:" ""These brave men know that there is no hope for their recovery" "But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice."" "Our greatest achievements are often balanced on the edge of catastrophe" "For 26 years, Robert Peary and his expedition partner" "Matthew Henson, had been risking their lives to walk to the North Pole" "On the fourth expedition temperatures dropped to minus ,3 degrees" "They were forced to eat their dogs for food" "But the men relentlessly advanced and on April , 1969, they became the first to stand at the top of the world" ""The Pole at last, Peary wrote in his journal" ""The prize of three centuries Mine at last."" "As much as Peary and Henson dreamed of the North Pole and Armstrong the moon explorers have dreamed of climbing the world's highest mountain" "For decades, the slopes of Everest had claimed the life of one climber after another" "Then, in 1953..." "Mount Everest has been conquered by members of the British expedition ...Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary overcame the cold and the thin air to stand on the summit of Everest" "No one else will ever be able to claim the title:" ""First to the roof of the world."" "The drive to explore endures" "But have today's explorers been born too late?" "I'd love to have been an explorer in an earlier era where l could have been the first man to cross the Congo or the first man to penetrate the heart of Australia or climb Everest lt would have been wonderful" "Exploration a century ago was about assigning names to places and I think it's become more about assigning meaning" "You really have to push yourself to the edge" "That's why it hasn't been done before I mean, if it was easy, it would have been done before" "An explorer is someone who pursues the epic journey a person who has a dream who prepares to fulfill that dream assembles a team, goes out into the ocean overcomes the tests of the mind and the heart attains the truth and" "returns to society to share the truth" "That's the epic journey and that's what the explorer does" "Deep sea explorer, Bob Ballard has spent a career in search of tragedy and disaster" "For years, he longed to find the Titanic lt was the most elegant luxury liner of its time" "Titanic was built to last forever" "On April 16, 1912, she set sail on her maiden voyage" "Five days later she disappeared into the cold waters of the North Atlantic" "More than 1,566 perished" "People believed the ship was gone forever and that Ballard's quest to find her was futile" "But he proved them wrong ln 13,666 feet of water, Ballard found the Titanic" "He made history come to life" "People could see the past floating before them a romantic era stolen away by an iceberg and now returned" "I don't go to sea unless I am really convinced I can succeed l have decided not to do a lot of expeditions" "People say," ""Why don't you find Amelia Earhart's airplane?"" "Fat chance." "I won't take on a job unless I have a good shot at it" "Ballard did not stop with the Titanic" "He found the Nazi battleship Bismarck explored the torpedoed luxury liner Lusitania..." "Contact.That's a ship lt's definitely you My only love ...and located the aircraft carrier Yorktown sunk in the World War ll battle of Midway" "I have little boys come up to me and say they wish I would stop exploring because there isn't going to be anything left for them" "And I try to remind them that I've only seen one-tenth of one percent of the deep ocean so there's plenty there" "This time, Ballard is exploring further back in time than he has ever gone before... two thousand years ago when Roman ships criss-crossed the Mediterranean" "They were small vessels at the mercy of the sea" "Many of them never made it home" "To help him find the sunken ships" "Ballard has enlisted the help of a Navy submarine" "The NR-1 was used during the Cold War for missions so secret the Navy still won't talk about them" "Now the sub is hunting for a Roman galley that sank to the ocean floor 2,666 years ago" "Captain, ship's fit for dive" "You have permission to submerge ship" "Dive!" "Dive!" "46 feet." "Going down" "For hundreds of years scientists have looked in the ocean for our history" "And for most of that time they've only been able to look a very short distance" "And what we're trying to accomplish is something that has never been done before and that is to try and excavate a ship of antiquity that is thousands of feet beneath the sea" "The NR-1 hits thick mud" "The sub's arm is unable to dig below the surface" "Do the wooden hulls of Roman vessels still exist just beyond reach or has time stolen them away?" "Will this be Ballard's first failure?" "You can be lucky, but you work for it" "You know, you cannot just go and dig and discover something" "No!" "You have to stay day and night and work very hard" "And luck will come to you" "And that's why luck cannot come to a lazy explorer" "Like Robert Ballard," "Egyptologist Zahi Hawass is an explorer of deep time" "He has spent a career searching the sands of the Giza Plateau" "One of his most remarkable finds began with an accident when a horse, galloping past his excavation site plunged its hoof through the sand" "Below lay a vaulted tomb, sealed in the time of the pharaohs lnside, Hawass glimpsed eternity" "Because of the size of the tomb because of the unique shape of the vaulted ceiling and also because it was cased inside with plaster then I believe this is the man who was in charge of the whole administration of the workmen" "This is the man who wanted to be sure that all these people live in a good living and they go early in the morning to work and they come by the sunset and they live in the village, and at the same time" "when they die, there is a tomb for everyone" "Besides the foreman's tomb" "Hawass and his crews unearthed more than 256 graves an entire cemetery of workers" "For centuries, the pyramid builders were thought to be slaves a captive labor force cringing under the whip" "This discovery shattered that myth" "For explorers like Hawass the possibilities of discovery seem limitless" "The sands of the desert are constantly shifting" "Artifacts, hidden from one generation of archaeologists can suddenly be revealed to the next" "ln 1998, a team under Hawass's supervision made a startling find:" "A tomb, unseen untouched for thousands of years lt is beautiful, the painting is so beautiful lt is very rare" "We discover a lot of things every day, everywhere in Egypt" "But everything, almost 99 percent of what we discover, is robbed" "This is unique, and this is rare, because of one thing:" "This is intact" "Beneath a limestone lid, they discover a sarcophagus" "This is wonderful" "The symbol of resurrection" "Under the glare of television lights they struggle to remove the heavy lid" "Have the contents inside decayed and rotted?" "They crane forward, peer inside and a gift from the first millennium B.C.: a mummy dressed in a shroud of bead work portraying the gods of the afterlife" "Hieroglyphs around the coffin tell a story from the final glory days of ancient Egypt." "Buried here is a nobleman, a member of the pharaoh's court" "His name was lufaa" "He is the director of the palace" "He was near to the king" "The king lives in the palace" "This is the man that is used everyday to know the throne is fine your majesty" "The ladies, or the wife, your main wife she's not coming today to see you" "You can meet this official today the dining room is set, wine is there we will make the party tonight" "That is the man that does all the arrangements at the palace" "He makes the palace life" "Hawass's explorations have given us a more detailed picture of the past of who we are and where we come from" "An explorer is someone's who trying to find answers to basic truths I think all of us want to know those answers" "Certainly, we want to know who we are and where we came from and where we're going" "And I think most people think about those questions but very few of them spend a career trying to find answers to those things" "For weeks," "Robert Ballard has been searching for history in the depths of the Mediterranean" "He has not been able to find the Roman ships he believes sank in these waters" "He cannot afford to fail" "A single expedition can cost millions of dollars" "Hold shipwreck" "Holy mackerel" "At last..." "Look at that!" "...3,666 feet beneath the waves... fragile amphora..." "jugs that held wine dried fish and olive oil" "Instead of finding the amphora sort of randomly scattered throughout this area they are, in fact, concentrated in very narrow lines one amphora after another, hundreds of them" "As Ballard and the captain of the NR-1 plot the find the final tragic moments for the Roman ship are revealed lt must have been caught in a fierce storm" "They began to off-load their cargo as fast as they could throwing the amphoras off one side of the ship and off of the other" "This is probably the width of the ship the separation between these two rows" "Two miles of amphoras were being thrown over the side until finally the ship went under and ultimately sank here" "Ballard deploys a scavenger sub named Jason to bring the 2,666-year-old artifacts to the surface" "Robert Ballard has proven that we can dive into the deepest oceans and resurrect the sunken stories of the past" "The key is that you plug away you slug away, you slug away and then there's this moment of discovery" "And it's so exhilarating lt's just the greatest natural high known to a human race" "And once you've experienced that you want to experience it again" "There is so much of the planet that's unexplored that I can't imagine we're going to be out of work anytime soon" "Exploration really has that element of discovering something new" "You make it a discipline to observe to document, to record what you see" "The old style of explorer it was about conquering something about, you know, putting your flag on it about getting control, to be the master of I think the real difference between adventure and exploration is that exploration is adventure with a purpose" "Michael Davie is just starting to explore our world ln 1997, at the age of 22 he trekked from Cape Town," "South Africa, to Cairo Egypt a 5,666-mile journey that took him seven months" "Davie uses a video camera to explore more than geography he explores culture and people" "His journey epitomizes the explorer within us all" "Do you think life here in Botswana is difficult?" "Yes" "Why?" "There are no jobs" "But your future, does your future look good?" "Yes, I think so" "Peter Pan was my hero, you know I wanted to live a Peter Pan existence I wanted to fly away to Never-Never Land and run wild with the Lost Boys I think it's every kid's dream to get out there" "and bash his way through the jungle and have wild adventures and extreme encounters and get himself into as much trouble as possible" "And now I get paid to do that which is the greatest privilege of my life" "Man, this place is just amazing, just amazing" "An explorer is somebody who has to look deeper into things than things were looked into before lt's about going into territory which geographically has been explored before but emotionally perhaps has not" "Mozambique at last I just hope I don't step on any land mines" "Red danger sign" "Danger!" "Mines!" "What kind of damage could a mine like this do?" "Take off a lower leg or take off a limb lt's primarily a weapon that's designed to maim rather than kill, although there's every chance in the world that it would kill a small child or an elderly person" "One of the most inspiring people I've ever met in my life was a five-year-old girl named Isabel" "She was a land mine victim living in Mozambique" "And I think I forgot that I had the camera in my hand and suddenly I was looking at a five-year-old girl fighting to learn to walk again" "That was an incredibly potent and emotional moment for me and I don't think it's one that I will ever forget" "When I turned 21, my parents and I were on a camping trip and we were sitting around the campfire" "And we decided to count the number of times we'd moved in my 21 years" "And we had moved home 3, times" "And at that point I realized that although I wanted to become an explorer of some kind I had already spent my entire life doing that" "Danger certainly adds an element of spice to what I do and I love that I love the sense that there's something at stake" "Today is a hell of a lot tougher than yesterday was and it's been quite scary, actually" "We've been surrounded by a forest fire I need the adrenaline, yeah, I mean otherwise I'd still be at law school studying contracts" "Hello" "What's the problem?" "I don't have to quote this camera I know my rights I think the first time I got into real trouble I wasn't enjoying it all I was absolutely terrified" "But once I saw myself get through that situation I think that's probably when the addiction kicked in" "Okay, well you don't have to hassle me all the time I know I'm foolish and I know I'm reckless sometimes" "But, you know there is a certain amount of appeal in riding that edge" "You can't really understand life or appreciate it or understand it or the scope of it until you've flirted with death a little but understood the other side" "Exploration is often a solitary venture a journey to understand yourself and your place in the world" "Heidi Howkins craves dangerous places" "For her, risking death on a thin cornice of snow is how she explores life" "Who could have guessed that this little girl would grow up to be a high altitude mountaineer?" "There was one influence in her life that might have given you a clue?" "her father" "She describes him as an eccentric fitness fanatic" "He passed along his passion for ultra-long distance races" "But Howkins quickly got bored" "She wanted something more" "For me, those are just physical challenges" "They're not mental challenges" "Yes, sure, you get to the point where to continue running after 24 hours you've got to have some kind of mental urge" "But it's, there's no danger" "There's no risks, there's no fears" "But risk and fear are at the core of mountaineering" "While an earlier generation of climbers would have been satisfied with conquering one world-class peak in a year" "Howkins hopes to conquer two?" "XEverest and K2 without the aid of supplemental oxygen lt really doesn't matter that I'm female when I'm up there" "What matters is that I'm a good climber" "And that's a great feeling" "That's something that definitely gives me a charge lt'd be nice to share that with other women lt's just that there aren't that many of us" "My legs are saying, "No more up!"" "Howkins knows all too well that once she sets foot on a mountain she puts her life in peril" "While climbing Kanchenjunga in 1997 she was struck by a massive avalanche" "Although buried in deep snow she found the strength to claw her way to the surface" "ln 1998, her expedition was hit by another avalanche" "The slabs of snow missed her but she was helpless as members of her team were swept away" "Two were killed" "Despite the danger" "Howkins returns year after year to these mountains" "You have to confront your own mortality like that every day on an expedition if not every hour, or every minute lt becomes something that you know sort of like your fingers and your toes" "You're certain that it's there and you're fully aware of it" "You're catapulted into a totally different realm when you're facing that fear that terror, that mystery, the unknown" "Why do climbers like Howkins scour the earth for extreme vertical places?" "Why do they eagerly seek out life on the edge?" "Why do I do this if it's so cold and so uncomfortable and scary?" "Because I don't want life to be easy" "You know, I find greater meaning in my life when I go out and struggle to get something I want" "On Baffin Island, 366 miles north of the Arctic Circle there is a wall of granite more than twice as high as the Empire State building lt's not the world's highest, it's hardly even famous" "But no one has climbed it" "For four world class climbers that's an irresistible challenge I think, to me personally true adventure requires an uncertain outcome lt's gotta have this big question mark hanging over it lt's probably the hardest piece of big wall" "climbing that I've done" "Maybe that's what it's all about pushing yourself so far out there that you can't really turn around" "You have to keep going" "Basically, a trip like this is a journey lt's a journey of exploration into a beautiful wilderness like Baffin Island I don't have a death wish, I have a life wish" "And these trips bring you closer to life than anything I can imagine" "Howkins's journey is becoming increasingly difficult" "She is approaching the death zone" "Above 2,666 feet the air is so thin that the brain is deprived of oxygen lt becomes hard to think straight" "Every fiber in your body is telling you to stop to sit down, to die, essentially" "You've moved beyond your survival instinct" "There has to be something beyond reason that's pushing you to continue moving especially to continue climbing up" "Howkins isn't the first woman to try climbing both Everest and K2 in a single year ln 1995," "Alison Hargreaves had successfully climbed Everest and had reached the summit of K2" "But on her descent she was caught in a storm and died on the mountain" "Howkins herself is in trouble illness and weather stop her ascent" "I can't describe how I really feel right now without using four-letter words I mean, I'm like, I've got a fever I'm sitting at 21,666 feet I slept for about one hour last night and the other 11 hours" "I hacked up all kinds of lung gunk I've got bronchitis or something" "She is forced to admit defeat give up the summit, and descend" "To deny that the summit is important isn't what I'm trying to do lt's just that it's not as important as the way in which I climb" "The journey that happens on the way to the summit is more important lt sounds cliche, but it's true lt's not whether you reach the summit, it's how lt's not what you do it's how you do it that matters" "The best explorers are always imagining the next journey, the next goal" "But what are the personal costs of such relentless?" "I'm on the road a lot lt's very difficult to develop roots to put out roots in any one community because I'm not here for enough of the year to really get to know people I regret that I didn't have more time" "with my children when they were young because I chose to go out on expedition" "The negative side is obviously being away from home l love my family" "And I love land I think the most important thing I've learned about exploring the ocean is how much I love land" "You know, I have absolutely no regrets about it" "Whatever one might conventionally see as a sacrifice is not a sacrifice and that it really entails not seeking out security above all else I think my biggest sacrifices are the fact that I'm going to die real young because I've just been worn out" "from these tropical diseases" "That's my biggest sacrifice" "The Llanos, wild heart of Venezuela" "For the early explorers who dared enter this untamed place no creature loomed larger than South America's giant serpent..." "Look out, Jimmy!" "Hold the head, hold it!" "Explorers spun tales of 166-foot monsters intent on human flesh" "Jim is black in the face, almost done for" "Exploration now is very different than it used to be" "Early explorers would go and conquering things conquering people, many times even destroying the things that they were exploring" "Exploration now has a much more respectful meaning and taste to it" "A barefoot explorer," "Jesus Rivas is hunting the anaconda not for sport, but to understand this mysterious beast" "Rivas explores a dangerous landscape for the anaconda rules this swamp with lethal efficiency lt's meal of choice is the capybara a giant rodent that can weigh in at over 146 pounds" "The snake kills with power, not poison lt wraps its coils so tightly around the capybara that the animal cannot breathe so tightly that its blood can no longer circulate" "It will take the snake six hours to ingest this meal" "The anaconda is strong enough to overwhelm and kill a person" "Rivas, however, is obsessed with getting as close as he can to these creatures" "There's no telling how many hours of fruitless sun I got on my head and after six, eight hours looking for a snake in the swamp and nothing happens" "But if you're stubborn enough and if you go for it and you try and try and eventually you accomplish it" "The time comes when you step on something and your foot bounces back and there's this big animal underneath you" "Hurry, hurry" "Are you losing your grip?" "ln a second, I will" "Oh, it's a big mama" "Come here and get a better grip lt is a wonderful animal lt is an animal that, if anything has to inspire admiration and awe more than any other thing" "Godzilla!" "?" "We are having a ball, aren't we?" "Rivas and his wife, biologist Rene Owens have captured and studied more than 866 snakes" "Their exploration funded in part by the National Geographic Society is a first" "People ask me why it has not been studied before" "And the reason is that I don't think anybody thought it was possible" "You can't find them, they are too hard to get around we can't subdue them they are a very hard animal to study and that is why they haven't been studied" "Wait, wait, wait here" "To crack the code of this strange beast" "Rivas searches for breeding balls massive coils of mating snakes" "He plants radio transmitters to track potential mothers" "Ever since I was a kid, I always loved the wild I had this urge of going out into the wild into the forest, into the sea, into the ocean into whatever was a good natural habitat" "Oh, you want to kiss me, don't you?" "I'm not your lover" "My mother, when I was a kid, called, had this word for me lt was "pata caliente" which means hot feet because she couldn't stop me from going out and looking for interesting things to do" "Okay, I'm gonna pull the whole thing to see what's going on" "Rivas and Owens have struck anaconda gold a breeding ball" "This is their Everest, their North Pole" "To reproduce, as many as a dozen male anacondas will wrap themselves around a single female" "Rivas and Owens have just begun to unravel the secrets of this communal mating ritual" "The first time I laid hands on an anaconda it was a large female next to a bridge it was a massive animal" "When I put my hands around it and couldn't grip it my fingers could feel just pure muscle lt was unbelievable lt was the thing that really hooked me about the animal" "Nice female lt's beautiful" "Look at those colors" "Out there, somewhere in the swamp" "Rivas believes there are giant anacondas beasts of monstrous proportions" "He dreams of discovering such a serpent one day I've thought a lot about what to do if I found this animal that is too big for me to catch but is too big for me to let it go" "I don't know what I'll do lt will be some tough fight I don't know who's gonna win" "They're all my family" "Rivas is following in the footsteps of a noble tradition of naturalist as explorer people like Charles Darwin who set sail to the Galapagos Islands and saw birds in a whole new way" "He returned to England with the theory of evolution or Jane Goodall who lived for decades in the African wilderness and with a patient gaze explored the world and the mind of the chimpanzee" "She has revolutionized our understanding of animals" "She witnessed chimps doing things no one had seen before like making tools" "Her explorations have shown us how closely connected we are to the natural world" "Since Goodall began her studies 46 years ago the world's population has nearly doubled" "Blink and wild habitat vanishes" "Explorers, like herpetologist Brady Barr must act as emergency room surgeons and move quickly to save endangered species" "I would give anything to go back in time and see what the planet was like when it was more in balance before there were so many humans on the planet" "Something's wrong with the Everglades lt's an ecosystem in peril lt's dying" "And the alligator is a crucial component in that ecosystem" "ln the Everglades, the 'gators breed less frequently their growth is stunted" "To find out why he's exploring the belly of the beast, literally" "You have to know what's important in the alligator's diet before you can get a handle on the bigger picture you know, what's really happening with these alligators out here" "To investigate their culinary habits" "Brady must first find and catch one of these swamp dwellers?" "Xno easy task" "Scary situations are just part of the job just the nature of the situation and what I do and where l go lf you're gonna work on something that can eat you or bite you and kill you I mean that's just" "there's no way to get away from the danger lt's just a part of the business" "Right there!" "Okay, try to keep the light right on it I'm gonna try to move up to it" "Oh yeah, I got him, I got him" "See that?" "Okay, now are you ready to give it a try?" "Now, when I tell you to move move fast" "Okay!" "It's always a little nerve-racking to tape the jaws up" "This alligator's not that big l've always been fascinated with alligators even as a small child" "But I grew up in the cornfields of southern Indiana" "There weren't many alligators there I went to graduate school in south Florida where there were a lot of alligators" "And I saw these large carnivores living in close contact with humans" "His explorations are proving that this close contact is toxic for the alligator" "Alligators in the Everglades grow very, very slowly" "A seven-foot animal 166 miles north of here on Lake Okechobee might be eight years old" "A seven-foot alligator here in the Everglades this alligator?" "might be 26 years old" "Maybe it's mercury poisoning maybe it's quality of the diet" "That's what we're looking into" "Maybe it's pollution" "Changes in hydrology have changed what the alligator is eating lt's a complicated picture and, you know hopefully we'll shed a little light on it with this stomach content data" "We're going to put this garden hose into the mouth of the alligator down into the stomach fill it with water and then May Lynn's going to give it the Heimlich maneuver just like a choking person" "Hit it hard." "Everything you got l'm gonna pull the hose this time" "One, two, three?" "Xgo!" "I didn't feel anything come out" "Look at this" "There's a seven-foot alligator and here's the contents of its stomach" "One snail with the tissue still attached" "And here is two, three remains of four snails" "Before we started this research people said, "Oh, alligators eat birds and fish and you know, pull down deer."" "We're finding they eat a lot of snakes and believe it or not, they also eat snails" "That's how these alligators are making a living out here in the Everglades lt's a tough place to live lf l was an alligator I wouldn't want to live in the Everglades" "Paul Sereno is famous one of the most famous bone hunters in the world" "Just 41 years old he's already made more significant discoveries than most paleontologists make in a lifetime" "Time and again" "Sereno has headed out into the unknown and come back with the bones of dinosaurs that no one has seen before" "For Sereno, 1,666 years is a blip in time" "His finds allow us to imagine history on a geological scale history that is more than 166 million years old" "How many chances do you have to make a mark in the world to change the way we look at a continent the way the world was 136 million years ago" "With one expedition we really have the chance" "And the only way that we can do that is really, by performing beyond what we think we can do" "This time Sereno is on an expedition deep into the Sahara lt's a harsh landscape" "Sand storms, relentless heat and gun-toting bandits will make the next four months a brutal experience" "Paleontology often finds the most remote places because they are places that are raw earth places difficult to live in places often unexplored" "And the more unexplored the better the better chance you have of finding something that nobody's ever seen before" "Just getting to the fossil beds is a grueling cross-country road trip" "The journey is not just arduous it's potentially lethal" "A civil war in this area ended recently" "Travelers were killed on this road the week before I have told you that we might require an armed guard before we left I didn't know the details of it I didn't know what happened last week" "That was in the future then" "We have items that people want items that they have killed people for lt's a personal risk going out there" "There's no question about it lf something happens or if people feel that whatever their obligations are whatever their personal feelings are that they've reached that point and want to go back I don't blame anybody for that circumstance" "I will help you leave, you know, in a timely fashion lt's the classic explorer's dilemma:" "How much are you willing to risk to achieve your goal?" "Are you willing to risk your life?" "Although the team will need armed guards no one abandons the expedition no one wants to pass up the chance of making a major find" "After five days and 14 flat tires they finally reach their destination" "Okay, show me the money" "Where're the bones?" "Although the world Sereno explores vanished millions of years ago it still lives in his imagination" "You've got to look at something that doesn't look like a lake and imagine back to what it was like as a lake" "What this little fragment here is telling you is that there were fish there" "There were trees" "This was an area where there was a chance that your prize possession a dinosaur or a crocodile or whatever you're looking for could have gotten buried there" "I think I inspire in part by example in the field I wouldn't ask anybody to do anything that I wouldn't be doing myself I can take the heat so I'll work right through the middle of the day" "at 126 degrees out on the site the bone actually reaching 156 degrees really, really hot" "I really find that exploring back in time is one of the most fulfilling things because it forces you to imagine" "And at first, imagination sounds unscientific" "After all, we're observers of hard evidence" "But, in fact, imagination is what I think is the essence of science" "Dig by dig, explorers like Sereno have transformed pure imagination into scientific fact" "The team has been working 14-hour days in heat often over 126 degrees" "And beneath tons of rock...a revelation." "We have a couple of skeletons mixed at this site" "That's a conclusion we've drawn after a lot of work" "What we discovered when we first started peeling back the mound here is the hip region and back bone of a very large sauropod" "Here's the vertebrae here" "Sereno thinks the animals were the victims of a huge flood" "The surging water piled their multi-ton bodies in a stack and the river sediment buried their bones" "Although the sauropods are a significant find, sereno is not satisfied" "He sets out deeper into the desert in search of more bones" "Go this way?" "Okay, go this way." "As hard-working and focussed as he is now it wasn't always the case" "As a child, he broke school windows with rocks and even tried to derail trains" "The one thing that kept him on track was bones" "He's been fascinated with them since childhood" "At the new site, the team can't contain their excitement" "There are bones everywhere" "We've got an aranosaurus" "We got therasaur" "You've got a sauropod, and a therapod" "Five minutes" "They can leave their pick axes in the truck" "Fossils are scattered around on the surface of the desert" "No one has been here to scavenge the bones" "Wow!" "Look at those ribs!" "Beautiful!" "Bone by bone they uncover a predator some kind of high-spined dinosaur with a toothy jaw" "Yeah, this is a piece of aranosaurus" "And then Sereno and his team make another stunning discovery" "Wow, this is great, Dave" "That's a big ass claw!" "It's a foot-long thumb claw just laying there on the surface" "Anybody would have stopped to pick it up but no one was there" "That's a particularly exciting moment sort of a chilling feeling that reveals that there are many many places on the surface of the earth that have not been investigated" "And it's just the beginning" "Bones of the animal have been preserved in the sand and rock" "Sereno thinks they have discovered a new species of spinosaur" "Not until they haul over four tons of bones back to the lab will they know for sure" "The expedition is over but the journey of discovery has just begun" "Over the next year in this basement laboratory at the University of Chicago" "Sereno's team will painstakingly reconstruct the animal I had a vision of something I would like, I think to see this animal down low up front as if it were almost fishing with its hand you know, with the claws ready to grab something" "?" "Xjust like you say, to some extent interacting with something it's looking, it's ready to go after something" "We are literally resurrecting a world that once existed 136 million years ago" "When we set foot in Africa, in the desert there wasn't one skeleton or skull that was known well enough to reconstruct from the whole Cretaceous period" "That's the last half of dinosaur evolution" "We now can stand among six or seven of our recreations" "Wow!" "That is really big" "For the first time in 166 million years the spinosaur stands lt gives the public a sense of a lost world a time without humans, something that's foreign, strange... a time when there were animals that weren't like us" "where we didn't influence and control the world like we do today" "That's critical, I think for understanding and also preserving our future" "The beast is 11 feet tall" "And from the tip of its tail to its fang-filled snout it measures more than 36 feet" "I think there is a point in an expedition when you feel like" ""We've done it!"" "Unconsciously, you realize there's tension that's gone a tension that drove you to spend months organizing and energizing a team to be able to accomplish that" "But there is a thrilling point when you say" ""We've done it again,"" "and you can walk out thinking we have made a difference ln the face of such discoveries how can we say that exploration is finished that it has all been done?" "There are places on the planet that we still haven't seen" "There are ocean depths we haven't been to" "There are species yet to be discovered" "And there's always something new on the horizon" "We can never know everything" "To be an explorer today is to face the greatest era of exploration ever lt's just beginning" "We're just beginning to open the doors to see how many more there are out there I think the ultimate goal really is not to ever fall into some false complacency and think that we've made whatever discoveries there are to be made and that we" "our whole life, continue to be this sense of informed by this spirit of discovery and exploration" "On the cusp of a new millennium we can pause and look back at what we have accomplished" "Exploration has remade how we see our planet" "But true explorers will never be satisfied with what they see now" "They will continue to rush head-long into the future ...pushing the limits of mind and body whether they are diving into the deepest oceans" "uncovering artifacts of antiquity or saving the habitats of endangered species" "Our limits will become the next generation's triumphs" "One of these children might walk on the surface of Mars" "Another might explore and solve the riddle of human consciousness" "The only guarantee is that in every generation there will be a daring few who continue to dream to be restless, and who are willing to risk it all to explore the unknown" "It began here in ireland at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast." "Three thousand men would labor here for more than 2 years." "They were building a monster the largest ship the world had ever seen." "In the spring of 1969 a mountain of steel began to rise against the sky." "The ship would weigh,666 tons her hull would span 4 city blocks, each of her colossal steam engines was the size of a 3-story house." "The huge scale of these things was a source of delight." "It was a scene out of Gulliver's Travels when 26 draft horses were needed to haul the ship's anchor through the streets of Belfast." "Some few observers found this giant threatening and wrote of her nightmare scale." "But their forebodings fell short of the event, for the fate of this ship still fascinates the world and her name is a synonym for tragedy." "In 1916 the huge ship taking shape in Belfast was a supreme wonder in world accustomed to miracles." "Every day it seemed something bigger or better was invented." "Never had so many people been so prosperous, never had they taken such delight in showing off so this was called, "The Gildde Age."" "This was a time when horses still got most people around." "But things were rapidly changing thanks to the machines of a new age everything from rubber bands to radios from lightbuibs to automobiles." "Progress and prosperity money and machines, almost anything seemed possible and often it was." "May 31st, 1911, the Roual Mail Ship Titanic, slipped gracefully into Belfast harbor." "It was the largest moving object ever made by man." "The Titanic was designed for the rich passenger trade on the North Atlantic." "It was not only the biggest ocean liner it was by far the most luxurious." "Aboard Titanic it was hard to remember that this was indeed a ship." "Advertising the delights it offered the White Star Line called Titanic," ""a floating palace."" "So confident were Titanic's builders that her trial vouage lasted just 8 hours." "Almost as an afterthought she was said to be, "unsinkable."" "On April 16th, 1912, Titanic's maiden vouage began." "With their maids valets and chauffeurs their mountains of baggage the rich traveled in a style almost unknown today." "In an age that worshipped wealth the 325 first class passengers were an awesome assembly." "Titanic was like a time capsule laden with the splendors of the gilded Age." "In 1912 these films were shown in theaters to a public eager for any glimpse of Titanic in fact, this is actually Titanic's smaller sister ship the Olympic." "But the excitement and spectacle were true to the event and many people couldn't tell the difference." "Titanic sailed from Southampton at noon, she was expected to reach New York just 7days, with 2,228 people aboard her." "There are a few authentic pictures taken aboard Titanic on her first and last voyage." "A vacationing priest Father Francis Brown, caught these poignant snapshots of his fellow passengers." "Most of them on a voyage to eternity." "The next day Titanic made her last stop pausing off the coast at Queenstown, Ireland." "Here tenders brought out the last passengers, mostly Irish immigrants headed for new homes in America," "and here the lucky Father Brown disembarked, taking these pictures on his way." "Father Brown caught Captain Smith peering down from Titanic's bridge poised on the brink of destiny." "Then Titanic sailed into the twilight zone of legend she would not be photographed again for 73 years, vanished in all but human memory." "The event of Titanic's last hours have not faded with the passage of time." "The tragedy irony and sheer terror of this night still seize the imagination." "A British film, made in 1929 was one of the first of many Titanic movies:" "Full ahead." "Full ahead, sir." "Despite radioed warnings, Titanic struck an iceberg." "She carried only enough lifeboats for about 1.266 people and not even that many were saved." "In 198, a new chapter in the Titanic's story began." "The men and machines involved did not even exist when Titanic went down." "From the Woods Hole Oceanographic institution came the research submarine Alvin and Dr. Robert Ballard a geologist and undersea explorer." "For decades Ballard had dreamed of being the man to explore the Titanic wreck." "Now, if all goes well he may succeed within a few days." "On July 9th, Ballard's expedition backed by the U.S. Navy and drawing on proven underwater technology puts to sea from Woods Hole." "One seven five." "One seven five." "The research vessel, Atlantis II heads for Titanic's resting place about 1,666 miles due east." "A rare alchemy of talent desire and circumstance, has led Ballard to this adventure." "Many led Ballard to this adventure." "Many have called it foolish and at any rate, impossible, it's been a hard sell." "No one person, no one organization on one shared my dream." "There was pieces of it the technology part, the ship part, the submarine part." "It's very much like Cinderella going to the ball." "So I had to go around and get the shoes from somebody and the dress from somebody and the coach and the coachman and then I knew everything by midnight," "I'd turn back into a big pumpkin so I had a sense of urgency to get it done before I ran out of time." "The year before a joint French American expedition with Ballard as co-leader sought to locate Titanic." "A 156 square mile area was searched by sonar devices and remote TV cameras towed along the bottom over 2 miles down." "But Titanic and not lie where she was thought to be." "TV pictures revealed only a monotonous plain of sediment sometimes enlivened by a sluggish fish or empty beer bottle." "Days of futile search dragged on." "It is 1 a.m., September 1st, 1985." "the search has been going on for 5, days." "#1:" "Wreckage." "Bingo." "Yeah!" "#2:" "Somebody ought to go get Bob." "#3:" "Bob's gone love this." "#4:" "This is it!" "Look at that thing." "All:" "Oh, alright!" "Yahoo!" "#1:" "What is it?" "#2:" "I don't know but it's manmade." "#3:" "There's more stuff coming." "#4:" "It's the boiler!" "#1:" "Yes, yes, that's fantastic!" "#1:" "I'll be goddam." "The sucker exists!" "Gooddam!" "#2:" "Has Cathy got the champagne?" "There was an immediate outpouring of excitement a bunch of kids yelling and screaming and jumping up and down, very unprofessional." "And then the whole force of actually being at the very spot where this tragedy had taken place and seeing the ship, it was very... everyone just cracked." "Emotionally everyone just went down into a big trough." "And we had a simple quiet service on the fantail." "We felt better and it was that time realized that" "I was deeply affected by it." "When we came back I wouldn't talk about the Titanic for 4 months." "I just wouldn't talk about it with anybody." "I just went and hid." "But Ballard's Woods Hole laboratory soon recaptured the thrill of discovery." "Reviewing pictures taken by remote cameras," "Ballard was eager to get a closer look." "Ballard was confident that the submarine Alvin couldn reach the wreck and the U.S. Navy agreed to sponsor an expedition." "They say the name of the ship is on one of the capstans." "Oh, it is?" "On the top, yeah." "It should be visible." "We'll have to go and take a look." "A tiny TV camera serves as the single eye of Jason Jr., a robot submarine developed for the navy in Ballard's lab." "Jason is ideal for exploring wrecks;" "getting TV pictures in places too confined and dangerous for manned submarines." "Preparing for the Titanic expedition Jason and his operator, Martin Bowen, go into intensive training." "Jason is powered by 4 electric motors." "He can venture as far as 266 feet away from Alvin, the manned submarine." "Jason is much like a dog on a long leash, moving on commands from his master." "Here in the lab it's easy to navigate but deep on the Titanic wreck, in pitch darkness it will be another matter." "Often Martin's only viewpoint will be Jason's electronic eye." "Now some 11months after Ballard discovered Titanic's resting place he is returning aboard Atlantis II." "It's clear by now that no one knew Titanic's precise location when she sank." "This original confusion explains why the wreck was so difficult to locate." "There are no landmarks the coast of Nova Scotia is some 356 miles away." "The sea tolerates no gravestones or monuments only the knowledge of what lies 2 1/2 miles below gives this place identity." "When you're out at sea it's just a big, monstrousthing." "It has no dimensions." "You tend to wander around in the ocean and not feel that you're any where at any on time." "Then when you find the Titanic it rivets you to that one spot." "You know exactly where you are and you know exactly what took place right where you are and that's eerie." "You want to see lifeboats or people in the water that you can take drowned right around you." "Yeah, you hear them, you feel it." "Very much so." "The grey down of April 15th,1912 revealed a scattered fleet of life boats." "Hundreds of bodies floated in the surrounding waters." "The boats contained just 765 survivors." "Aboard the liner Carpathia amazed passengers took these snapshots as the survivors were rescued." "Her compliment of passengers doubled Carpathia raced for New York." "Everything was quiet calm and orderly." "It was too soon to explain and too late to cry." "Tragically rumors and confusion kept hope alive that others might have been saved by other ships." "Slowiy, as fragmented and conflicting radio reports came in the world began to realize what had happened overnight." "In London, silent crowds gathered at the offices of the White Star Line" "Here many of Titanic's passengers had bought their tickets and here a precious few were reported alive." "In Liverpool, homeport of Titanic the streets were full of dazed and grief-stricken families begging for news and reeling in shock when it came." "In New York wild rumors circulated one paper reported Titanic still afloat and everyone safe." "Anxious and incredulous crowds gathered in front of newspapers and offices of White Star." "Suspense and uncertainty grew for 4 days." "Finally, on the evening of April 18th, Carpathia arrived at last." "Then as night fell there followed a chilling pantomime which brought home the full impact of what had happened." "In the glare of photographers flashlights survivors lined Carpathia's rails but as thousands waited Carpathia first unloaded Titanic's lifeboats." "Seeing finally was believing 13 small boats, all that remained of the greatest ocean liner in the world." "By the next day survivors had dispersed." "Frustrated newsreel cameramen were left to film mere boys, young stewards who clowned and laughed even as the rest of the world mourned." "There remained the task of bringing in bodies only some 366 were found out of 1,523 people lost." "In fear and superstition" "Many ships avoided these waters for years afterward." "Brought ashore at Halifax some victims were claimed and shipped home" "For others the maiden voyage of Titanic ended here in Canada just a few miles from the North Atlanic shore." "Today these graves still are tended at the expense of the shipping line which took over from the owners of Titanic." "The disaster is memorialized like a great battle which changed the course of history." "But what was the meaning of it all?" "It caused only an instant's hesitation in the march of technology." "But, somehow, Titanic made people think and they are thinking still." "Every 5 years the valiant dwindling band of Titanic survivors is invited to attend a convention of the Titanic Historical Society." "Thank you very much." "You look pretty good." "Thank you." "There are only about 24 known survivors alive today." "But the number of people interested in Titanic is growing and this fascination reached a fever pitch when the wreck of Titanic was found." "July 13th, 198,." "The first attempt to reach Titanic by submarine is planned for this morning." "Bob Ballard and 2 companions will ride to the bottom in the research submarine, Alvin." "In his enthusiasm Bob Ballard has perhaps made things seem too easy." "This morning he has many promises to keep." "The crew compartment of Alvin is a sealed, 7-foot, titanium sphere jammed with equipment and 3 uncomfortable humans." "Alvin is a tried and trusted design." "It has mapped underwea mountains located a lost H-bomb, and now is poised over the most celebrated shipwreck of modern times." "Once launched Alvin is independent of its mothership." "The crew can communicate with the surface, but in the deep they are so far from help, they might as well be on the moon." "To conserve electrical power Alvin will fall to the ocean bottom only as fast as gravity allows." "The slow plunge will take 2 1/2 hours a time of tedium and growing suspense." "Alvin, this is A-two, over." "Go ahead." "Roger." "Ralph we have the tracking running well and the bow section should be a range of about 866 meters, bearing two three zero degrees, over" "Ballard reports that Alvin's batteries are leaking and its sonar system has failed." "He must rely on imprecise directions from above and he cannot stay down much longer." "Alvin, this is A-two." "According to tracking you just drove over the forward section." "Suggest you come to course 286 and travel for 266-366 meters, over." "I can't believe they can't see it." "I can't believe they cannot see it." "They can only see 36 or 36 feet." "It's...... of water." "Atlantis Il, Atlantis II this is Alvin." "We are at the Titanic, over." "Roger, Alvin, we understand you found the Titanic, over." "Roger, we're sitting at the base it appears be near the stern or the midsection." "We are deciding what to do next because we're running low on power." "No sooner is Titanic found than the dive must be abandoned." "It takes another 2 1/2 hours for Ballard to regain the surface." "We had problems with the submarine so we had to abort the dive and immediately head up." "So I saw it for 16 seconds and that was it." "So, well have to go back and do it tomorrow." "What happens next?" "Well, they're gonna be up all night." "They've got a sick puppy and they got to fix it, and it's gonna take them all night." "Alvin is quickly repaired but the mood next morning is uncertain." "Everyone has been reminded that technical problems, bad weather, or a combination of both could terminate the expedition." "This time everything goes according to plean" "Titanic, no longer lost, no longer legend." "There are people aboard the great ship once again after 74 dark and silent years." "Now, like astronauts newly arrived on a distant planet" "Alvin's crew is learning something new every second." "A disappointment;" "Titanic's decks thought to be intact have been consumed by wood-boring organisms." "What speared to be planks turns out to be ridges of caulking." "A revelation; standing all alone is the bronze peaestal where Titanic's wheel was mounted." "It gleams as if brand new." "What we thought was organic growth appears to be rust." "The ship looks like it's bleeding steel and it's rusting down its entire side." "All over it's draped in rust." "It's formed a river and little veins that flow down the side and out onto the sediment." "All right, let's terminate conversation." "We are losing our light energy and we'll see you on the surface, over" "On the return to the surface a near disaster the robot submarine Jason, is dislodged from its garage on the front of Alvin and almost lost." "Only quick word by divers saves the million dollar robot." "Well, that's one way to come home Jason-swimming." "That's right." "Repairs will go on all night as Ballard reports what he's seen and prepares for tomorrow's dive." "We come in on the debris field, right through here." "Titanic is a frightening place to explore." "Everywhere there are wires, rails and tubing which could trap." "Coming in along the mud line toward the ship should be fairly safe." "But the robot, Jason can get close to such hazards and venture inside the wreck without risking human lives." "Alvin's crew is skeptical about robots in general and Jason in particular." "But, Ballard ignores today's problems and plans to send" "Jason deep into Titanic's interior on the next dive." "The funnels are all gone." "We've never even seen one in the debris field." "The idea is to bring Alvin down in a vertical sense and land at certain places." "Naturally we'd like to enter the bridge and we'd like to go down the staircase and there's a nice landing pad right here." "That staircase goes down many many flights so it would be a question of how deep you wanted to go in." "But certainly at least 2 to 3 decks in" "On succeeding dives special cameras aboard Alvin pierce the darkness and reveal spectacular aerial views of the wreck;" "traveling aft, passing over the cargo holds and cranes... the bridge area where the wheel pedestal stands alone" "the hole where the first funnel once stood big enough to admit a locomotive." "Now on the third dive Alvin makes a landing at the edge of Titanic's grand staircase." "Make sure that that lip won't jam J. J so he can't get out." "Don't get too close." "Right." "Jason is launched with Martin Bowen at the controls." "Go forward." "Tethering out." "I'll be taking shots periodically." "Further out." "That lip is right in front of me." "Yeah okay." "If you can just head out over the edge" "Like a frightened puppy Jason seems to want to dive back into his garage and go home." "Gaining control and confidence Bowen sends Jason down into the grand staircase." "Seventy for years have taken their toll this is what Jason's camera sees this is what once was." "Seem-ingly there's nothing recognizable here but, then, pillars define a room." "One of these light fixtures still hangs from the ceiling suspended both in space and time." "The elaborate ornamental clock is gone leaving only its outline on the wall." "Jason bumps into something causing an avalanche of rust." "Alarmed, Ballard and Martin Bowen decide to withdraw." "Keep knocking that rust off." "Yeah" "Now, 2 miles down Jason salutes his creator." "For man and machine it's a moment of eerie victory." "In further tests" "Jason skims over the wreck like an inquisitive humming-bird." "He can move more safely and quickly than Alvin and get in close to capture small details." "Something door for use..." "This door for bridge..." "This door for use of crew only." "Napier Brothers Company Engineers, Glasgow." "Napier Brothers Limimted." "Some parts of the ship seem almost new paint still clings to these window frames handles and hinges still turn, and the awesome steel anchors still hang from Titanic's bow." "Soon Baliard's work for the Navy may produce robots so sophisticated everything can be seen and controlled from the surface." "On some jobs manned submarines like Alvin may not be needed." "The success of Jason on Titanic is a major step toward that goal." "Bring it around A little more, there we go." "Okay, if we want to drop weights I'm happy." "Okay." "Success." "God, that was not easy." "In one spectacular dive Robert Ballard and Martin Bowen have accomplished all their major objec-tives." "We had a chandalier right there!" "We were taking pictures, of it." "We went dancing in the ballroom." "Now for 9 days Atlantis gather information on Titanic" "Deployed each night, an unmanned instrument package captures some 57,666 photos of the wreck site." "I want to go through regions, not specific targets." "There's only a couple targets left." "Ballard and his colleague Dr. Elizar Yuchupe, begin to create a detailed map of Titanic's remains." "That's it There's nothing else but that." "It reveals new information and sometimes contradicts accepted accounts of the disaster." "That's right down here, you see that's where it would be." "So south of the..." "South of the wine bottles." "Most strikingly the wreck lies in 2 major sections, 1,866 feet apart." "This supports some eye witnesses who said the ship broke in 2 as it went down." "Between the 2 sections of the wreck lies a vast field of debris and scattered throughout the wreckage are many common place objects;" "a bottle of champagne still corked and a cup, sitting on a 57 ton boiler where it gently came to rest 74 years ago." "Ballard brought nothing up from Titanic and had vowed not to interfere with the wreck." "But that was before Alvin came upon the assistant purser's safe" "The handle turns but the door won't open." "At any rate, experts say it was emptied by the crew before Titanic went down." "As the wreck is explored the Titanic story is relived and in some cases revised to suit new evidence." "It is 11:46 p.m., April 14th, 1912." "From the crow's nest an iceberg is spotted dead ahead by lookout, Fredrick Fleet." "Fleet immediately rings on alarm bell and calls the bridge where the First Officer William Murdoch, orders the wheel," ""Hard a starboard," and the engines, "Full astern."" "Titanic grazes the ice, possibly causing only a few crumpled hull plates but enough to tell Captain Edward Smith that his ship is doomed." "Captain Smith personally walks back from the bridge to the radio room where, soon after midnight the first distress call is sent." "Radio is its infancy and the newly adopted signal, S.O.S." "is a novelty to operator jack Phillips." "Orders are given that women and children must board lifeboats." "Near the boats some first class passengers gather here in the gymnasium." "One is multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, on an extended honeymoon with his young second wife, Madeline." "Astor's wife boards a lifeboat here, on Titanic's port side." "But an officer refuses Astor and so, he meekly chooses to stand aside, and die." "Few yet realize that because of inadequate laws there are only enough boats for half the people aboard." "Distress rockets are fired from the starboard wing of the bridge." "To the north there is a ship, the British steamer, Califarnion" "Titanic's rockets are reported to her captain," "Stanley Lord, but he does nothing goes back to sleep and will spend the rest of his life trying to explain." "Many lifeboats are still being lowered half empty." "Few understand that Titanic is actually sinking." "The lifeboat davits are still extended here at boat station 2, where Second Officer C.H. Lietauer is in charge." "Lietauer sends half a dozen crewmen to open doors and help fill the boats from decks lower down." "The men were never seen again but one set of doors still hangs open." "Here a twisted davit once held boat number B and here stood an aging distinguished couple," "Mr. And Mrs. Isadore Strauss." "Offered a place on the boats Mr. Strauss refused it, then Mrs. Strauss refuse to leave him, and so, they perished together." "In a single first class cabin there was a wealthy woman traveling along." "She was a tough and earthy character, requiring no assistance." "She boarded a lifeboat boldly took over command and was known from then on as "the unsinkable Molly Brown."" "And now, at last, 1,566 people began to realize that soon they were going go die." "But on the boat deck near the entrance to the grand staircase the band played on." "No one could agree later what tunes were played and all the musicians drowned." "But Titanic's band, and its leader Wallace Harltey, became immortal heroes of this disaster on the sea." "Few honored Captain Smith who had ignored many warnings as he sailed boldly into history." "He went down with his ship his last words disputed." "Some said he told the crew "be British,"" "others, "it's every man for himself."" "When the Titanic expedition ended" "Bob Ballard left behind a plaque honoring those who died here." "Titanic is their monument more than 2 miles beneath the sea." "It's memorial to this period of time to that mistake of arrogance." "It's a whole bunch of things all bundled up and now, down at the bottom of the ocean it's a very peaceful place a very quiet place." "It's sitting upright on the bottom very nobly and at rest." "This is the most empty place on earth the place almost no one goes-Antarctica." "It's the last continent discovered by explorers, the last place to be charted and examined and understood, the last place to be inhabited." "Even the wildlife here knows this land is different, and perhaps it is a mark of how harsh this land can be that there is no creature here that cannot swim or fly away." "This is the last continent on earth a refuge of sorts for wilderness and for explorers." "Jerome and Sally Poncet are explorers and naturalists who live on a sheep farm in the Falkland Islands." "A half-dozen times in the last decade or so, they've sailed 966 miles south five days at sea, to the islands scattered along the famed Antarctic Penin" "Other expeditions come here with millions of dollars and the power of governments to support them." "Sally and Jerome sail by themselves in a small yacht, accompanied only by their children, three boys" "Dion-16, live... 8 and Diti -5." "They trek on remote, rocky islands trying to learn more about this once unknown and foreboding continent of rock and ice while there's still time to protect the unique balance of life that exists here." "As usual the Poncets are beginning this voyage in December high summer and vacation time for the boys, when some days might get as warm as 46 degrees." "This will not last long the Poncets know." "Winter and ice are never very distant here." "Now development is coming too." "As the Ponects will discover anew on this voyage, this last frontier is changing as never before." "The poncets have gradually come to concentrate on the odd and endearing birds that are native to this place." "They're concerned now that penguins may become threatened because many countries and claiming interests in the riches that may lie here." "The Poncets will use their boat-part research vessel, part home-to search out penguin colonies all along the Antarctic Peninsula." "The peninsula reaches up some 766 miles from the continent toward south America." "The poncets goal is to survey the size of penguin colonies, that is, to count them all the way to Marguerite Bay at thebottom of the peninsula even further if the ice will allow them." "In earlier voyages, they've found many colonies no one else has ever seen." "Deception Island-near the northern end of the peninsula, early stop for the Poncets, and the site of a big colony of one of the three penguin species dominant on the peninsula: chinstraps." "Scientists use penguins as a key indicator species to gauge the health of the entire delicate Antarctic ecosystem." "To do that, though, they must know how many penguins are actually here." "If the penguin population changes radically, the scientists will know something is wrong here." "That is why the poncets sail and climb to these remote places to count the birds." "You can do a rough estimate by just counting up groups of say 166 and then multiplying in groups of 166." "That's a very rough estimate." "If you want to do it properly, though, you've got to map out the area that the colony's occupying and then work up average density of the colony and multiply that ...a couple of days work to do it accurately." "But you can get a good estimate if you take your time." "In a couple of hours, you can get a pretty good estimate of it." "But we just compare it with colonies we know from elsewhere, like one in particular with 36 to 46,666 pairs in it." "It's a lot smaller than this." "This is huge." "Must be one of the biggest chinstrap penguin clolonies down on the peninsula" "I think-this one It's gotta be, I think." "It's huge." "Chinstrap penguins seldom change mates and they prefer to return to the same nest sites each year to hatch the young." "The nests are rings of small stones set just out of pecking range of incubating neighbors." "The females usually take the first shift sitting on the eggs, fasting for up to 8 days." "Then, the males take over and the females can feed again." "Some of the small, shrimp-like krill they find at sea is regurgitated for the penguin chicks." "Sally does not spend much time with the colonies here on" "Deception Island, though." "This time her work lies further south." "Jerome is French;" "Sally is Australian." "They sail aboard the 56-foot steel hulled Damien II." "It can look like a frail ship in amid all the ice and rock, but the ship can take the poncets places that others cannot go, which helps them make a living:" "They charter the boat for scientists doing coastal surveys." "Indeed, Jerome knows his way along this coast, intimately." "He first came here almost 26 years ago accompanied by his friend, Gerard Janichon, who has rejoined him for this voyage." "It's unusual to sail in the Antarctic now, but it was truly extraordinary then." "Theirs was the first yacht to sail the peninsula coast." "The adventure made them heroes in France." "Fees from a book allowed each of them to build bigger and better versions of first vessel." "But new boats don't eliminate the four hour watches throughout this two-month journey or the sameness of stored food, or the confining conditions of life at sea." "These they simply get used to." "But anyone who's lived on a yacht or on a boat can tell you, you get used to shifts:" "four hours on, four hours off." "Or whatever you happen to do." "And it's just something you get used to." "You can't have exactly what you want to eat or drink when you feel like it." "Or you can't wash every day if you want to, or you can't go down to the nearest pub for a drink just to get away from it." "You just accept that." "It just, it might look difficult to people, but until you... it would be far more difficult for him to have to get into a car every morning and drive to work." "The Damien II averages 2, miles a day now, with stops along the way." "Working from cove to cove they arrive at cuverville Island a breeding site for many many Gentoo penguins." "Their pelts are sleek as fur but like all penguins, these are true birds." "Short, thick feathers help insulate them from the cold, and at the same time lie close to the body to help the speedy swimmers in the water." "This will be the first egg because its dirtier, and this is the second." "The second egg is suppose to be a bit smaller that the first." "But they look about the same size really." "That one there, though-she's just about to get off that-you can really tell the difference there." "The Gentoos are apt to form life-long attachments among breeding pairs although they are not so particular about which nest site they use from season to season." "On the peninsula, it takes about five weeks for penguin eggs to hatch." "The parents watch over them for another month or so, and then leave the chicks in large groups while the parents are off gathering good." "One or two months later the young penguins begin to feed on their own." "What beautiful nests these ones are well made anyway, with the stones like that and they all seem to be just sitting right." "You remember the chinstraps at Deception- all mucky, all smelly in all directions?" "These are all nice and neat..." "I think these are probably the prettiest of the birds." "By now Sally and Jerome have witnessed this cycle of penguin life many times and still Antarctica fascinates them." "The first time we come... just well, put the foot ashore." "That was an achievement for us at least." "And we are very pleased with that." "We've been a bit scared we've been fighting to reach Antarctica... and after we come back a bit more confident and you go a bit further." "And that's what we've done just going farther and farther each time, knowing a bit more." "And when you start to know a place you-why, it starts to belong to you or you belong to this place." "And that's what's happened to us." "Often while Sally is counting penguins the children explore for themselves." "At the shore here, they've spotted a leopard seal coming close." "Penguins that survive to adulthood may live for 26 years." "They're safe on land with practically no predators." "But in sea there is danger from seals especially the leopard seal." "Diti is the youngest of the boys." "Live, the middle boy, finds that this summer, geology has captured his attention." "Dion is the oldest a budding artist with an interest in mechanical things also." "Some of this Antarctic exploration that the boys share can look dangerous to an outsider." "But plainly, Sally and Jerome see great benefits in bringing the children with them." "At home in the Falklands a traveling schoolmaster visits for a couple of weeks every other month or so with lessons from Sally in between." "On board the Damien Il, the boys learn about earth science by splashing where boiling volcanic waters mix with the near frozen sea." "The boys bang away at rock looking for gold or fools gold even and making plans to get rich and buy firecrackers back at home." "You can just see the difference that it's made to them." "And coming down here for three months you can see how many people that meet and what they're introduced to and what they're capable of learning there are other ways of getting the same education or the same facts" "but this is a very good way of getting it, you see." "At Foyn Harbor on the peninsula the boys explore a site leftover from one of the first significant human impacts on the Antarctic." "It's an old whaler's anchorage where boats once filled casks with glacier water." "The whalers are long gone a whaling ship lies abandoned where it ran aground." "In the hold of the wreck the boys find dozens of the cone-shaped tips for harpoons that once took tens of thousands of whales in a season until some species were threatened with extinction." "At last, international protest put a stop to commercial whaling, and there are signs that the animals may be recovering in the southern oceans." "Three humpbacks approach the ship." "Their size and curiosity must have made them easy targets for the whalers" "But whale hunting was only among the first human endeavors to mark the Antarctic." "Near Palmer Station an American research site," "Dion joins a party of skin divers from the base who are going to see what remains of one of the biggest environmental threats the continent has seen." "Actually, we're... the wreck today to look for oil spills or oil leaks they've plugged up with wooden... and splash..." "last year." "The divers are protected as much as possible by their dry suits but the water is frigidly cold:" "33 degrees." "Early last year, an Argentine supply ship that doubled as a tourist boat ran aground." "Passengers used home video cameras to take these pictures." "Within hours they were rescued but four days later the ship had turned on its side." "The ship's cargo of diesel oil began to spill." "A Chilean navy ship arrived quickly to contain the damage, but it was a month before Argentine and American crews managed to seal the wreck." "It had about 256,666 gallons on board." "And they're estimating that about half of that 125,666 came out when it rolled." "It might have been worse if the ship had carried heavy, black crude oil instead of diesel fuel but still scientists worry that their research will be affected because the once pristine area is no longer so pure." "The wreck has gone through a single Antarctic winter, but the damage has been very severe." "It's kind of like a beer can has been totally crushed." "And there use to be two little copters there." "There's no sign of them at all now, other than two tires, and the highly deck is mostly crushed." "And there's no visible signs of oil leaking out anymore." "Any cleanup operation would be difficult here." "Indeed, all along the peninsulad it's clear that very often no one bothers to clean the mess that is left behind." "The penguins hardly seem to notice but nevertheless many environmentalists are concerned that we may spoil the last really large wilderness left on earth;" "before we begin to understand it." "The Damien II has been at sea for about a month, with dozens of stops so far for penguin surveys." "Now Jerome has set course for Dream Island, about half way down the peninsula." "The island has a large colony of the third species of penguins the Poncets are counting:" "Adelies." "There are remarkable elephant seal colonies here also, and for the seals, too the Antactic summer is the season of the young." "Well, it's a bit slippery in all this muck-especially where the penguins have been." "I don't want you to fall in that." "They've been fed by their mothers until they're sort of round and their mother's go off and leave them and they have to survive during the feeding time..." "And they lie around on the beaches in groups." "And they're really sweet..." "They're very beautiful to look at at that stage." "As they get a bit older they're not so nice." "It doesn't look as if they're any more chinstraps in this area." "They seem to be confined to that area back there." "So I think I'll go back..." "In the water by the beach young male seals play at combat." "They are too young now to really harm one another." "Later, when they develop the droopy noses that account for the elephant seals' name, they will fight seriously for groups of females." "All along the coast, the Poncets find sites of earlier explorers, many of them no longer in use." "This cabin was once a research station, but it's been deserted for a long time" "Inside, there are copies of letters and dispatches that are decades old." "...shall be returning home about June and anticipate finding civilization somewhat bewildering." "So would like to be considered for service as relief warden at a small hostile in the highlands." "It's the kind of thing, now over 36 years since it was put up, and it really is the kind of thing now you can say, it's part of the history of this place" "And it should, really should be preserved and looked after to keep it like this." "And all this food!" "You'll never get food like this again-these boxes." "No one eats this kind of stuff anymore" "But this is how a British base worked 36 years ago." "And it's really worthwhile keeping and doing something about." "The men who lived and worked in bases like these were taking part in an extraordinary study effort in the Antarctic led by a dozen countries during the International Geophysical Year, 1957." "The scientists paved the way for governments go to on cooperating, and eventually, there was an Antarctic Treaty." "It's worked ever since to hold Antarctica as a scientific reserve." "Today, tourist ships send groups like this one from New York's Museum of Natural History ashore to the sites where once only scientists went." "Antarctica's past and present meet here, and perhaps show the way to the future as well." "Some environmentalists want to see the entire continent now made into a world park no development or exploitation allowed the Antarctic to remain as it is a place for research, and for amateur naturalists to see the greatest unspoiled wilderness left." "Some of the old Geophysical Year stations are still operating." "The British base Faraday, for instance, plays a role in researching the periodic huge loss of ozone in the atmosphere over the southern polar region." "Further south another British base Rothera, serves as a headquarters for inland science projects that can only be reached by plane." "The flights take off from a runway cleared from the glacier, with a path well marked so the aircraft doesn't slide into one of the nearby crevasses that split the surface." "From the air, an observer easily sees the extent of one of the great treasures and paradoxes of Antarctica ice." "This is the driest continent." "Hardly any snow or rain ever falls." "But what does fall is frozen in place and remains." "So Antarctica is both the continent with the least precipitation and the one with the most water almost all of it locked up in ice" "Some estimates are that 76 percent of the world's freshwater is here." "The ice here on the plateau also provides an ancient atmospheric record that's key to studying new phenomenon such as the greenhouse effect." "These operations are just underway." "When full drilling begins the scientists will be able to plunge the drill bit through centuries to see what changes have occurred over time." "on board the Damien II again the Antarctic summer is progressing, although it is still not dark after midnight." "Indeed, Jerome calls this the planet of light." "There are only a few stops left for the travelers, one of them a special place for Sally and Jerome." "More than ten years ago on their first voyage to the Antarctic together, they decided to stay over in the long darkness of winter." "They had only the Damien II for a base frozen in a harbor here at Avian Island." "It was a really big surprise for us to see just how many penguins there were or how many birds there were on that island, but really surrounded by them." "They found extraordinary life including 76,666 Adelie penguins on the island." "Avian is located at the top of Marguerite Bay, and it's the breeding ground for much of the bird life that lives and hunts throughout the Bay region." "If something happened here it could seriously affect bird life in the entire Bay area." "Besides the Adelies's... every single bit of that island is covered in birds." "And you're surrounded by birds." "And you really do live part of that cycle of the summer season with them, completely." "But the poncets are disturbed to learn the birds may soon be sharing the island." "A Chilean scientist from a nearby base if examining Avian as a possible site for future studies." "Sally and Jerome are beginning to worry that the many scientists and bases could soon overwhelm the fragile wilderness they have come to study." "Jerome navigates the Damien II through the mouth of a narrow passage at Terra Firma Island." "They are very far south now nearly at the base of the peninsula where conditions are terribly harsh." "Some years, the sea is frozen solid here, the air is very cold." "Nonetheless, small patches of grass and pearlwort flourish here, unexceptional in any way except that these are the southernmost flowering plants known to exist anywhere-the furthest outpost of green in a world that is almost all grays and blacks and ice white." "It was the Poncets who made this discovery and reported it to the scientific world although they now realize this, too may draw others." "People have realize what this is and realize how they can damage it if they come too close, and how they can keep away and still enjoy it." "There's a bit of a compromise to doing it, and you can't just ban people from coming to certain places all over just because they might damage it." "They've got to be taught how not to damage it so that they can come in and enjoy it." "Many explorers must pause to wonder a little at what they do and at what will be done by those who inevitably will follow." "Not many will follow this far, however" "The Damien II is entering what is called pack ice, a great plain that's frozen not quite solid." "You can feel that-that you've very far south." "And there's no one else in the pack." "And you're nothing much more than another little bit of ice." "You can really feel it as a living thing." "You can feel it, you can see it moving up and down with the swell as though it's breathing." "And you see animals... the whales which come up to breathe just behind the boat because there's no other space for it, and penguins." "The steel hull of the ship allows it to smash its way through." "The ice will get worse soon as it gets colder, and then it will not be possible to get through at all." "Jerome must judge what is safe." "They have hone as far as they can;" "the Damien II must turn back toward King George Island." "From the air, the ice floes look almost impenetrable" "Once you've been through a really bad storm and just got outor you've had to go through a lot of ice and just managed to get through then the next day, it's beautiful weather-each time, it's really very gratifying," "each time, and very satisfying." "And you really feel as if you've earned what you've done." "It's the feeling of it being very difficult here and you've managed to wade through in spite of that." "But all along the peninsula it is clear that as with all frontiers this one is developing." "In the time since they left the British base at Rothera, perhaps the biggest cargo ship ever to come this far south has arrived and begum unloading bulldozers and rock crushers, and housing for construction workers." "The small landing strip on the snow field above Rothera is to be replaced by a gravel runway, so bigger planes can come and go regularly." "It will mean blasting away part of a hillside, but the scientists say it must be done if their work is to go on." "The Antarctic Treaty which has worked to protect the polar region for three decades may be reviewed next year." "Some countries are interested in exploring for oil here or for minerals." "Already there is an agreement for exploitation that the treaty nations are considering." "Some think offshore drilling for oil is certain, and that that is going to mean the greatest change yet for Antarctica." "Oh, we are next to the first area actually where oil will be exploited next to this... and maybe this one will die covered with oil, maybe not." "Or maybe he will be starving very hungry, because there will be no more food." "After that will be our children." "Meanwhile, building goes ahead especially on King George Island the Damien ll's final destination." "If you look at what's happening at Rothera... what's happening here." "This is the first steps in opening the place up." "That's for sure." "To what, I don't know." "The rest of the world is still over the horizon, but it seems to get closer everyday." "Frontiers are wild places." "Once we thought they were all savage and needed conquering." "This one doesn't seem so savage anymore°" "Before it's conquered it may be worth asking what the conquest would mean, and perhaps we should ask too, what will happen to the explorers indeed to all of us, when the frontiers are gone." "It all begins with water and rock." "As water seeks its level, it becomes acidic." "And when it flows over limestone, it etches a path into the rock." "Given eons of time, water will burrow and carve, with incredible force, the veins and arteries of planet Earth" "So the underworld of caves is born." "And after torrents have done their work, patient drops do more wonders in a million years or so." "Look now on a landscape no one dreamed existed just a few years ago." "Here are bizarre and fantastic treasures that stun the eye and strain the imagination." "Here is discovery and danger." "Here is adventure." "In New Mexico, members of a National Geographic Society expedition explore the world's newest and most exotic major cave." "They are following one of man's most ancient imperatives to see and understand the unknown." "Join us now as we embark on an extraordinary journey deep into the earth to confront MYSTERIES UNDERGROUND." "In the Guadalupe Mountains of southern New Mexico, an awesome giant has lain hidden for a million years." "Sometimes, in the desert silence, the monster could be heard breathing." "The sound came from a yawning chasm in the rocks." "In 198, a trio of weekend explorers broke through a layer of rubble and discovered a new cave only a few miles from famous Carlsbad Cavern." "Although the cave entrance lay inside Carlsbad Caverns National Park, park officials allowed qualified cavers to explore it." "One of them was Rick Bridges, an oil and gas prospector." "Now Bridges leads a hand-picked team of experts, like rock climber Dave Jones, on the 25th expedition to Lechuguilla." "You got the survey gear, Anne?" "Research geologist kiym Cunningham will handle the science studies for the expedition." "Nuclear test engineer Anne Strait is an expert in surveying and mapping caves." "And specialist cameraman from England, Sid Perou, will be the first to document Lechuguilla on motion picture film." "The journey begins with a deceptively ordinary hike." "The cave is named after a desert plant that grows in this harsh, dry environment-Lechuguilla-Spanish for little lettuce." "Forty people will support the venture, including two support teams to pack in supplies and batteries for photographic lights." "On high rope." "We tend to have this feeling that the surface of the earth is the life of the earth." "But we're just this small, thin little shell that we choose to call our world, and beneath it there's an entire realm that we know very little about." "And we can, if we choose, enter that realm and we can learn something from it." "I will never go to the moon, but I can go to a cave the nobody else has been to and have the same elation of exploration in the sense that I have gone where no one's gone before." "Bombs away." "I would like to think that had I lived in another time" "I would have been an explorer." "You know, had I lived in the late 1766s," "I would have wanted to know what was across the Appalachian Mountains." "If I'd been around when Lewis and Clark went to the coast," "I'd liked to have gone with them, you know." "And I think most people that cave at this level and do this kind of exploration feel that way." "Here, Bridges and his companions excavated to break into Lechuguilla for the first time." "Now the entrance is protected by a lockable hatchway." "Through this tiny aperture the cave breathes blowing air out or sucking it in to equalize with the barometric pressure above ground." "Winds up to,6 miles an hour howl out of here, hinting at the vast underworld below." "Today, this is Lechuguilla's only known entrance, and there may have never been another." "For a million years this place has lain undisturbed." "In a real sense, it is a primordial world, untouched by all but microscopic forms of life." "On rope!" "It's a long ways down." "See you guys on the bottom." "Dave Jones starts down the 156 foot pit called Boulder Falls" "It was here that the first explorers realized what a vast place they had discovered." "As you progress down, it gets steeper and steeper and pretty soon you're free hanging, but your feet are still against the rock" "And all of a sudden you rappel by this little ledge and there's no more rock." "There's nothing in any direction." "Beyond the base of the pit the cave branches off in all directions." "Only computer imagery can portray this labyrinth." "After the May 198, exploration the cave was known to be 766 feet deep and more than half a mile long." "Today the system totals,6 miles and plummets more than 1,66 feet." "Twisting capillaries and veins pierce the earth in all directions." "This is a gigantic maze in three dimensions, defying conventional ideas of direction and scale." "Footprints remain forever in this fragile environment." "Plastic ribbons keep cavers on main trails." "Expeditions into Lechuguilla have been likened to exploring Everest only in reverse." "The team is headed for Base Camp still hours away." "The trail leads on into inky blackness" "Often they traverse chambers so vast the cave walls are barely discernible." "Gypsum crystals sparkle along the route." "Now, cavers encounter Lechuguilla's fantastic decorations for the first time." "Helictites and gypsum flowers extrude from the walls fragile gardens that have taken centuries to blossom, as minerals have been squeezed from the rocks like toothpaste from a tube." "Beauty abounds." "These jewels of the underground are exquisitely delicate needles of selenite." "With the constant maneuvering up down and through the cave's difficult terrain," "56 pound backpacks become painful burdens." "Always, in Lechuguills, danger is not far away." "Okay, on three." "One, two, three." "In 1991 seasoned caver Emily Mobley slipped and broke her leg while working on a surveying expedition in the cave's western sector." "A mile and a half from the entrance, 966 feet below the surface, this accident would trigger the largest and most publicized cave rescue in U.S. history." "A hundred experienced cavers summoned to the scene would labor four arduous days to bring her to safety." "The bond of comradeship that unites the caving community was seldommore evident than during this emergency." "Every caver knows and instinctively responds to the code of the underground that only cavers can save and protect each other." "After almost four hours, the expedition reaches Lake Lebarge, the first sizeable body of water to be discovered inthis branch of Lechuguilla." "Beautiful!" "One of the greatest sights in caving, isn't it?" "Yes." "Fantastic." "Is this Lake Lebarge?" "Yeah." "Lebarge Borehole looks easier now." "Beautiful!" "On rope!" "the lake completely blocks the way ahead." "Cavers had to wade it until they found a detour tricky, but possible." "Well, I think of particular moves like dancing around the edge of Lebarge as almost a ballet, an underground ballet." "I know where my footholds are;" "I know where my handholds are." "I know if I hit them just right and move just right some of them are kind of dynamic in so much as you leave one handhold while you're going for the next foothold." "And if you do that just right and you have your pack balanced just right, you flow through it real smoothly." "And so I think it's very much like doing a dance, a very intricate dance." "And you want to do it perfectly, you know, and it's very beautiful when you do." "Deeper into the cave, mineral formations become more fantastic and delicate." "Cavers must move among them with great care." "Spikes of aragonite, one form of calcium carbonate, grow in fragile bushes." "The gentlest touch could damage them." "There is infinite contrast here." "The now famous Chandelier Ballroom is one of caving's classic beauty spots" "Plumes of gypsum sprout from the ceiling, some as long as 26 feet the most dazzing examples of their type ever found." "Utter silence pervades Lechuguilla." "The only sound is made by the intruder" "In the constant,8-degree temperature and high humidity, dehydration is always a threat." "Anybody else need any hot water?" "for some, the notion of life with almost a quarter mile of rock overhead can be oppressive, even terrifying." "But cavers like Bridges relish the experience." "It's almost like coming back to home after you've been gone for a while." "It's a very comfortable feeling to me, particularly in that particular cave." "And you know it's a sense of isolation" "The world becomes very simple" "Here there is no day or night." "If they ignore the time, cavers tend to stay awake, and sleep, for longer and longer periods." "In Lechuguilla Cave, there is little evidence of life." "But this is rare." "Many caves harbor a hidden kingdom of creatures, dominated by bats." "Bats thrive in darkness." "They navigate not by sight, but by subtle patterns of reflected sound." "Some caves are home to millions of bats, the greatest concentration of mammals anywhere." "Their nitrogen-rich droppings, or guano, are harvested as a fertilizer." "Large deposits produce a toxic gas, which can be lethal." "Mountains of bat guano support the intricate food chain underground." "Sometimes, an injured bat, or a baby, falls into the guano and itself becomes food." "Within minutes the bat is reduced to a skeleton." "Abundant underground, the cave cricket" "Crickets spend much of their time gathering food outside their caves, but inside they perform a vital role as scavengers." "In mute testament to their environment fish have evolved here without eyes." "The salamander has dispensed with eyes, too, and has no need of skin pigment in a world without sunlight." "People have probably always found shelter in aves." "Thousands of years ago, as much of the world still lay in the grip of the last Ice Age, prehistoric hunters left spectacular evidence behind them." "The human spirit was born and nurtured here, its expression etched on walls of stone." "By the early 26th century most people lived elsewhere." "But science and curiosity drove some to explore deeper underground." "Magnesium flares lit the way, filling dark voids with light." "Geologists squeezed into subterranean chambers seeking to understand their origin and structure." "And soon the ancient lure of caves turned to profit." "Tourists went underground." "Then and now, humans have been compelled to seek out caves, and to combat the gloom with gay defiance." "In the United States, New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns was declared a national park in 1936." "But natural wonders were not enough." "Carlsbad and other caves promoted all sorts of attractions, some a bit farfetched." "The time will come when some master musician in the Carlsbad Cavern will be able to create s symphony in stone" "Many parts of the world are known for caves." "Because most lie on limestone bedrock, the soil is often thin and life is hard" "So it has often been in the remote uplands of Kentucky." "But the automobile brought a new source of wealth city folks, eager for amusement." "Everyone who owned a cave hung up a sign." "Each was touted as being bigger and better than the others." "The so-called Cave Wars spurred bitter feuds and even violence" "Crystal Cave belonged to the Collins family, but it was too far from the beaten path to prosper." "Thirty-seven-year-old Floyd, one of the Collins boys, was determined to find a cave closer to the highway." "He set off alone on a cold winter morning in January 1925 and squeezed into a narrow, twisting crack in the earth, never before explored." "A hundred feet or so into the tight passageway" "Floyd dislodges a rock that falls on his leg and pains his left foot." "Every detail of this fateful mishap will soon be known throughout the world" "Struggling to free himself, Floyed becomes more tightly wedged." "His arms are pinned at his sides." "He can do nothing but shout for help." "Twenty-four hours later Floyd's cries are heard." "A younger brother, Homer, manages to reach him." "Coffee and sandwiches revive Floyd, but no amount of tugging or pulling will set him free." "Would-be rescuers knock down more dirt and rocks." "Soon more help arrives, but rescue efforts are clumsy and disorganized." "Curious onlookers begin to gather." "They become restive and quarrelsome." "A week goes by." "Floyd is still alive and the crowed swells to thousand." "It becomes a carnival." "Souvenirs are sold and moonshiners arrive on the scene." "It's hard to maintain order and the National Guard is summoned." "Skeets Miller a 21-year-old newspaper reporter, braves the tortuous passage seven times to comfort Floyd and describe his plight." "Miller takes down food and drink and an electric light bulb to keep Floyd warm." "In bitter cold and rain, little more can be done for him." "When a cave-in blocks the passage, a rescue shaft is begun." "People all over the country join Floyd's family in prayer." "Floyd's brothers expect the worst." "Rescuers finally reach him on the 18th day." "It is too late." "Floyd has been dead for some time." "The crowd goes home." "The public is soon interested in other things." "It takes two months to recover the body." "The rock that trapped Floyd was not a boulder, but a mere 27-pound stone, shaped like a leg of lamb." "His death left a legacy of fear of the dark, mysterious underground that haunts many to this day." "Today, there are about 1,666 devotees of caving in the U.S." "Here, where Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia meet, the countryside is studded by deep pits vertical caves the delight of weekend enthusiasts." "Nine-year-old Leah Brown holds a world speed record for rope climbing." "Her partner, Avis Van Swearingen, also holds a climbing record for women over the age of,6." "With skill and courage they suspend their lives on a slender thread." "We call that rope the nylon highway because it takes us to wonderful places and new parts of the cave, and it's the only way you can get there" "If I'm the first one down a drop, and I have been the first, the very first person to ever go down a drop... if we can't really tell if the rope reaches the bottom," "the person who goes down first wears their climbing gear, too, so that you can put your climbing gear on the rope and come up." "Also, we put a knot at the bottom of that rope so we can't rappel off the end of it, which has happened to people." "I like the deep pits, because when they're deep, you get to go fast more." "That's why I like the deep pits, because the short ones you don't get to go fast very long." "The first time I did it in a pit, it was only a 96-foot pit and I didn't get scared." "I don't get scared very easily." "I like going fast." "When I go down fast, the floor is real tiny and then it starts getting bigger and bigger, and I like to watch that." "An unfettered commitment to their sport compels cavers to seek new thrills in undiscovered places." "For some, the quest for adventure knows no boundary." "The Austrian Apls." "A fifth of the world's deepest caves are located here, high in the mountains" "These ice caves are 5,666 feet above sea level." "They are natural deep freezes where ice remains, even in hot summers" "Here, geological time is condensed." "We can witness the growth of ice formations in short periods of months or years, which in their stone counterparts would take centuries." "From year to year these caves are never the same." "As they thaw and freeze again, the fantastic ice formations are ever changing." "Few places on earth are more beautiful or more treacherous, with perhaps one exception." "Some cavers have merged their love of the unknown with a passion for diving, venturing into a bizarre world underground and under water." "Originally formed above sea level, these caves became submerged about 16,666 years ago as the last Ice Age retreated." "They are now 76 feet beneath the surface." "Underwater caves are deathtraps for the inexperienced." "But, from time to time, tempting fate can have astounding rewards." "In 1996, when exploring a submerged tunnel off the Mediterranean coast of France, a professional diver surfaced in a hidden chamber." "He found a treasure chest of art, perhaps 18,666 years old." "Paintings and engravings depict animals that roamed southern Europe before the last great ice sheets melted" "Some experts question the authenticity of the art, but close examination is impossible." "Cosquer Cave is a place of haunting mystery." "To protect it, the cave is now sealed by order of the French government." "In time a new entrance may be built and the truth known." "An expanse of sinkholes and depressions pockmark south central Kentucky where, beneath the surface, the limestone is riddled with caves." "They are everywhere, an integral part of the landscape." "This is Floyd Collins country, and the contest to attract the tourist dollar still rages on." "The star attraction is Mammoth the world's longest cave." "A national park since 1941, the cave now draws more than half a million visitors a year." "Back in the 1866s tour guides here were often black slaves." "One of them, Stephen Bishop, became perhaps the greatest caver of them all." "On his own, with little more than a lamp, a rope, and a sketchbook," "Bishop explores the depths of Mammoth Cave." "He creates a surprisingly accurate map of this complex underground maze." "Deep in the cave" "Bishop is confronted by a gaping void that came to be known as Bottomless Pit." "Beyond, Bishop explores regions that had never been visited in his time" "But in these remote reaches he hinds evidence that someone has preceded him." "Some archaeologists believe that Stephen Bishop may have also encountered one of Mammoth's most compelling mysteries" "Trapped under a boulder are the ancient remains of a human being." "Not for another century would the mummified body be rediscovered and then as the technology became available, removed from beneath the six-ton boulder." "A sensation in its time, the mysterious body would be on public display for years and given the name Lost John." "Two to three thousand years ago this man was digging around the base of a heavy rock when it dislodged and crushed him." "What was he doing here?" "How did he get here?" "No one believed that ancient humans could have ventured this far into the forbidding depths of Mammoth Cave." "Today, new evidence helps to answer these questions." "Archaeologist Ken Tankersley has spent years investigating the traces of ancient humans in Mammoth." "Armed with cane reeds collected near the park," "Tankersley simulates the methods prehistoric explorers would have used here." "We have long known that human beings lived near the entrance of caves." "But Lost John suggested that prehistoric people had gone far into Mammoth perhaps two day's travel." "Was this possible?" "At first Tankersley himself had doubts" "I'm always amazed when I think about what it takes for us to go into a cave." "We wear a hard hat;" "we wear out caving lamp, whether it's electric or carbide;" "and we carry two sources of back-up light." "We wear enough clothing to ward off hypothermia." "These people wore virtually nothing" "Ioin cloths at best." "Probably most frequently, based on what we've seen in the cave in terms of human remains, these people were naked, carrying nothing but cane reed torches" "The reed torches were the only light source available to ancient humans." "They produce surprisingly efficient illumination and conjure ghosts from the heavy shadows." "Their daring was incredible." "For humans, light is life in a cave." "But these explorers traveled up to 12 miles with nothing but reed torches between them and a horrible fate." "Their pathway can be followed even now" "A trail of burned torch fragments leads Tankersley and his companions to a cavity in the rock face." "Digging marks and a crude implement are evidence of some kind of activity here." "That's magnificent." "Notice the cut edge." "A primitive tool, one of dozens found deep in the cave." "What was it used for?" "Another clue:" "a rich seam of selenite crystal courses through the rock face nearby." "These findings prove that prehistoric people were engaged in widespread mining of crystals throughout the cave." "The scale of the operation was staggering." "Tons of material were removed." "The mining continued without interruption for over a thousand years" "The ancient miners took selenite and other minerals from the cave." "But what they were used for remains a mystery as medicines, or ornaments, or for use in rituals?" "Perhaps all three." "Just as mysteriously, around the time of the birth of Christ the mining suddenly ceased." "As yet no one knows why." "All that remains is abundant evidence that they once were here, driven by needs and desires we may never understand." "To our right, down below, is the famous Bottomless Pit." "For many, many years lights were not sufficient to reach the bottom." "Visiting Mammoth today is a journey through time." "But as they are guided along comfortable tourist trails, few visitors can imagine the tortuous passageways that lie beyond them." "not knowing the true depth of the pit or what lay on the other side." "Reaching the other side, they were surprised to find an avenue over there and more cave." "This opened up the doorway to the vast unknown mileage that we all Mammoth Cave." "Mammoth Cave Ridge skirts the Houchins Valley." "On the other side, beneath Flint Ridge lies another cave network, once shrouded in mystery." "Here, 46 years ago, one of the great exploits of cave exploration began." "In the 1956s a group of weekend adventurers began an intensive probe into the secrets of Flint Ridge." "There had long been talk of a vast underground system that might link all the caves in the area." "It began as an exciting pastime." "It became a grueling obsession." "Over the years hundreds of men and women took part." "There were untold yards of muddy crawlways." "There were pits and crevices and mazes from which there seemed no escape." "Flint ridge developed its own colorful place names: the Corkscrew," "Shower Shaft, Agony Avenue." "But the cave grew, until Flint Ridge alone was pushed to nearly 96 miles." "And if it could be connected to Mammoth, then this was the underground Everest by far the longest cave in the world." "In the summer of 1972 a team entered Flint Ridge to probe a tantalizing passage that led toward Mammoth." "It took seven hours to reach the end of the known passage." "Then they tackled what would be called the Tight Spot." "It seemed impenetrable." "But one of the team had a knack for narrow places" "Pat Crowther a computer programmer and mother of two." "Well, it never occurred to anyone to try to go through that place." "It was a crazy place to even think that you could get your body into." "The 'Tight Sport was a very tiny, vertical crevice out the bottom of a small indentation in the floor." "And if you just casually looked down into the hole and saw that crack, you would say no one could possibly fit in there." "Somehow Crowther squirmed through." "Six weeks later, miles beyond where anyone had gone before, a chilling but significant discovery was made." "In a mud bank were the initials P.H., scratched there by Pete Hanson, a long-dead tour guide." "He could have come here only from the Mammoth Cave side." "Carpenter Richard Zopf was in the group and recalls the impact of the discovery." "We had the feeling that we had found ...the passage that was going to take us into Mammoth Cave, but we hadn't done it." "We seen virtually a mile of passage but we didn't know exactly where it went." "And we plugged along and we plodded along and we surveyed and we surveyed and we surveyed." "Ten days later the group tried again, reaching what they now called Hanson's Lost River in nine hours." "Excitement and exhaustion dominated the thoughts of leader John Wilcox." "The worst thing we feared was that the passage would descent so that the water would come clear to the ceiling, and it sure looked like that was what was happening." "The water was getting deeper and deeper and the ceiling was coming down." "We're getting bent over, scrunching our backs up against the ceiling, trying to keep from getting our chests wet." "And it was getting so wet that I told the rest of the party to wait here..." "I'm going to look ahead a little bit." "Because I know if I get completely wet" "I can get out of the cave, but I wasn't sure everybody else could" "And just go as far as I can and trying very carefully not to get my chest wet and not to put my light out and so forth." "I don't have a good sense of the time but John only went a few feet, went ahead for 36 seconds." "And then there was a pause and it's like:" "What's happening, John?" "And John says:" "You know the passage is opening up!" "And, well, you know:" "Should we come ahead?" "'" "From that low point the passage just immediately opens into the huge Echo River passage... and eventually my eyes adjusted enough" "I could begin to see a wall clear across the passage, a hundred feet away perhaps." "And there was a bright, shining, horizontal line along the wall, which is something you don't see in a cave." "You don't see any straight lines." "And it had these vertical lines underneath and I realized that was a handrail." "We had come out on a tourist trail!" "All of sudden John shouted:" "I see a tourist trail!" "And those words just electrified the party." "It was kind of like someone yelling Fire!" "In a theater." "Everybody just surged forward and we realized that we had made the connection." "Achieving the dream of decades, they had connected two great subterranean systems." "Today, it is a cave with 346 miles of passageways." "It's one of these, you know, complete victories that you don't often achieve in life." "Usually things are shades of gray in your professional work or your personal relations with other people or whatever." "In climbing a mountain, sometimes you have a clear-cut victory" "Either you reached the top or you didn't." "And this was one clear-cut victory in my life where, by golly, we went in the Flint Ridge side and we came out the Mammoth Cave side" "It was a strange and lonely victory." "After a grim struggle in the dark, subterranean river, they emerged in Mammoth Cave at one in the morning." "Not even a watchman was there to greet them as they trudged into one of the most famous tourist landmarks underground the Snowball Dining Room." "And they would complete their historic trek with sublime ease riding to the surface in an elevator." "There was no fanfare, no waiting reporters." "But they were still overjoyed." "Like all cavers, in victory or defeat, they were used to being on their own." "Beneath the New Mexican desert, the National Geographic expedition to Lechuguilla" "Begins its second week underground." "The cave's beauty is now legendary, but there is more to discover here." "High on a hill deep within the heart of the cave, a mystery unfolds." "Sulfur is prevalent here and in other regions of the cave." "And tiny bacteria are found in these deposits along with fungi that feed on them." "In turn, the bacteria may feed on the sulfur, thriving in eternal darkness." "Evidence indicates an unusual genesis for Lechuguilla." "As hydrogen sulfide rose from below, it mixed with oxygen in water or air, forming sulfuric acid." "This potent chemistry gradually ate through the limestone, creating the cave from the bottom up." "Lechuguilla's vulnerability to human impact may preclude it from ever becoming a public show cave." "A profound respect for the cave is shared by most cavers and severely enforced." "Special shoes are worn for traversing formations where boots may mar exquisite flowstone." "Stalagmites of calcite line the shores of the Pearlsian Gulf, so called because of the thousands of pearl-like formations found here." "Looking like fried eggs, this kind of cave pearl is built up from calcite in the water." "Another variety of cave pearl forms when a single grain of sand becomes coated with calcite." "Over time the relentless dripping of water swivels the grain and the coating becomes thicker, like the creation of a pearl in an oyster." "Lake Castrovalva guards a remote corner of the cave." "The only way across is to swim." "But the conservation creed demands that no dirty clothing soil its purity" "The air and water temperatures are the same year round,8 degrees." "Intricate stone formations border the edge of the lake, slowly deposited by waters rich in calcite." "For eons these exotic shores have been still and silent calm until now." "Light on the station." "The primary function of any expedition is to explore and survey the cave to produce a detailed map." "Keeping accurate records is virtually a religion for modern cavers." "Two thirty-nine, point five." "It's what separates them from earlier, less responsible explorers underground" "Plus four." "Plus four." "Finding something new is the first great thrill of caving." "The second comes later finding the way out." "Each night the latest survey date are typed into the computer to produce an updated map." "The ancient skeleton of a ring-tailed cat." "Kiym Cunningham examines one of the riddles of Lechuguilla." "It's a mystery." "I mean, altogether it's a mystery how he got down here." "We're a thousand feet below the surface." "Many vertical pits and long passages to get here." "So, he was a heck of a caver!" "He evidently died right on the margin of this old pool system here, so I would imagine possibly he was alive when he was down here, came to the pool to drink." "Only source of water he could find." "And maybe the mineral content was very high." "It was not a good pool to drink from and that may have been what killed him" "The amount of carbon dioxide in the cave atmosphere is measured." "If the level down here is the same as on the surface, it could indicate other openings yet to be discovered." "Somewhere within the cave's vast system the air is being disturbed." "There is noticeable movement." "Still, Lechuguilla refuses to yield its secrets easily." "It remains alien and strangely beautiful, a landscape from another world." "Lechugulla's wonder is a fragile thing" "What man can discover, he can easily destroy." "Most of us may never see these enchanting caverns and others that lie still undiscovered." "But perhaps it will be enough to know that they are there." "Lechuguilla now consists of almost,6 miles of breathtaking passageways." "New discoveries continue and there is no end in sight." "Sometimes is has seemed that railroads were doomed." "The Durango-Silverton railroad is one of the most spectacular rides in the world." "In 1960, it was nearly shut down." "In 1883, the Orient Express ran from Paris to Istanbul created the ultimate in luxury travel." "It was abandoned in 1977." "In 1887, rotary snow plows first fought the snow drifts in the High Sierras." "Looking like relics they seem improbable holdovers from the past." "Once this streamlined locomotive hauled passenger trains at 100 miles an hour." "But for 20 years, it sat outside a museum, its machinery rusting." "Yet today these trains still run the rails." "Now they evoke a more remote past when trains first bridged the continent," "Ferried recruits to war provided celebrities with an opportunity to be seen and a chic way to travel, gave a mobile campaign platform to politicians, and offered a refuge for hoboes." "Train tracks disfigure the countryside" "Trains assault the senses with brutal noise and begrime the air." "How then account for the multitude of people who love trains?" "When you're actually running a train, you just can't get enough." "I don't know." "Maybe I'm just a junkie for trains." "But that's about it." "I bought a caboose back in the '50s because I was busy riding trains in the '50s." "And suddenly I read in the paper one day where trains were going to go out." "All passenger trains would be taken off." "And I knew unless I got a piece of ride on the train again." "So that's when I bought my caboose and put it in my yard." "There are grown men who ridetoy steam trains at a mountain retreat." "There are train buffs who choose to ride through South America's Andes on a baggage rack." "There's town in Iowa that honors hoboes, and there are thousands of young people competing for the chance to engineer a train." "There are people who harken to the lonesome whistle blowing and the clickety-clack of wheels on rails." "Theirs is a worldwide fraternity with no membership requirements beyond sharing in the love of trains." "You've got a sheet like this and it tells you who's sitting in every seat, and every seat is assigned, and..." "There are many people so enamored of trains that they take trains, not to go anywhere, but just for the pleasure of riding." "Each year the North Alabama Railroad Club sponsors an all-day excursion on a Norfolk Southern steam train." "Seats are always sold out and there's even competition for a chance to work on the engine." "Bill Hayslip is a deputy sheriff, and he loves trains so much that he volunteers on his day off for the dirtiest job in railroading-apprentice fireman." "I've studied steam engines just about all my life." "I guess I was born about 30 or 40 years too late." "There's something about a steam" "Iocomotive and railroad that's just romantic." "A steam engine kind of has its own personality." "It's like a lady." "You have to treat it just right." "Steam engines evoke a special affection." "Though inanimate objects of iron and steel, they seem to breathe with the fire of life." "This day the train will run to Chattanooga, Tennessee, evoking cherished memories of a popular song." "I've often wondered if I was maybe one of those people that had trains in my bolld or something." "Some people have alcohol, I have trains." "I have spent the whole day in Birmingham just to see the two trains go through town." "My wife thins that's crazy, but, you know, it's a thrill for me." "Part way through the trip, the train comes to a stop in an open field." "Now begins the prized ritual of the steam train excursion." "The train backs up, cameras are readied, and then a sweet symphony for every train-buff's ear." "The train station in Chattanooga has been transformed into an entertainment center." "When the train returns to Huntsville," "Dr. And Mrs. Lonie Lindsey stay on in Chattanooga for dinner in a refurbished diner." "They remember another train trip long ago." "We got on the train in Tuscumbia, Alabama and we went to Chattanooga." "Went up to the courthouse and we got married." "That was 55 years ago, and we've had a very lovely marriage so far." "And here 55 years later, we do the same start-over again." "The most popular rooms at the Choo-Choo Hilton Hotel are old train cars," "Nostalgic setting for recapturing fond memories." "For those who love to ride steam trains, each trip is a journey into the past." "In the beginning, steam engines were at the center of the Industrial Revolution which could not even begin until mankind learned one crucial trick how to transform heat energy into motion." "In the first century A. D., the Greek scholar, Hero of Alexandria, invented steam-jet propulsion." "Hero's ingenious device remained a toy until 1712 when Thomas Newcomen developed the first successful steam engine" "Newcomen's engine was used to pump water out of coal mines." "One hundred years passed before the first British-built steam locomotives took to the rails." "Soon the public everywhere crossed the threshold of a new age as horses were replaced by the latest locomotive invention." "Today, these early engines can usually be seen only at museums, where they seem as distant as dinosaurs." "The John Bull is the oldest operable steam engine in the world." "To mark the 150th anniversary of its first American trial, the Smithsonian Institution brought it out for a run along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal." "People who love trains dressed up for the occasion and gathered from miles around." "Many had never heard the hoot of a steam whistle or the screech of brakes." "Nostalgia for those seemingly innocent days of American history is very much alive today." "For some, no doubt, steam engines are the attraction." "For others, perhaps, it is the appeal of travel." "Or could it be that so many share the romantic notion of growing up to be an engineer?" "These trains are called live steamers." "Seymour Johnson loves trains so much that he donated land and equipment for a miniature railroad at his home in Montecito, California." "I think in my case and in the case of a lot of people, you kind of grew up with them as toys and these are pretty big toys." "I started building this particular engine in 1947 and I completed it in 1951." "And that's why I have the numbers on the side-4751-to remind me of the time." "Johnson and the local members of the Goleta Valley Railroad Club spent 17 years building their line." "Today they test their engines on more than a mile of track." "There is something nostalgic about steam engines now, of course, but the thing is, a steam locomotive is live." "The engine talks to you when you're running it." "You can feel what it's doing." "It tells you I'm working too hard or I'm taking it easy." "You can hear it in the stack, you can hear it in the sound of the blower, the sound of the fire." "They've got steam engines that are over a hundred years old that continue to run." "Once a year, Johnson and the club host a three-day meet that attracts model owners from all over the country." "Each engine is custom-built, representing thousands of hours of meticulous machining." "And as in real life, the engineers discover that steam engines can be cantankerous beasts capable of fighting back." "Well, this is a 2 1 /2-inch scale, narrow gauge locomotive built to run on 71 /2-inch track." "We're trying to duplicate exactly the kind of engine that the Colorado  Southern used back in the years of 1890 through 1936." "Hey, John, you want to push the daylight car into the siding?" "The most popular daily event is the grand tour of the line for families and friends." "Three engines are coupled." "Together they are pulling six tons of engines, cars, and passengers." "We now have 14 cars." "Mostly they're freight-car type because people are way out of scale." "This train is one-eighth full size, but people aren't." "So if you put them in a passenger car, you can't put a roof on." "But if you put them in a freight car, the sky is the limit." "Many of those who build and enjoy riding live steamers can still recall the old days when steam engines ruled the rails." "The halcyon days of steam and rail began after World War 1." "The Big Boy of the 1940s was driven by four pistons that powered 16 drive wheels." "It was the largest steam engine ever built, and could pull a train five miles long" "And during World War I I, steam engines transporting the freight, weapons, and troops to the seacoasts, made possible the fast buildup of America's war machine." "In the 1950s, steam gave way to diesel and rail companies, competing for passengers promoted streamliners as the chic way to travel." "But late in the decade, passengers shifted to automobiles and airplanes for long-distance travel and trucks took over much of the freight." "The low point came in the 1970s." "congress rescued six bankrupt railroad by creating Conrail." "Railroad lines were abandoned, and hundreds of stations closed for good." "Although Americans seemed to lose interest in passenger train travel, some countries maintained their trains as national treasures." "The narrow-gauge Guayaquil and Quito Railway in Ecuador plays a vital part in national life, and people here use the railroad like a party line." "It even serves as a food market on wheels." "Train buff and writer Carla Hunt has traveled throughout South America on trains." "The Guayaquil-to-Quito run draws her back as the most exciting in South America." "A train buff's dream an American-built Baldwin engine- a relic from 1900-begins a two-day climb from sea level to over 11,000 feet in the Andes." "Passengers have a choice of three classes." "Second class costs a dollar sixty." "First-class cars sport padded seats for two dollars ten cents, and local vendors offer lunch on brown paper." "The affluent, who ride deluxe, get reserved seats and meal service." "But some prefer the roof where conductors seldom collect tickets." "American engineers laid out the route in 1898." "It took ten years to cut the line from the sugar cane fields of the lowlands up over the Andes." "When the train going up fails to meet the train coming down at the appointed siding, there's an unscheduled stop for a phone call to find out what happened to the other train." "These trains, not only do they carry the people up and down, but they carry the mail." "Every once in a while you see them with a medical prescription, a telex that might have come into Guayaquil but can't make it up between the two points." "There is a telex facility at Tiobamba." "But between here and Riobamba there is absolutely nothing." "The train that's coming from Riobama has a problem in Huigra." "One of the wheels of the machine was falling down off the track." "And now we are going with this train to help the other train." "So, back to Huigra." "Ah, fantastico." "Derailments are common, but the speeds are slow and the accidents usually minor." "As a bonus, amateur supervisors get a chance to see how, with a minimum of equipment, a derailed car can be coaxed back onto its track." "After a change of engines, the train climbs into the mountains once again." "In the early days of the American west railroad builders often resorted to zigzagging switchbacks to gain altitude." "On this line, a famous switchback is still in use." "The train has proceeded as far as it can up the valley." "Now it switches to another track, and backs up the side of Devil's Nose, giving passengers on the rear platform a front-end view." "The train backs around the mountain, then switches again to climb higher." "Going forward again, the train has climbed 300 vertical feet up the side of the mountain." "At the end of the first day, the train stops at Riobamba." "For Carla Hunt, a visit to the market is a fascinating feature of the trip." "People come from miles around to sell and buy." "You see things in this market you won't see anywhere else in Latin America." "But more than anything else," "I like to wander around and look at all those beautiful faces." "From Riobamba to Quito, the train is really a bus on rails." "There are seats inside, but for hardy train buffs like Carla Hunt, there is a much more exciting vantage point." "The place I like to ride is up on the luggage rack on top." "That's the best sightseeing seat in South America." "To go through the mountains and to climb over the two ranges of the Andes to go through the beautiful upland villages with all the wild changes of weather on route, there's nothing in the world like it." "Clouds shroud the peaks of the Andes as the line climbs high through cuts in the mountains and then descends to Ecuador's capital, the Spanish colonial city of Quito, to bring to an end one of the world's most extraordinary train ride" "In the United States, another spectacular train ride inspired one train buff to take dramatic action." "The line from Durango to Silverton, Colorado was threatened with abandonment in 1960." "Charles Bradshaw Jr.," "Florida citrus grower, rescued it in 1981." "Like many a town in the old West, Durango was created by a railroad." "The Denver  Rio Grande chose the site laid out the streets, and sold lots around the depot." "Young people, who share Bradshaw's enthusiasm for trains, keep it running" "I love it." "I really love it." "I go home and tell my husband," "I learned all kinds of new things today." "I would like to be an engineer very much." "You have to go through all the training, which is pretty physical for a girl and then you have to also a fireman, which shovel six ton of coal a day." "I wouldn't want to get out of my limit I don't think that's right." "My father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather were all railroaders before me." "They worked for the Rio Grand." "Not this particular branch." "I'm the first one in the family to work for this branch of the railroad." "None of them were conductors." "They were all in different parts of the railroad, so I'm the first conductor in the family." "They have to be pretty responsible people." "They can't be irresponsible at all." "Aren't you pretty young to be an engineer?" "I hear that about 30 times a day." "If I couldn't handle the job, I wouldn't be here." "Silverton is only 45 miles from Durango, but to get there, the train must climb almost 3,000 feet" "In the 1870s, huge discoveries of ore were made in the mountains surrounding Silverton but there was no economical way to get the ore out." "The railroad made the mines profitable" "The ore is now removed by truck." "The traffic has changed, but the town still prospers-mining tourist dollars." "All aboard." "As soon as the route was completed, the drama of the train's traverse of the Animas River Canyon was recognized as one of the great sights of American railroading." "In the early 1880s, photographer William Henry Jackson lowered himself into the canyon to take this picture, published in Harper's Weekly magazine." "Today's passengers can still enjoy the same spectacle." "The ride is potentially just as dangerous now as it was then." "A derailment could topple the cars 200 feet into the gorge." "An extraordinary train run has been preserved because of the dedication of one man and the delight that more than 100,000 people a year take in supporting the line." "Boston has its marathon;" "New Orleans its Mardi Gras." "Britt, Iowa honors hoboes." "Once a year, this small town invites hoboes from all over the country to drop by for a visit." "The get-together largely attracts those who have retired from actively riding the rails and can now look back on their former rag-tag wanderings with nostalgia." "Hoboes were not always so honored." "Hoboing began during hard times after the Civil War." "And in the Great Depression, the desperate once again took to the rails." "Sometimes railroad police threw them off moving trains." "Others jumped rather than face the reception they received when caught crossing state lines." "If we are to protect the public of Southern California from the indigent transient class." "They are coming here at this time, not for the purpose of securing work, but for the purpose of living on relief, stealing, or begging." "Where is your home?" "Chicago." "You ride a freight all the way from Chicago?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you can ride, 'em back too, or any way you can to get back." "We're going to see you over the state line." "Don't come back to California until you can come in like a man." "Hobo camps are called jungles, and life in them has always been hard." "But in Britt, Iowa the jungle is a place to renew friendships and swap stories." "...in '78 Yes, yes." "Yeah, I remember you." "My memory that bad?" "Now wait a minute!" "Every year you get older, you have a special privilege." "Every year you will get a little bit better at forgetting." "Yes." "I am there already." "Hoboes are known most often by their nicknames." ""Steamtrain" was first elected hobo king in 1973." "Now we got a young goat here, and it's going to be some pretty tender eating when we get him all browned up here." "Yes, sir." "We'll have some of the best music and some of the best food you'll ever sit down to." "Time has reversed these hoboes' roles once they were outcasts." "Now Britt youngsters look up to them as knights of the open road who seem to have lived in a mythological age." "That's my name, see." "That's your name?" "Well, this is mine." "Mountain Dew." "I was talking to the hoboqueen and she says," "Would you like to be a hobo?" "and I said, "Sure."" "And I go, How do you be a hobo?" "and she said-well, she pulled out this kind of perfume stuff, whatever it is-and she goes, I acquire you prince, a hobo price." "And she put some on my forehead." "So I'm a hobo prince." "And my name is "Beer-Belly Bob."" "I started out when I was about 16, and had 12 years on and off, different places." "Working irrigation ditches up in Washington, or cutting pulp wood in New York, dong lifeguard work down in Miami Beach, working in a gypsum plant in Yuma, Arizona, washing dishes in California You know, different stuff like that." "Working in the coal mines, but they gave me a day shift." "When I went in, it was dark and when I come out, it was dark, and I worked there two weeks." "I told them when they put windows in there," "I'd come back to work." "How long did you hobo?" "From when to when?" "About, let's see, 1931 to '38." "Something like that." "What's the satisfaction?" "Of being free." "Being free." "In other words, not having to account to anybody for your actions." "As the sun sets, the hoboes gather around a fire, and balladeers recall the hard days of depression times." "...my wandering." "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," "If the railroad doesn't get you, then the bread lines must," "And it looks like I'm never going to cease my wandering." "When most railroad buffs think of trains, they think of passenger trains." "But many of those most devoted to trains have found their life work with the railroads." "Whether they maintain the racks or work on the trains themselves, the big business for them is freight, moving everything from coal to lettuce." "And although much of the public thinks railroads are a dying industry, in fact they are thriving." "Deregulation has permitted them to abandon money-losing lines, and new techniques, like piggyback hauling of truck trailers and containers, attract new customers." "The mass-market shipping of fresh produce by rail enables farmers in California to sell lettuce to buyers 3,000 miles away." "Lettuce harvesting has become an assembly-line operation- cutter, packer, sprayer, box-closer." "Today's lettuce that we've got is probably the best we've had in about a week and a half." "It's 54 to 55 pounds absolutely clean." "Derek Derdivanis is Sales Manger of the Admiral Packing Company in Salinas." "He sells lettuce by the carload to buyers all over the country." "Just call us back with that order, will you?" "You know." "The one you got in your back pocket." "A refrigerator car holds 30,000 heads of lettuce." "This one is bound east for New York City." "The morning after the lettuce is picked, the Admiral lettuce car has been joined to a 50-car train called the "Salad Bowl Express."" "Five Southern Pacific engines are needed to pull the train over a 7,000-foot-high pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains." "The route climbs toward Donner Pass." "On average, 35 feet of snow fall here each winter, and avalanches have obstructed travelers as long as the pass has been used." "In November 1846, blizzards trapped the emigrant Donner party here." "Thirty-five died of starvation and exposure." "Some survivors resorted to cannibalism." "In the spring of 1982, ten feet of snow fell in 12 days in the High Sierras." "Southern Pacific stopped all trains across Donner Pass." "Diverting traffic cost $100,000 a day." "Snow fighters tried to keep the lines open with spreaders-snow plows that push the huge drifts to the side." "But when the snow drifts too deep, spreaders stall and the pushing wings collapse." "The nerve center of the railroad's fight is a community of houses and offices connected by tunnels so buried in snow that it is call "Mole Town."" "Here a hundred men and women work day and night." "Norden operator." "Everything's in the clear on the Number Two?" "How about the rotary?" "Rotary's in the clear on the Number Two..." "Management calls for its ultimate snow-fighting machines-rotary plows that can dig through almost any accumulation of snow." "...that engine's being held right now." "The rotary is going on down to the other end of the siding." "Throwing five tons of snow a minute, 150 feet from the line, the rotary can literally dig a trench deeper than itself." "As one rotary chews toward the top of the pass from the west, another struggles up from the east." "The first train comes through." "Beyond the Sierras, the "Salad Bowl Express" drops into the desert, and a new crew takes over." "On the long, straight runs, there's time for shared stories and for trainmen to enjoy the camaraderie which is part of the attraction they feel for their work." "I don't think it's dawned on me yet that I've had a kid." "I'm still in shock from it." "Went in Sunday night." "Had it Monday morning." "Last couple of days have been pretty busy for me." "I was lucky." "Generally the railroad doesn't allow you to be in town." "They keep you away from home quite often." "So I was pretty lucky to be home when it happened." "In 1950," "I was on a high-speed perishables train, and a passenger train come out of a side track in front of us." "We hit him head on about 52 mile an hour." "The engineer on the other train was killed." "I'm very lucky to be here." "Now that scared me." "By evening, the train is in eastern Nevada." "The next morning, now with a Union Pacific engine and crew, the "Salad Bowl Express" climbs toward the Continental Divide." "Around a curve, Castle Rock, a well-known American landmark, comes into view." "The famous photographer A.J. Russell captured this same scene when the transcontinental railroad was nearing completion." "In 1867, it took three months to cross by wagon from the railheads on the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast." "The new rail line cut that time to less than a week." "Irish immigrants living in railroad car dormitories built west." "Chinese coolies built east." "It was the most dramatic engineering accmplishment of the century." "Gorges were spanned, mountains cut through or tunneled under." "An army of workers fought summer heart and winter snow at a cost of uncounted lives." "There were no movie cameras to record the great undertaking, but once movies were invented, filmmakers recreated the drama in classic films;" "John Ford's the Iron Horse and Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific." "Crossing the mountains, the deserts, and plains," "Fighting the heat, the cold, and the rain," "Summer to autumn, winter to spring," "Bring 'em up, lay 'em down, make the hammers ring," "Building a new road under the wheel," "Bind up the earth in iron and steel," "Working east, working west, we're building our way," "On bad food, hard liquor, and a dollar a day." "It was a day of national celebration when the two lines met at Promontory, Utah." "A.J. Russell recorded the scene in what is perhaps the most famous photograph in American history." "And in 1924, when John Ford recreated the scene for his film, he based the action on the photographer to pose the crowd." "The joining of America's East and West by rail is even more important today." "The "Salad Bowl Express" is only one of 60 to 70 trains a day moving across the nation on this one line." "Now, near the end of its second day, the "Salad Bowl Express" comes under the traffic control of dispatchers at North Platte, Nebraska." "Here three men per shift control every train on the 245 miles of track diagrammed on the walls." "They decide which trains get priority on the lines." "The "salad Bowl Express" is rushed along." "Midnight." "The "Salad Bowl Express" arrives at North Platte." "Some cars will be sent south and eastward on other lines." "Other cars will be added." "The freight cars are pushed up a hump and separated." "Gravity powers them down the slope." "The tracks divide again and again." "Automatic sensors weigh the cars and retarders brake them." "There are 22 1 miles of track in the yard." "And as many as 5,000 freight cars at a time." "By 4 a." "M., a new train has been made up, a new crew comes aboard, and the train moves on." "In the afternoon, the train crosses the Missouri River." "Operated now by Chicago and North Western railroad, it traverses the rich farmlands of Iowa." "The next morning, the train is in Chicago." "Marshalling yards like this one are dangerous places." "You have to watch for cars coming from both directions." "There could be debris sticking out of the car." "Try not go get caught in a situation where you have trains moving at high speed in both directions on each side of you." "If you do have a tendency to feel dizzy, lay down on the ground." "You could reel under the car." "Despite railroad emphasis on safety, there is an average of 15 deaths and 6,700 injuries to American rail-yard workers each year." "Danger for railroaders comes not only from the trains themselves." "In the early days, desperadoes like Jesse James," "Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance kid held up trains in the lonely plains and mountains of the West." "Today, trains are most often attacked as they pass through depressed areas" "We had one conductor-they got him with a gun and robbed him at Park Manor." "It's just a few things that we go through out here." "Everybody thinks we've got such a swell job." "We have our ups and downs, too." "This is our most dangerous spot of the trip." "They put different articles on the tracks to derail us." "They put old truck tires so they'll break the air hoses in two." "They'll throw beer bottles, anything they can get their hands on." "We've heen shot at." "They shot at me five times through the caboose windows." "I've got pictures of the holes." "It was either a.38 or a.45 because it put big holes." "Sometimes they do it to rob the train." "They break us in two to rob us, so they can take things off of us." "On the cabooses they have..." "No, I know all about it." "He's going to throw." "No, he's not either." "Oh, we go through this every day." "It's nothing new to us." "The many dedicated man and women who are drawn to railroad work also live with the danger that goes with the job." "The "salad Bowl Express" rolls through the heartland of the industrial Middle West." "On the fifth morning, the train parallels the Mohawk River." "Now under Conrail control, it follows the same route taken in 1825 by the Erie Canal." "Early on the sixth morning, the "Salas Bowl Express" arrives at its destination in the Bronx." "Ten carloads of produce are unloaded at Hunts Point Terminal each day." "The carload of lettuce from Salinas has been bought by the Armata family, wholesalers who in turn sell to markets and restaurants." "Beautiful box of lettuce." "As my father would say, It talks to you." "As soon as you open up the box..." "It has been seven days since the lettuce was picked." "It took four railroads and the involvement of 1,000 men and women to move it across the country." "Half a million people work for the railroads in the United States." "In one sense, theirs is just a job, but it is an essential job, moving the grain, steel, coal, automobiles, perishables-even the lettuce for a PTA luncheon in Baldwin, Long Island." "Traditionally, little boys were given model trains for Christmas and, captured by a dream, many grew up wanting to become an engineer." "The reality today is not far different." "For a new class of 23 engineers, the Long Island Railroad had 2,000 applicants to choose from." "Now to get the train moving, you'll need to reverse." "You're in forward." "This position." "This is your throttle." "Now we'll go in eight notch." "Alright, blow the whistle." "Dave Decker, senior instructor, has been an engineer for 14 years." "Decker loves engineering and teaching, but the memory of train accidents in his past brings a special urgency to his teaching." "Engineering used to be a man's job, but Federal affirmative action guidelines give Vita Zamboli, a former secretary, and extraordinary opportunity to join an elite group of railroad employees." "I can teach an engineer how to make a proper brake application and accelerate, decelerate." "That's the easy part." "My most difficult responsibility is to instill into an upcoming engineer that they have monumental responsibilities." "The is no margin for error." "Not when you are dealing with 1,600 people behind you." "Hopefully, I can bring this across to these upcoming engineers." "Are you relaxed?" "A little damp." "Alright." "That's good." "That means you've got guts." "If you're not nervous in here, there is something wrong." "How do you feel?" "Are you coming in strong?" "As she brings the train into a station" "Vita must learn the right timing how strongly to apply the brakes so as not to stop too soon or overrun the station." "Okay." "Now what you want to do is bear off the last second." "No, no, not this." "Right, bear if off." "Super." "You want that feel of this thing charging into the station and making your initial application and then your final application." "You ever run a train before?" "Huh?" "Never?" "You did a heck of a job." "What do you think?" "What do you feel?" "You feel that this..." "It was exciting." "It was great is this going to be your occupation or what?" "Yes, it is." "Yes." "I'm sure it's going to take a while." "But I will get the feeling of bringing a train in." "There are going to be times in your career when you are going to run across a grade crossing accident." "You're traveling along at 65, and a car comes around a gate or through the gates." "There's not a thing you can do." "You hope you give pre-warning, that a warning whistle or warning bell before you get to that crossing are ample." "You'll search your soul to know whether you did it or not." "It's not just the glory of running over the road and to say," "I always wanted to be an engineer." "Now I have that." "It's that you have to take that responsibility." "If her engineering career follows the norm," "Vital will face 500,000 road crossings in the next 25 years." "If she is never involved in an accident, passengers who ride her trains will have no reason to learn her name." "There are many great train rides around the world, but not one can match the aura of elegance, mystery, and romance surrounding the name-Orient Express." "It ran for almost a century until its demise in 1977." "Now two men have revived the historic run to Istanbul." "Albert Glatt bought the 1920s-vintage cars and lovingly refurbished them." "Sometimes, you know, you have to do everything on the train" "T.C. Swartz chartered the cars for those who could afford to recapture the glory of rail travel in its heyday." "...and then how to surpass it." "People's idea of luxury is a little bit different than maybe what is actually was." "So we're trying to do now is to give them more luxury than they had in the past." "In fact, to make it the ultimate trip." "I can't believe it," "Oh, it's marvelous." "There will be 98 passengers on this trip, each paying a modest $5,000 one way." "I think the dogs are great." "...great, but they are..." "Yeah, but I can't see them sitting in the dining car." "Some passengers, like actor Hal Linden and his wife, stage an arrival in the grand tradition, harking back to the aura of a princely trip." "Original inlaid wood decorations and Lalique molded glass reliefs still decorate the cars." "Names of the countries the Orient Express passes through" "Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria-ring with romance." "Memories of mysteries like Murder on the Orient Express surround the passengers with an atmosphere of champagne and dreams." "Well, my name is Otto." "And I'm supposed to play the piano all the way to Istanbul." "It seems like everything that's wonderful about the world is going away, and the trains are one of those things" "Kim Vosper and Kyle Collins advanced the date of their weeding so they could make this their first trip together as a married couple." "For bourgeois travelers, meals in an aristocratic French style the ultimate temptation for those who count calories." "I remember as a child we used to put people on the train in New Iberia." "And I was never sad because they were leaving." "I was always sad because I wasn't leaving too, but I wasn't standing on the back platform when I'm waving goodbye." "I think I was six or seven when I took my first train ride." "From that time on, I think I fell in love with trains." "And then I heard that you could spend four-and-a-half days on a train that sold me on this trip." "The train cruises Europe like an ocean liner." "Gypsies play as they did on the first run of the Orient Express." "In the evenings, there are gala seven-course dinners." "And occasionally the train waits as passengers are bused to the entertainment." "A champagne tasting at the 150-year-old cave of" "Mumm's winery in France." "And just as on its maiden voyage, there is a festive reception in Budapest." "On the first trip, no passengers on the Orient Express dined at the hunting lodge of the sultan." "It is an express journey to the sun, but the high point for many comes in Vienna where the Vienna Boys' Choir is only a part of the entertainment." "Protocol prevented the Austrian royal family from receiving plebian passengers of the first Orient Express" "Now the Pallavicini Palace is theirs for the evening." "And finally, the end of the line-lstanbul, Turkey- where passengers get the red-carpet treatment, Oriental style." "For the 98 passengers of the Orient Express, the trip will remain an extraordinary adventure into the romance of rails." "But the Orient Express has no monopoly on beauty." "There are grand adventures for everyone in a rediscovery of travel by train." "Amtrak's Crescent, with newly rebuilt equipment, races like a speeding ship across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana." "The Great Plains offer the same sweeping vistas that challenged the pioneers so long age." "There are majestic views of the Rockies on the Canadian transcontinental route" "The San Diegan is a beachcomber from Los Angeles to San Diego." "In the future, new trains traveling 160 miles an hour are planned for the run between Los Angeles and San Diego, and that is only the beginning." "Extraordinary experimental trains may some day revolutionize land travel." "For those who love trains, whether as engineer, hobo, or passenger, there's an appreciation due for the song-writer's line:" "It's got to be the going and not the getting there that's good."