Famous Explorers Celebrate 100 Years of Adventure and Scientific Advancement

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April 1, 2004 -- The celebration was for 100 years and the stage held a variety of luminaries: the first person to climb the highest mountain in the world (Sir Edmund Hillary), the woman who dove deepest in earth's oceans (Sylvia Earle), and the man who went even deeper (Don Walsh), the first person to travel under the North Pole (Fred McLaren), and the second man to stand on the moon (Buzz Aldrin).

That was just the start at The Explorers Club Annual Dinner held again at the Waldorf=Astoria hotel, since other diners had been to the North Pole and to the South Pole, innumerable mountaintops, deserts and jungles - circled the globe in hot air balloons, saved rainforests and endangered species, tested new fuels and broken numerous records. Among them were 94-year-old mountain climber and photographer Brad Washburn and his very long-time friend, 98-year-old Col. Norman Vaughan, a member of Richard Byrd's 1928 Antarctic expedition who returned three days before his 89th birthday to climb the 10,302-ft. mountain named after him.

To get a "taste" of what it means to stretch the boundaries of scientific knowledge, the evening began with their "untraditional" hors d'oeuvres known as "The Exotics," a sample of extreme cuisine consumed on past expeditions: scorpions, mealworms, crickets and tarantulas, along with alligators, wild boar and rattlesnake -- endangered species are off limits.

Club President, Richard Weise, said, "There's more here than meets the palate, and the eye. The Explorers Club, founded in 1904, is a multidisciplinary, professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore."

The caliber of member is obviously high since all of the great explorers have belonged during the last one hundred years.

Among the century's most recognized names are: Robert Peary and Frederick Cooke who both claimed -- separately -- that they first reached the North Pole; Charles Lindbergh, first to officially fly across the Atlantic; Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon) and a host of fellow astronauts including Senator John Glenn; Bob Ballard, best known for the discovery of the Titanic, and Indiana Jones prototypes like L. Ron Hubbard and Roy Chapman Andrews.

The Club also released a book edited by the late and well-known Club member and author George Plimpton, As Told at The Explorers Club - More Than Fifty Gripping Tales of Adventure (Lyons Press). This centennial compilation includes stories written by well-known members such as Lowell Thomas, Roy Chapman Andrews and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, a Life Fellow of the Club whose story denying that he wrestled a Kodiak bear during one of his expeditions is one of the most popular.

Speculation of what explorers will wrestle, eat and write about in the next century will surely be built on the rich heritage celebrated at The Explorers Club Annual Dinner.

SOURCE eReleases