Climb an active volcano in Russia, traverse limestone spires in Madagascar, and descendsubmerge into the crystal caves of Mexico with these expedition photos from National Geographic photographers.
-
Climbing Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park and Preserve, Madagascar
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic
Climber John “Razor Sharp” Benson plans his next move during a traverse of the ultrasharp tsingy pinnacles in the 600-square-mile Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park and Preserve on Madagascar. The imposing limestone spires form a veritable citadel for flora and fauna, allowing them to thrive while much of the rest of the island is ravaged by human settlement, livestock, and deforestation. But this kind of protection comes with a price for the few brave scientists and explorers that manage to make the five-day haul to the park's edge. The expedition was painstakingly slowgoing—the team managed to pierce both boot soles and writer Nick Shea's knee before clearing the tsingy.
-
Kayaking the Lower Congo River, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Photograph by Skip Brown, National Geographic
Kayaker Scott Feindel paddles hard through the big whitewater of Kinsuka Rapid on the lower Congo River. This expedition made the first successfull descent of the lower Congo River and also measured the deepest known spot of any river in the world.
-
Exploring Ambrym Island, Vanuatu
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
Marum Volcano erupts behind a volcanologist during a two-week expedition to Ambrym Island in the South Pacific. The group of nine explorers, photographers, and filmmakers battled body-leveling gusts of wind, intense heat, noxious gases, and partially corroded camera lenses. But none of it stopped them from having to drag spellbound photographer Carsten Peter away from the primordial spectacle at the crater's edge.
-
Diving the Great Abaco Island, Bahamas
Photograph by Wes Skiles, National Geographic
A diver negotiates the Cascade Room's stalagmites in Dan's Cave near Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas.
-
Climbing Arrigetch Creek, Alaska
Photograph by Michael Christopher Brown, National Geographic
Adventurers Andrew Skurka, Roman Dial, and photographer Michael Brown hiked from Circle Lake up Arrigetch Creek then over the Arrigetch Peaks (via Arial peak). They then crossed two more passes before descending into the Noatak River valley to packraft for one day to Pingo Lake.
-
Paragliding Above the Altiplano, Bolivia
Photograph by George Steinmetz, National Geographic
Former world-record pilot Franz Schilter tests a paraglider designed for high-altitude takeoffs during an expedition to Bolivia's Altiplano in 2008. Steinmetz would later use the paraglider himself to take aerial photographs of the Altiplano, which is the second largest mountain plateau in the world and which includes the wide, white Salar de Uyuni (shown here), the site of an ancient sea that’s now the largest salt flat in the world. To get here, the expedition team took a 4x4 out over the 12,000-foot-high shimmering expanse, past chinchillas, alpacas, and breeding flamingos.
-
Caving Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
An explorer walks among some of the largest crystals on Earth in the Cave of Crystals in Chihuahua, Mexico. Since it was discovered in 2000, researchers and filmmakers have flocked to the sparkling stronghold to try to answer the question of how these particular beams of selenite, a form of the common gypsum, grew to be more than 30 feet long. Finding this out presents some challenges, namely, the stifling heat. It takes 20 minutes by van to descend the roughly 1,000 feet below the surface to where the cavern lies, not far above a magma intrusion. Though researchers don vests packed with ice and respirators blowing cool air, they still keep their visits short: Temperatures in the cavern reach 112 degrees, with 90 to 100 percent humidity.
-
Trekking From the North Pole to Franz Josef Land
Photograph by Borge Ousland, National Geographic
Explorer-photographer Thomas Ulrich spreads his weight evenly over a fragile section of ice near the North Pole. In June 2007, Ulrich and teammate Børge Ousland had set out from the North Pole with the goal of doing what no one else had done by following the footsteps of renowned Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen across the Arctic. The trip involved skiing more than 600 miles while pulling heavy kayaks behind them and periodically hopping drifting ice floes. At one point of the trip, Ulrich even experienced a flashback to a past trip during which a storm had trapped him off the coast of Siberia. But unlike Nansen, Ulrich and Ousland had parasails and GPS to help them. “For us,” Ousland said, “it was like a holiday compared to Nansen.”
-
Tree Climbing During the Redwoods Megatransect, California
Photograph by Michael Christopher Brown, National Geographic
Dr. Michael Fay and Lindsey Holm descend Decker Creek, which flows from Grasshopper Mountain into the South Fork of the Eel River, and enter the Neva B. Douglas Memorial Grove, located inside Humbolt Redwoods State Park.
-
Rappelling Into Greenland’s Glaciers
Photograph by James Balog, National Geographic
Field assistant Adam LeWinter rappels into a gaping crevasse during an expedition to Greenland. The bottom of the crevasse could open into a vertical shaft, or moulin, capable of sucking down an entire surface meltwater lake overnight. The expedition studied this rapid drainage among Greenland's glacial meltwater lakes, as well as the role cryoconite, a dark substance comprised of mineral dust and soot, plays in it. Wary of how notoriously fast and unexpected the lakes could drain, the team used an unmanned research vessel to navigate the lakes themselves. However, even traversing the area around them was a precarious endeavor. LeWinter and writer Mark Jenkins were forced to jump pools dotting pockmarked ice. As Jenkins put it: “It's like playing leap frog on razor blades.”
-
Exploring the Ora Cave, Papua New Guinea
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic
A caver uses a rope trolley to traverse a river surging through the massive Ora sinkhole on New Britain, an island off the coast of New Guinea. The dangerous maneuver was part of an 11-person, two-month expedition to map the labyrinthine depths of Ora. Their ultimate goal, however, was to convince the government of Papua New Guinea to protect the surrounding Nakanai Mountains. The expedition members took a plane, a boat, a lumber truck, and a helicopter to reach the remote region, and once they arrived no rescue teams were on standby. "We're quite masochistic," says caver Dave Nixon. "But it's character-building stuff."
-
Trekking Patagonia, Argentina
Photograph by Thomas Ulrich, National Geographic
Polar explorer Børge Ousland drags a sled across the Southern Patagonia Ice Field. No one had ever crossed it without resupplying when Ousland and Thomas Ulrich set out to do exactly that late in the South American winter of 2003. Armed with GPS and 67 days' worth of supplies, the duo tackled the third largest expanse of glaciers on the planet, one that is notorious for its brutal weather and deadly crevasses.
-
Diving the Aukland Islands, New Zealand
Photograph by Brian J. Skerry, National Geographic
A right whale examines photography assistant Mauricio Handler off the coast of the Aukland Islands during an expedition to study the slow comeback of the southern right whale. By the beginning of the 20th century, right whales had been hunted nearly to extinction. Commercial fishing and marine transport continue to keep the number of North Atlantic whales down to a few hundred.
-
Exploring the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
A volcanologist strides through a murky expanse of steam on Mutnovsky Volcano during an expedition to Kamchatka, Russia. The steam billows from a fumarole, or a vent created by heated groundwater and rising volcanic gas, and it serves as a visible reminder that the peninsula is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world, with some 29 active volcanoes.
-
Caving in Green's Well, Alabama
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic
John Benson and Luke Padgett ascend ropes leading them out of 227-foot-deep Green's Well, Alabama. The pit is one of 14,000 known caves in TAG, an acronym used by cavers to refer to the vast underground cave system lying beneath Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. TAG's thriving subculture of cave explorers climb, hang, swim, shimmy, and crawl through the caves, some of which require navigating through coffin-like crawl spaces too tight for even a helmet to be worn. Often times, this is done in impenetrable darkness, unlike anything known on the surface of the Earth.
-
Exploring Hang Ken, Vietnam
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
In the dry season, from November to April, a caver can safely explore Hang Ken, with its shallow pools. Come the monsoon, the underground river swells and floods the passages, making the cave impassable.
-
Caving Navajo Canyon, Arizona
Photograph by Bill Hatcher, National Geographic
Eve Tallman wades through a debris-plugged pothole in Navajo Canyon. *Is this what the image is of? Climb, crawl, rappel—cavers do whatever it takes to navigate the narrow slot canyons along the Arizona-Utah border. Leaves, branches, dirt, and dead animals choke such potholes until the next downpour scours them clean.
Beyond the Edge Climbing Videos
Extreme Photo of the Week
Top Adventurers
-
Adventurers of the Year
See photos of our Adventurers of the Year in action, from summiting an 8,000-meter peak in winter to biking industrial Scotland to climbing Everest, paragliding down, and paddling to the sea.
-
Climb Geyikbayiri, Turkey
Adventurer Alex Honnold's must-do dream trip is to climb Geyikbayiri, Turkey. Learn more about this trip and others in our Ultimate Adventure Bucket List.
-
First Woman Mountaineer on World's Tallest Peaks
See photos of 2011 People's Choice Adventurer of the Year Edurne Pasaban on the summits of the world's tallest mountains.
Fringe Elements Videos
Learn about athletes pushing to the next level in these sports.
Radical Reels Videos
Watch the Banff Mountain Film Festival's adrenaline videos.
