Conscious Choice: Why We Explore

June 2002

Why We Explore

Discovery, not adventure, is the spiritual urge that beckons to us all.

by Monte Paulsen

Almost a century after not quite reaching the South Pole, Sir Ernest Shackleton has become the star of new films both on cable and at the multiplex. An archetypal explorer and hero, Shackleton’s dogged pursuit of the pole was tempered only by his fierce determination to bring his crew home alive. Audiences revel in his quest, I believe, because his story awakens a primal drive that lurks within each of us: the urge to explore.

Roald Amundsen beat Shackleton to the South Pole in 1911, and Robert Peary beat them both to the northern axis. Two world wars and a depression forestalled such expeditions for years, but geographic exploration resumed in earnest afterward: Between 1952 and 1970, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled Mount Everest, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh bottomed the Pacific Ocean’s seven-mile-deep Marianas Trench, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, and Neil Armstrong the first to set foot on the moon.

In the decades since we first gazed at Earth from space, however, the pace of exploration slowed remarkably. We assumed a "been there, done that" attitude toward geographic discovery and began pursuing mere adventure in lieu of genuine exploration. Mountaineers competed not to scale new heights, but to summit well-known peaks faster and with less gear. Deep ocean discovery was all but abandoned while the hunt for prizes such as the Titanic consumed popular imagination. And NASA confined space travel to flying laps around the planet — something the Soviets had already proved a well-trained dog could do.

Adventure proved easier to orchestrate — and market — than the far less predictable pursuit of exploration. A sprawling adventure-entertainment complex emerged during the peaceful and prosperous decades since the moon missions, and the industry perfected the art of selling magazines, television shows, high-tech equipment, and prêt à porter apparel. More of us than ever before took up climbing, diving, and flying. Yet I can’t help but feel that what we truly yearn for is not the adrenaline rush of adventure, but the spiritual rite of exploration.

There’s no lack of unexplored terrain. Of the 448 mountains that rise above 7,000 meters, some 146 have never been summited. These include spectacular unclimbed peaks in Pakistan’s remote Karakoram range, massive kilometer-high walls along Greenland’s southeast coast, and dozens of unclimbed Antarctic peaks. The tallest mountains (and deepest valleys) on Earth lie beneath the oceans, yet less than one percent of the sea floor has been explored.

And the race to discover the world’s deepest cave is heating up. The front runners change position constantly; because while mountaineers all knew which peak was the tallest long before it was climbed, no one knows which cave will prove the deepest until cavers bottom them all. For the moment, a 1710-meter deep cave in the former Soviet republic of Georgia holds the title. Vorponja — or "Crow’s Cave" — sits high in the Caucasus mountains, east of the Black Sea. Since last year’s announcement of the Vorponja discovery, teams from the U.S., Mexico, France, Spain, and the former Soviet republics have plotted new expeditions in the hopes of snatching back the depth record. Not since Amundsen, Shackelton, and Scott raced to the poles have explorers vied for such an obscure and dangerous prize.

I spent much of the past couple years in the company of a muddy troupe of explorers who pour most of their time and all of their money into the pursuit of undiscovered caves. And for the same period of time, my non-caving friends have pressed the same question upon me again and again: Why do they do it?

Ego is part of the answer. Whether openly or secretly, most cavers want to discover the world’s deepest cave. But the grueling job of rappelling, swimming, and squeezing into one dark hole after another is so profoundly discouraging that the work itself weeds out those who seek only glory. After many nights huddled about a campfire at the surface — or a butane cook stove at some subterranean bivouac — I’ve come to believe this merry brood is simply addicted to the rare pleasure of setting their own boots upon ground that no one has ever stepped on before.

We all feel the urge, as Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry put it, "to boldly go where no one has gone before." We all feel that subtle longing to see what’s over the next ridge, that sudden tug of a used bookstore or flea market, that nagging notion that the grass might really be greener on the other side of the fence — or the other side of the world. Some nights it’s as simple as the inexplicable desire to thrust one’s hand beneath the sofa cushions just to see what might be lurking down there.

And when we act upon these urges, we are explorers too. Whether cycling through an unfamiliar neighborhood, strolling through a nearby forest, paddling the shores of a small lake, when we act in the moment, the way we did as children, our spiritual urge to explore is satisfied. Perhaps the same is true when we sit with a dangerous idea, carry an uncomfortable emotion, befriend someone who threatens us, or pursue a difficult spiritual practice. In such moments, we step upon terrain that we have never stepped upon before. And we return home having rendered ourselves — and one another — better for the journey.

Monte Paulsen helped explorers William Stone and Barbara Anne am Ende write Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent into the World’s Most Treacherous Cave, which is being released this month by Warner Books.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: