Lauren Shane

After our 4:15 a.m. cab ride to Reagan International, and 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago, and then connected to Anchorage by early afternoon. With a long layover for our Fairbanks flight, we took the bus into downtown Anchorage and killed a few hours enjoying some locally-brewed beers and Halibut burger sandwiches at Humpy's. Our flight to Fairbanks (1 hr) went off without a hitch, and we taxied to our bed and breakfast, a cool 3+ story house built around a giant white spruce beam. The next day Carol and Jim of Arctic Treks picked us up and brought us to the little airport, where we loaded up all our gear, met the guides for our trip (Country, Molly, and Shannon) and the three other clients (Peter, Adele, and Michael). It was a 1.5 hour plane ride ... read more

After 2 days of flights (DC to London to Munich to Delhi to Bhubaneswar) we made it to the east coast of India to Chilika Lake. I was there for 10 nights and stayed at the guesthouse of the Chilika Lake Reserve along with John (USGS guru), Tracy (UN FAO veterinarian), Scott (FAO Biologist), Lucy (Post-doc in Wales), Subbarao (FAO India), Bala (ornithologist), Selvam (ornithologist), Acty (veterinarian), and a handful of others as well as 8-12 trappers that would be catching all the birds we were there to sample and mark. The trappers were amazing, led by Ali Hussein, who must be able to think like a bird. Early on we were leaving at dawn and took a boat out to the island in the middle of the lake. The boat ride took about an hour ... read more

Shane flew to Beijing in September as part of his new job with USGS (Patuxent Wildlife Research Center), working on a satellite telemetry project of waterfowl migration in Eurasia and Africa. By placing transmitters on the backs of ducks and geese using little harnesses, we can track the migration of individuals around the globe. A specific focus of the project is determining how wild birds may be contributing to the spread of avian influenza (bird flu), which spread prolifically from Southeast Asia and China into Western Asia, Europe, and Africa since 2005. We would be working at Qinghai Lake in Central China, which sits at over 9000 ft on the Qinghai/Tibetan Plateau and was the site of the largest outbreak of bird flu virus in wild birds (over 6000 birds perished in 2005). I traveled with ... read more

The last leg of our trek! We walked to Ghorepani, which was over 5000 feet of uphill. The landscape had changed yet again into dense rhodedendron forests. Bright pink flowers carpeted the floor and hillsides. We had another early wake-up to hike up to the top of Poon Hill, which is a beautiful spot to watch the sun rise. We could see Dhaulaghiri, one of the ten highest mountains in the world, and Annapurna South, among other peaks. We then continued on our way. At one point, Shane got stung by some nettles. Luckily, Dilman knew another plant that would counteract the effects, so he gathered some and rubbed it all over Shane's hand. It seemed to do the trick (or the nettle effects were short-lived). Dilman also pointed out to us the trailside marijuana, which ... read more

We passed some sketchy avalanche prone areas where there had clearly been some recent rockslides, but made it to Thorung Phedi for lunch with little problem. The teahouse we stopped at was full of other trekkers, many of which we had met during the past week, all waiting to go over the pass the following day. From there it was less than two hours (although just 450 m in altitude) to the high camp (4900 m) where we would spend the night. The weather wasn’t bad, although clouds were obscuring the views more often than not. After warming up with some lunch, we ascended a short path up to look down the valley. The views were pretty nuts....snowy capped mountains on top of other giant mountains. A flock of jackdaws were flapping around, which made me ... read more