The Explorers

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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

It just snowballs

Ever since I was a kid

I was interested in

animals

I 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

I wanted to be Captain Nemo

I wanted to command

the Nautilus

Growing up in a small town

in Alabama

I never thought that

I would do this

Just amazing

I 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

If 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 16, 1969

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

It 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?

Is 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

In 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?

I don't feel

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

Ian Baker's expedition to

find the falls has been

slowed...

...to a mile a day

In 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

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