Exploring the wilds

Hamburg / DPA

He’s the last man in Europe to hold down a dream job of journalism: exploring the world’s wildernesses, writing about it and getting paid a generous full-time salary for his pains. Following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley of Africa fame and Tintin the fictitious boy reporter is Lars Abromeit, a German whose unique editorial title is “expedition leader” at Geo, a popular geography magazine.
His latest journey was to the tepuis of Venezuela. Surveying these mesas, or table-top mountains, continues a long established practice at Geo, Germany’s equivalent of National Geographic Magazine of the United States.
Both monthlies run lush photographs of exotic lands, peoples and animals and nature’s wonders for armchair travellers. Editor-in-chief Christoph Kucklick, 52, refers to the intrepid explorer who has led expeditions of international research teams for the past 10 years as “our full-time adventurer.”
Abromeit’s reports from his journeys into the unknown interiors of caves, the peaks of the world’s highest mountains and the depths of the seas certainly have something of the adventurous about them. “Once when I was in a cave shaft, a rock the size of a beer crate whizzed past me,” the 41-year-old father of two relates.
The thin air encountered during his ascent of the Nemjung, also known as Himlung Himal, a Himalayan peak soaring to 7,126 metres, left him and his team gasping for air. “We fought to breathe and were terribly cold, but we made it back safely,” he says.
Geo, which has reported from far-flung and little-known corners of the world to its German-speaking readers for the past 40 years, says it is the only magazine in Europe that organizes its own expeditions. They are largely funded by foundations and non-governmental organizations rather than from magazine sales.
Abromeit keeps himself fit for exploring’s ordeals. Rock climbing is his hobby. “But Lars is by no means foolhardy. His reports rely on superb preparation and an extremely critical assessment of the risks,” his boss says.
“This is not about testosterone. Our aim is to gather knowledge, and this is what sets us apart from outdoor adventure magazines.” Abromeit adds: “The researchers gain insights out there that are of use to us as a society.” He spends much of the year away from home.
Recently he spent time with a geophysicist and former astronaut, Alexander Gerst, in a hail of lava in Antarctica. On another occasion, he descended 489 metres below the surface in the Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico in the quest for new active ingredients for medications. And he has researched flora and fauna on Coiba, a former prison island off the coast of Panama.
“But most of the time is spent planning,” says Abromeit, who started out as a biologist. For this he uses the offices of Gruner + Jahr, the magazine’s German publisher in Hamburg, where the shelves of his office are lined with books on marine biology.
“I often pursue a theme for several years until they eventually lead to expeditions,” he says. There is a mountain of assignments, and decisions to be taken on which scientists will research what. Official permits form a major hurdle. And then there’s the equipment — from a simple tent to hiring a helicopter. For a magazine like Geo, skilled and experienced photographers are key to the success of the expedition, whatever the scientific aspects.
“Only the most skilled specialists can take cave photographs with the difficult lighting conditions,” Kucklick says.
“I dreamed about the cave labyrinths of
the Tepui for at least five years,” Abromeit says. He notes that even if his predecessor at Geo,
explorer Uwe George, had already been on some of the mesas in 1985, there are still exciting times ahead.
“We have new technologies that allow us
to pose different questions in locations where we might well have been before,” the intrepid adventurer says.