Expedition Unpacked: Teamwork

Yes!

We have one!

We have one!

Steve Backshall: behind every expedition... Oh, I don't like the look of this at all.

Every extreme challenge... Whoo!

It's a rock!

Steve: and every epic discovery...

So it's a first.

Wow.

is a world-class team.

So you're gonna be free hanging about here.

Steve, voice-over: Adventurers together... what do you think?

Great.

It's enorm-- I don't have words.

Steve, voice-over: pushing the boundaries... That's more like it!

of exploration.

Steve: That is absolutely awe-inspiring.

I'm Steve Backshall...

This feels like I've just uncovered some extraordinary treasure.

And this is "Expedition Unpacked."

♪ Announcer: "Expedition Unpacked" was made possible in part by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪ Steve: This is the story of the world-class teams behind 5 of our world-first expeditions.

Deep in the Arabian canyons... Man: This one is, I would say, totally unknown.

Steve: in the remote Arctic wilderness... Woman: This part of it is pretty beautiful, too.

Steve: Whoa!

Look at that!

Steve: the flooded caves of Mexico...

It just goes on forever!

It's huge!

And the impenetrable Indonesian jungle.

Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock!

Yaah!

Aldo: Walking off here in the dark is not an option.

Steve: Having the right team members with exactly the right skills and expertise was key to exploring a hidden gorge in the heart of the forests of South America.

♪ The journey to reach this "lost world" began a week earlier.

We were in Suriname to explore an ancient tabletop mountain.

The opportunity that's afforded to us here is once in a lifetime.

Look at that!

For the next few days, our objective is to cover as much of the top of this mountain as possible in search for whatever lives here and hopefully finding places that have never before seen a human footprint.

Cut off from the rest of the world, places like this can still hold unexplored natural treasures.

We wanted to be the first to witness them.

It took a team of experts.

Each had a key part to play.

Vanessa Kadosoe is a local biologist, and we were lucky to have her.

♪ Thanks to 20 years studying this area, she unlocked an island in the sky, a tabletop mountain known locally as a tepuis.

Pretty exciting, huh?

Yeah!

It was actually cool, but I was like, "Aah!"

Ha ha ha!

Steve, voice-over: We also needed the expertise of ropes access specialist, former Royal Marine Aldo Kane.

♪ It's rare that you fly in over the jungle that has such big mountains on it, and to be able to see where we're going is exciting.

Steve: We were totally reliant on two other key team members-- Mani and Uwawa-- local Amerindian trail cutters.

[Speaking local language] Tiger?

Ha ha!

So they're from the forest here.

You know, this is their life, clearing tracks, living in the jungle.

Steve: Their knowledge of this environment was crucial.

OK. We're all set?

I can honestly say this is the most remote I've ever been.

Ha ha ha!

♪ Steve, voice-over: Amerindians, like Mani and Uwawa, have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in these forests for thousands of years... but there were places even they hadn't been.

Steve: Hey, hey!

♪ Aldo: What a view.

Uwawa: Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.

Vanessa: So Uwawa is calling a monkey.

So when they do this, when there's a group nearby, they hear that, then they start calling back.

[Monkeys chattering] That's cool.

[Chattering continues] Monkeys are calling back.

Steve, voice-over: Our tabletop mountain was a sanctuary for countless wonders of nature.

Vanessa: This tepuis is so isolated for many, many years, I think there has been a lot of specialization in species, adaptation also to the environment here.

So I think there will definitely be new species for science.

♪ This here is a poison dart frog.

They are some of the most toxic creatures on the planet, and I have never seen one this big.

They're all usually absolutely tiny.

Amerindians like Mani and Uwawa, who are working with us, still use frogs like this to coat their blowpipe darts.

They'll just rub them over the back of the frog, and the poisons are strong enough that those darts can then be used to hunt the monkeys, sloths, birds, even sometimes for people.

♪ The fluid that coats their skin is a poison.

It needs to be eaten, or it needs to get into the bloodstream to have its lethal effect.

Steve, voice-over: I've studied toxic animals my whole life and knew that as long as I had no open cuts I was safe.

Steve: So would you say the frogs are one of the highlights from the top of these mountains?

Yes, yes.

They tend to be isolated, and I think that's why they have different coloration compared to other size, for instance lowland.

And they're so beautiful, aren't they?

Yeah.

They are amazing, my favorites actually, and they pose very well for the picture.

Yes.

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

♪ Steve, voice-over: But the animals weren't our only focus.

We scoured the tabletop for hours to reach our world-first target, a breathtaking gorge.

♪ Steve: Whoa!

Steve, voice-over: Deafening falls had carved a narrow gorge over thousands of years.

To be the first ever to explore down there, Aldo and I would have to carefully plan a way down on ropes.

What do you think?

I think it's incredible.

Makes my tummy go a little bit funny standing here, I have to admit.

I'm quite glad I'm hanging onto something.

♪ It looks intimidating, potentially quite dangerous, but the thought of putting our boots where no one ever has before is, you know, what we're here for.

♪ Standing between us and our world first was a highly technical rappel in the blast of a raging waterfall.

So from here, the waterfall drops down a vertical maybe 100 meters to a splash pool below us.

I think it looks really exciting.

I think it looks very committing.

There is zero chance of rescue.

We're completely on our own.

Situation normal.

Ha ha ha!

Steve, voice-over: I would have to put my faith in our ropes.

Aldo's been accessing high-risk environments like this for over 15 years.

Aldo: The thing about rigging is more just problem-solving, and there's never a right or wrong answer unless it fails.

Set?

I'm feeling really psyched about this, actually.

I think, uh, down there is gonna be very uncomfortable, but it's a really unique environment.

Steve, voice-over: I had to temper my excitement with the real-world dangers I was about to face.

Aldo: When you start abseiling down a waterfall, what can happen is if you're on ropes, they hold you in a plumb line directly from the top to the bottom and in an exact straight line.

Water doesn't often-- it can spray, and it can move across, so you can get pulled into the waterfall, and you then can't get back out of it, and even if you're not under the main flow, the mist that comes off and the updraft from the waterfall can effectively still drown you because you're breathing in water vapor.

Steve, voice-over: Once I stepped over the edge, I knew that just one mistake or one faulty piece of equipment could have been fatal.

Huh!

Yeah.

That's good.

Steve, voice-over: We had double- and triple-checked everything... ♪ but the one thing out of our control was the rock itself.

The rock that I've got my feet on right now, it's incredibly ancient sandstone laid down about 1.8 billion years ago.

It completely blows my mind whenever I think of that.

This rock is some of the most ancient left on the planet.

Steve, voice-over: I descended further and faced another challenge.

The sandstone, beaten by the force of the falls, had become unstable.

Steve: Most of the time, you know, you can totally rely on it, but there are quite a lot of loose boulders under my feet.

Look at that one there.

Agh!

Lots of loose rock here, mate!

It's pretty loose down there to say the least.

Steve: Whoa!

Aldo: Watch the rock!

Steve: Whoa!

[Smash] Ah.

When those rocks came down, it was like an explosion, like a grenade going off.

The thought of that coming down on my head is not nice.

Oh, that rock just bounced down right where our ropes are, so we'll have to do a lot of checking when I get down there just to make sure that it hasn't hit them.

Aldo: He's kicked a lot of rocks off here, a huge amount of rocks.

Um...all of them landing in and around the area where the ropes are coiled up on that ledge, so...I would be surprised if they are not cut through.

I hadn't mentally prepared myself for this bit to be dangerous, um, and if I'm honest, it's freaking me a little bit.

It's the thought of what would happen if any of those blocks came down from all the way up there.

You'd be gone.

Steve, voice-over: The ends of our ropes were lying on a ledge 100 feet short of the bottom.

If the rock fall had damaged them, it would have been game over.

I say, good buddy.

I'm just down to where those rocks impacted our ropes, so I'm gonna give them a good looking over.

Aldo, go ahead.

Aldo, on radio: How are the ropes looking?

Yeah.

The ropes are a little bit gritty, and you can see where it's taken the impact, but it hasn't cut through the core at all.

I'm fine carrying down on them.

Let's do it.

Keep me posted.

Steve, voice-over: It could have gone either way.

This time, we were lucky.

Steve: This is not a place you want to be for very long.

♪ I'm in the fall line if anything comes down... but it's stupefyingly beautiful.

It's very noisy, very slippery, and any rescue would be unthinkable... ♪ but it's incredible, and we're the first people ever to see it.

♪ Look at that.

Talk about vertical cliff faces.

Steve, voice-over: Unlocking this unseen world was only possible with the help of my top team members: Vanessa, Mani, Uwawa, and Aldo.

Whoo!

Just gets better and better.

Check this.

We came here looking for lost worlds.

We found one.

Steve, voice-over: Over 11,000 miles east is a country I thought I knew well, but what we discovered left me breathless.

Steve: I've never seen anything like that before in my entire life.

How does the world not know about this?

♪ Steve, voice-over: Borneo is the largest island in Asia... Aldo: Should we get the show on the road?

Steve: Let's do it.

Steve, voice-over: and it's where my life of adventure started nearly 30 years ago.

♪ Yes!

We have one!

Steve, voice-over: On this expedition, we discovered something that could rewrite history... 40,000 years old!

But it wasn't easy.

Steve: Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock!

Yaah!

♪ A year earlier, Dr. Pindi Setiawan had discovered the oldest figurative rock art in the world.

♪ Steve, voice-over: The rain forest in Sangkulirang was under threat from the modern world.

Palm oil manufacturers, illegal loggers, and limestone miners had already blighted a large proportion of the island.

♪ Finding more undiscovered rock art would help Pindi gain World Heritage protection for the entire area.

This expedition was a mission to protect a place I loved forever.

♪ [Steve speaking local language] I was just asking.

Pak Ham is one of the first people to explore the caves around here.

[Speaks local language] Yeah.

So he has been coming here for many years, and he knows the cave that we're going to today, so he's gonna be out in front, leading the way.

Aldo: Should we get the show on the road?

Steve: Let's do it.

Steve, voice-over: Pak Ham was the key to our quest.

He was taking us to a set of caves he'd only been to once 20 years earlier.

It's a hot one.

There's no clouds above us.

Trying to stick with him is just about impossible.

Just doesn't stop.

Steve, voice-over: We were relying on his memory alone to forge a way through the foothills.

Steve: The sweat is leaking out of every pore.

I haven't even started the steep stuff yet.

[Exhales] Steve, voice-over: We pushed ourselves up towards a mountain ridge.

There was no direct route through the tangled jungle.

Traveling in a straight line was impossible... but Pak Ham seemed to have an almost superhuman sense of direction.

Distance is meaningless in rain forests like this, so it's best not to pay too much attention to the GPS and to how far you've gone.

That way madness lies.

Aldo: We know that where we are now there is no helicopters, no long-line rescue, no mountain rescue, no jungle rescue crews.

This is one of the few places that the safety brief is fairly simple, and it's basically do not get injured.

Steve: Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock!

Yaah!

Oh, this is a disaster.

Steve, voice-over: We had just 5 hours to reach the caves, explore, and return.

Navigating this terrain after dark would be unacceptably dangerous.

Ohh!

Where are we going?

We going through there?

Really?

Steve, voice-over: I was getting concerned.

Our GPSs were struggling to get a signal... ♪ and to make matters worse, Pak Ham's memory of a route he made 20 years earlier was beginning to falter.

Steve: So from here, he thinks we're going down to the lower ground here, but he's not 100% sure you can tell.

He's just picking his way.

We're, uh--yeah.

We--seems we're lost.

I'm going back up the hill we just scrambled down.

Pak Ham?

Pak Ham?

Steve, voice-over: And then we lost Pak Ham altogether.

Pak Ham?

Aldo?

Aldo: Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm--I'm, uh, trying to catch Pak Ham, but he's off.

♪ [Pak Ham whooping] Pak Ham!

Steve, voice-over: Finally, we found him, and he'd found the landmark he'd been looking for.

[Speaking local language] [Speaking local language] That's not good.

Aldo: How long?

Another hour from here at least.

Steve, voice-over: Losing our way had chewed up too many precious hours.

Aldo: We're hemmed in by the fact that it gets dark here at 6:00, so whatever happens, we need to work back from 6:00 to when we leave here.

Walking off here in the dark is not an option.

Steve: I just want to get there.

It's midday, and it's gonna be a big retreat, so, yeah, getting up there as soon as possible is what we need to do.

♪ We're on steep and treacherous terrain leading up to a rock face, which I imagine is gonna have caves.

Huh!

Wow!

That is harder than I was expecting.

Oh.

That's where I need to go.

Steve, voice-over: We were climbing a limestone pinnacle that just got steeper and steeper.

Terrain and time were against us.

This is steep.

This is right on the verge of basically calling it off.

It's getting way too late in the afternoon.

We still need to get back.

Steve, voice-over: But just as we were about to give up, Pak Ham delivered.

I can see our cave.

I'm here, Aldo!

Aldo: You're at the cave entrance?

Steve: I am at the cave entrance.

Roger.

Steve, voice-over: This was a big moment for Pindi.

Moment of truth.

Shall we go inside?

Yes.

Yeah.

♪ Steve, voice-over: With nothing to be seen at the cave entrance, we pressed on quickly further into the cave.

♪ Aldo: Over here.

You see something?

Yes!

We have one!

We have one!

Pindi, Pindi, here!

Look!

Pindi: Ah.

Ha ha ha!

Oh!

And another one there.

One more.

Aldo has one there.

Look.

That's a clear one.

Pindi: Yep.

It's right there.

Steve, voice-over: Pindi is a world-leading rock art specialist.

He was excited.

There were clear signs to him that this was something special.

Pindi: 40,000 year.

40,000 years old?

40,000 years old.

40,000.

Steve: Wow!

Aldo: Look.

Aldo's got more.

Really clear ones.

Aldo: And a scratching.

Pindi: Ooh.

Engraving.

Steve: Look at that.

Pindi: Cool.

Female deer, huh?

It's very good.

This is the first time, also, engraving technique in Sangkulirang.

So you've not seen this engraving technique before in this area, first time.

So it will become stronger for World Heritage, huh?

Ha ha ha!

Ha!

So we have to take many photos of this one.

Yep.

Steve, voice-over: This cave was a time capsule full of what could be some of the most significant art on the planet.

Am I imagining it, or is there a drawing of a smaller hand inside?

Maybe you are right.

It's--it's marvelous.

Ha ha ha!

Ha!

It will be very, very special handprint in the world-- in the world, eh?

Ha ha ha!

Pindi: Ooh, ooh, ooh.

You see this?

What's this?

Positive handprint, huh?

Oh, yes.

Here, here, here.

Ooh.

This is first time positive handprint in Sangkulirang.

The first one.

First one in Sangkulirang.

More new things!

Brilliant!

Steve, voice-over: Every handprint previously found in this region had been a stencil, a negative image of a hand.

In nearly 25 years of searching, no one, including Pindi, had ever found a positive handprint.

So here's there's quite a big positive handprint.

Steve, voice-over: Pindi was unsure of the meaning, but he believed a cave with positive handprints must have had huge significance to our ancestors.

So that's the first.

Wow!

Ha ha ha!

Oh!

All of that sweat was worth it.

Steve, voice-over: This discovery was exactly what Pindi needed and would help him fight for World Heritage status to protect this entire area.

As the chainsaws and the logging trucks move across the rest of this island, places like this become more and more precious, and we're in real risk of losing them before we understand them.

♪ We leave the hot and humid jungle behind to head over 6,000 miles west to the scorched desert mountains of Oman.

Rosie: We're hoping that we're gonna find water down there.

If we don't, we're absolutely stuffed.

Steve: This expedition was to take us into the heart of the Al Hajar mountain range... Steve: OK, chaps.

I will see you below.

Steve, voice-over: all in pursuit of our ultimate goal, the first descent of an uncharted canyon.

It is incredible that in this day and age you can still find places like this.

The preparation for this epic world first began by assembling our expert team.

Ahh!

Khaled Abdul Malak is an avid canyon explorer and was the go-to guy in the region.

How are you?

Excellent.

Oh.

Steve: Over two decades, he'd explored all the canyons in the mountain range... Steve: Yeah.

Khaled: You know all the time... Steve, voice-over: except one.

Khaled, voice-over: This one is really for me, I would say, totally unknown.

For me, it would be a first.

Steve, voice-over: Our target canyon had been too risky for Khaled to attempt alone.

He couldn't be sure where or even if it had a water source, but as a team and capable of carrying more water, we were able to take on the challenge.

If we failed to find a water source, our world first and our lives would be in jeopardy.

It was a risk we were willing to take.

The excitement of thinking that what happens down there we just don't know.

In this day and age that we could be going somewhere where no other human being has ever been before is a really powerful, powerful thought.

It's the whole reason we've come here.

4 hours into our trek and in spite of the 100-degree heat, we were making good progress.

It can't be like this the whole way because we have well over 1,000 meters of altitude to lose, so there must be some dramatic drops.

No one had ever descended this canyon, and it was too narrow to show up on satellite images.

The canyon's mysteries could only be solved by putting boots on the ground.

Aldo: So once we get inside these canyons, they are like furnaces, so, um, just be aware of that.

Steve: There was no doubt we had our work cut out.

Aldo, voice-over: In temperatures like this-- plus-35 degrees Celsius-- it doesn't take long at all to run into dehydration and then into heat exhaustion and then ultimately heat stroke.

Heat stroke can and will kill.

Steve, voice-over: In this heat, we needed to drink at least a quart of water every single hour.

There was no way we could carry enough for a full day.

[Indistinct chatter] Rosie: So we're just taking on lots of water and just hoping, hoping that we're gonna find water down there.

If we don't, we're absolutely stuffed.

All right.

Let's go.

Steve, voice-over: Without water it wouldn't be an expedition.

It would be an exercise in staying alive.

There's no water at the bottom of this drop here as far as we can see.

Everyone's water's getting low, and before we arrive this evening, everyone's gonna need water for sure.

While the rest of the team took it slow and steady, Khaled and I pushed on ahead to find water.

So I've scrambled down a fair way, and... Steve, on radio: It's just nasty boulder descent.

There is no sign of water.

Not looking great from where I am.

I have to say.

Over.

[Beep] Aldo: They say in the books that you shouldn't ration water, but there's always that thing in the back of your head when you're running lower and lower and lower on your water that you should maybe save it just in case.

Steve, voice-over: In the exposed canyon, there was no respite from the relentless heat.

♪ We desperately needed more water, and just as we were giving up all hope... Khaled: Yes, yes!

There is water!

Steve, voice-over: Khaled saved the day.

It was a small and murky pool, but it was a lifesaver.

♪ Everybody is out of water, so this is amazing.

Khaled, voice-over: When you see water, it's more than living again, and it's just wow!

I mean, you just thank whoever it is, God or Allah or whoever, that finally I'm safe because I think the worst death would be to die from lack of water.

Steve, voice-over: Finding water was mission critical.

Rejuvenated, we were ready to push on down the rest of the canyon, and we'd finally found our first big drop.

♪ Steve: This is incredible.

♪ Steve, voice-over: It was time to tackle the drop, and ropes were Aldo's department.

Aldo: So I'm just setting up some natural anchors here, natural being trees and rocks.

♪ Rosie: Aw.

Ha ha ha!

OK, chaps.

I will see you below.

♪ This feels like I've just uncovered some extraordinary treasure.

♪ So, so exciting.

♪ Steve, voice-over: It was time for the crew to follow.

♪ ♪ It was the biggest rappel they had ever faced.

Rosie: Whoo-hoo!

That was amazing!

Ahh.

Steve: A lot of people wonder why we put ourselves through all of the heat and the sweatiness and the fear and the danger and the pain, and it's for moments like this, and you know that yours are the first human eyes ever to look at it.

♪ I owed a massive debt of gratitude to the entire team.

It is incredible that in this day and age you can still find places like this.

Adventuring into any unknown, you need the combined efforts of team members at the top of their game.

So you're gonna be free hanging about here.

Steve: And our next expedition into the flooded caves of Mexico was no exception.

♪ In the Yucatan Peninsula, I teamed up with extreme cave diver Robbie Schmittner to explore undiscovered cave systems.

Robbie: Right there, the vegetation is higher.

That's probably because it's more water in that area.

Steve, voice-over: Robbie's a passionate protector of these flooded caves, known locally as cenotes.

He had already explored 500 miles of this underground cave network.

♪ In 2017, Robbie led an expedition into the jungle and found the entrance to an unexplored cavern.

Faced with a sheer drop into darkness and carrying no rope, he was unable to explore it.

He marked the coordinates on his GPS, determined to return one day.

We're right over it.

I can't see it.

We're right over it?

Yeah.

The, uh, terrain is just a nightmare.

Steve, voice-over: We'd found the location from the air, but our chopper could never land in the dense forest.

We had to get to the cave the hard way... ♪ and after a 6-hour trek on foot...

Check that out!

we were at the entrance.

No way!

♪ It is huge.

Steve, voice-over: In ancient times, it was believed the cenotes were a doorway to a spiritual underworld.

Look how deep the water is back there.

Robbie: It's all where the light hits it.

I want to get down there.

Ha ha ha!

You think anyone's ever been in there before?

No.

Nobody.

The place is just magical, and I heard about it since 20 years.

Now we first time able to go down into it and see what's down there.

It's--I can't wait.

Steve, voice-over: Robbie's discovery of the cave was just the first step.

Now working together as a team, we could take the next step and explore it.

Steve: So what would your plan be?

How are we gonna tackle it?

Aldo: We'll be able to rake ropes across there all the way down that root basically.

Steve: Yeah.

Steve, voice-over: The plan was to use the tangle of jungle trees and sturdy roots to anchor a ropes system.

♪ We needed it to lower us all in and safely haul us all back out again.

So you're gonna be free hanging about here.

You see the ropes there?

Steve: Yep.

Aldo, voice-over: We're small teams working in a hostile, remote, extreme environment.

Directors, camera, sound, safety people.

Everyone has their little cog to look after, and that in turn makes the driving force of the expedition, and that is the exact same as the military.

Aldo: S.B.

Steve: Yeah?

Are you happy with that?

Yep.

All right.

Steve, voice-over: The, um-- the logical part of my brain is telling me that this is a phenomenal privilege and something just extraordinary that very few people will ever get the chance to do.

The illogical part of my brain is imagining monsters and crocodiles and all kinds of other sinister things down at the bottom of that.

Our first objective was to recce the cenote, freediving it with masks.

OK.

Here goes nothing.

Aldo: First man down.

♪ Steve, voice-over: If we discovered the cave was large enough to warrant it, we'd return with extra gear and more crew members.

Steve: Oh, it's so creepy!

Yeah.

Rather you than me.

Hoo.

I'm in.

Oh, wow.

This is seriously creepy.

♪ Oh, but this is what it's all been about.

♪ There's nowhere you can go where you have such an instantaneous sense of seeing things with your eyes that no one has ever seen before.

Steve, voice-over: Robbie had wanted to dive this cave for years, and now, finally, we were in.

♪ Our flashlights immediately caught glimpses of an extraordinary and hidden world.

♪ It was tantalizing, and we were desperate to see more of what lurked in the darkest recesses of the cave.

♪ It would fall to underwater camera operator Katy Fraser to light up and film this mysterious cavern.

Steve: I can't quite believe that you're in the middle of a jungle in your drysuit.

Well...I know, but it, um-- it does get cold.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but when you're in the water... Kind of does.

for hours and hours on end, you do get cold, especially with the camera because you're so still.

Steve, voice-over: It was going to be a complex dive in a challenging environment, but Katy was in her element.

Steve: So you're gonna go down on your own first.

Katy: Yep.

How you feeling about that?

Good actually.

I'm excited.

Steve, voice-over: For Katy, cave diving was second nature.

Calm and meticulous, she left nothing to chance.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's underneath.

Katy, voice-over: From a filming point of view, these caves are so aesthetically beautiful, and that's why I fell in love with them.

Aldo: Pop that out and then just leave that at the bottom.

Katy, voice-over: And to come across these places for the first time and capture it and capture everybody's emotions and have it on film... Aldo: Going down.

Katy, voice-over: because I don't think that people really, really film exploration properly.

Gently.

Like, it's with a GoPro or something small, but to take a proper setup... Katy: OK. and have that opportunity to shoot something on the go, in the moment, for me is an experience of a lifetime, for sure.

Steve: With Katy set up below, we had a chance to capture this spectacular environment for the first time... ♪ ♪ to achieve this world first... Aldo: OK. Stop there.

Stop.

Oh, stop.

Oh, stop.

Oh, stop.

Oh, stop.

Steve, voice-over: had truly been a team effort.

Robbie: That was a nice lift.

Thank you very much.

Mate... what do you think?

It's amazing.

Better than you expected?

Yeah.

I was really surprised.

It's amazing.

Honestly, I'm just-- my brain is popping.

I'm completely overwhelmed with it.

It's-- Incredible.

It's enorm-- I don't have words.

Well done, mate.

That was--yeah-- quite something.

Steve: It looks like it's just one magnificent subterranean chamber, and our team were the first down there.

That's pretty special.

By finding and mapping a new cavern, we'd helped Robbie with his life's mission to protect this extraordinary cave network.

For our next world first, we headed to Greenland.

Steve: we're in very real danger of getting trapped here.

We were attempting something previously impossible... ♪ to kayak up the world's largest fjord at a time of year when it should have been frozen solid.

We were hoping to reach the ever-receding ice edge.

Aldo: That's closed up already.

Steve: Paddling through broken fragments of pack ice was treacherous, but it was the only way to see first-hand the devastating effects of global warming.

Oh, I don't like the look of this at all.

Steve, voice-over: Once again, we only dared take on a challenge like this...

It's gonna be a tough day of paddling.

Steve, voice-over: with a world class team.

♪ The most important bit of kit was our kayaks.

We had to pack everything we needed to survive for just over a week.

Aldo: Kind of like you look at the volume of kit that's got to go in the boat, and you look at the space you've got, and they don't correlate at all.

Steve: As ever, Aldo was our expedition medic, and joining us was a new team member.

What do you think of this then?

Yeah!

Look good.

Steve, voice-over: Sarah McNair-Landry had been to both poles and had crossed the Greenland icecap 6 times.

Sarah: We got so much gear that we needed a front loader to haul it down.

Steve: All of us were highly skilled in our own area of expertise, but this mission wasn't an individual endeavor.

Sticking together and working together would be the key to our success.

Aldo: Happy?

Letting go.

Yep.

Got it.

♪ Steve, voice-over: The mission to paddle the fjord had been months in the planning, but with over a week paddling through the shifting pack ice, we almost didn't make it.

There are few more dynamic, more changeable environments than pack ice.

Aldo: It doesn't look like there's an easy way through.

Steve: Yeah.

We can't go that way.

We have to turn around.

Steve, voice-over: And when you're in amongst it and it's moving and it's being driven about by the wind, by the tide, by currents, there's an unstoppable force about it that can be really frightening.

Steve: We're in very real danger of getting trapped here.

Steve, voice-over: We quickly discovered the biggest challenge was picking a route through the ice.

♪ Some chunks of ice were firm enough to stand on... but only just.

♪ ♪ That does not look good!

A blank expanse of ice.

Only thing I think of really is sending up the drone, just flying it good and high and using that as a way to try and spot the way.

♪ From 300 feet up, we could spot leads, water channels through the broken ice, but we needed to move quickly before they closed up.

♪ Everything here looks the exact same.

Steve: Yeah.

It's so easy to lose your bearings.

OK. You might want to have to power through these before they close.

Steve, voice-over: We had paddled through the ice for 6 grueling hours.

Oh, I think I see open water!

Massive area of open water!

Sarah: Yes!

Steve, voice-over: Finally, we had broken free.

Aldo: Steve's a great expedition leader because his ability to gel the team together.

That's more like it!

Aldo: you need clear leadership and direction, and so Steve's very, very driven about what he wants to achieve, and that's actually good for everyone else because there's no gray area about what we are doing or aren't doing.

Steve, voice-over: We'd managed to stay together but we're out in the open sea vulnerable and exposed.

Sarah: We can see open sea ahead, which is good, but we're still a long ways off the coast.

We're about 5 kilometers from where we want to be, but it's a nice sight to see the open ocean.

♪ The goal of this kayaking trip was always to get as far as we could up by Scoresby Sound to where the ice meets the ocean.

So back in our kayaks, it's big headwinds.

It's gonna be a tough day of paddling.

♪ Steve: How's everyone feeling?

Aldo: Good.

Sarah: Good.

You?

Yeah.

Not bad.

Well, guys, this is turning into quite an adventure.

Aldo: Certainly is.

Steve, voice-over: Each day, we needed to take on 6,000 calories to fuel our muscles and keep us warm.

♪ Do you need your hand back so you can get into your cheese?

No.

I'm good.

I can't believe you just topped off with a whole block of cheese!

You want some?

No!

This is how Canadians travel.

Steve, voice-over: Every day was the same, a back-breaking slog followed by an overnight camp.

For the film crew, this was where the real work started.

So it's pretty bleak out here, very cold and windy, but hard a job as it is for me paddling, it's much, much harder for the guys who are making the film.

So this is Keith, the cameraman.

Give us a wave, Keith.

But this is the pièce de résistance.

Have a look at this.

So all the footage that we're filming has to be downloaded and processed and everything, and these are the guys are who doing it.

Check that out!

The team hard at work.

♪ The 24-hour daylight brought its challenges.

Aldo: Was there a snorer in your tent last night?

Snorer in my tent?

Yes.

It's the one bonus that you have when you're on expedition with me is that I don't snore.

I can categorically guarantee you were snoring last night.

Was I?

Yeah.

Steve, voice-over: Some days, we made more progress than others.

It all depended on what the sea ice threw at us.

On the fourth day, it threw icebergs.

♪ Not made from frozen sea but collapsed chunks of glaciers, these tell much about warming waters and the effects of climate change.

Aldo: Look at that on the left, Steve.

Steve, voice-over: but they are nonetheless beautiful.

Amazing.

♪ Steve, voice-over: Towering icebergs, only a tenth of their bulk showing above water.

♪ Aldo: They are absolutely monstrous.

Some of them the size of towns, it looks like.

Steve, voice-over: But these ice mountains can be extremely dangerous.

We needed to keep the team away from them.

♪ Steve: Best practice is for us to be quite close together, certainly within visual distance of each other at all times, us as a group, and if I'm getting too far ahead, then you guys need to shout me.

So let's just, um, keep our comms between ourselves good and sharp.

Steve, voice-over: In this warming environment, a melting iceberg can shift and even roll at any moment.

Giant bergs have been known to crash over and cause tsunamis.

This close up, we skirted them with caution.

♪ Beautiful as it is, it's a potentially lethal place.

We want to minimize our time here as much as we possibly can because any part of this could break, crack, and fall off.

It could even roll, and, well, you would not want to be anywhere near it when that happened.

Steve, voice-over: We were glad to see the back of what we dubbed "Iceberg Alley."

Before us was a much more welcome sight... ♪ a long white line extending from one side of the fjord to the other.

What do you think, guys?

I think this is our big white wall.

Steve, voice-over: Sadly, it had taken much longer to get here than we'd expected, a tangible sign of an Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

Nearly there.

Ha!

Go on, Sarah!

You can do it!

Steve, voice-over: nevertheless, We'd made it together.

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

♪ Steve, voice-over: This was the ever-receding barrier of ice we'd set out to reach.

We could paddle no further.

♪ Steve: Are you standing on it, Sarah?

Sarah: Uh, just one foot.

Ha ha ha!

Oh, ho ho ho!

Look at that!

Sarah: It's solid!

Oh, I'm still--I'm still a little bit nervous.

Ha ha!

Great job.

Well done.

Well done.

Awesome!

Well done, old bean.

Good job, good job.

Steve, voice-over: Our team had completed the earliest recorded kayak expedition up the largest fjord in the world, something that shouldn't have even been possible.

The significance of this world first was clear to us.

For too many people, climate change is still a question.

We are at least a decade past that.

There is no question that it's happening, and here, you can see it and feel it and touch it and smell it.

I hope that people will see what's happening here and wake up, wake up to the reality and the awful potential of what we're doing.

♪ From magical lost worlds... ancient jungles with new secrets... mysterious, hidden, flooded caves... to canyons where water is as valuable as gold dust... and rapidly melting Arctic fjords... we'd achieved 5 epic world firsts thanks to skill, determination, and teamwork.

♪ Together, we'd shone a spotlight on our changing world.

"Expedition Unpacked" is available on Amazon Prime video.

♪ ♪