A taxidermied sled dog stands proud at the exhibition.
Though the exhibition was officially open to the public on the 28th of November 2015, the first official Trailblazers Talks was held in a sold-out event at the Australian Museum in Sydney last night.
Presented by The Australian Museum and Australian Geographic, last night’s talk was centred on the insights and experiences of Greg Mortimer, the first Australian to summit Mount Everest, K2, Annapurna II and Chongtar Kangri without supplementary oxygen.
The intimate talk was hosted by Trailblazers’ curator, pioneer adventurer and founding editor of Australian Geographic, Howard Whelan, in a sit-down casual talk in front of an audience.
Greg Mortimer recounted several moments of triumphs and troubles, with aided visual images and documented footage from some of his ascents. He recalls the dire moment during an ascent up Chakrarahu Mountain in Peru, where he reached the summit only to have the entire mountain top crumble down, taking him with it. “I’m screaming through the air and I fell about 80 metres…Somehow the small ice-screw (screwed on before summiting) helped me, and I just remember looking down the rock gully, just swinging in the air. I broke my arm.”
While doing a first skyline traverse at Balls Pyramid near Lord Howe Island, Australia, Mortimer relived the moment he was stuck in a cyclone for five days during his climb. He went on to described other climbing adventures overseas, as well as the dangerous Annapurna II where the glacier they were climbing had moved, causing debris from above to fall upon them destroying all the fixed rope on route below.
On the 3rd of October 1984, Greg Mortimer climbed Mount Everest via the never before completed North Face route. It would take another 30 years for someone to partake in a second attempt of this climb. “I remember the view on top of Mount Everest like a tattoo.” Having reached the summit of Mount Everest during nightfall, they made their way back down using their own ascent as their guide, “we had to feel our way like Braille…every step took immense amounts of concentration.”
Greg Mortimer and Howard Whelan discuss exploration and adventure for a crowd of onlookers.
The talk showed Mortimer’s humorous and honest personality, and his never ending pursuit of exploration through his immersive story-telling.
He has gone on to create adventure company, Aurora Expeditions in 1991 for the adventurous tourists, while his son, Oliver Mortimer continues Greg’s passion of exploration and partakes in expeditions of his own.
The Trailblazers Talks are a series of intimate conversations with a variety of Australia’s greatest living explorers. They explain the reasons why, how they’ve survived, and what they have learned in a tell-all sit-down conversational style.
The exhibition itself showcases over 360 artefacts from 50,000 years ago till 2015. It took Exhibition Project Manager Fran Dorey, and her team a tremendous amount of time and work to find relics from around the world, searching museum archives, personal garages, and NASA’s collections to retrieve the collection on display today.
The exhibition is separated into six sections and showcases the life and adventures of explorers and adventurers. “We wanted to tell a story of exploration from the earliest days up until today and the linear means of which it has happened.” Dorey explains. Trailblazers features the stories of explorers that have either been the first of its kind, attained a significant achievement, created an impact on Australian society, history or psyche; or told a story of overcoming the geological landscape.
“Science is a part of exploration, it’s a part of discovery and it is our job to inspire the future generations.”
The Trailblazers event will be open until 18 July 2016, with the Trailblazers Talks running from the 25th of February to the 14th of July 2016.