special guests

We meet so many inspirational characters through Mountainfilm, yet Aki Ra - the subject of A Perfect Soldier, Mountainfilm in Telluride 2011 - stands out. Now, he is featured in a piece in National Geographic by former Mountainfilm guest Mark Jenkins, along with the challenges and successes of de-mining in Cambodia.

Congrats to 2008 Mountainfilm guest Laurie Garrett who just published I Heard the Sirens Scream: How Americans Responded to the 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks.

All of my adult life I have earned my keep by bearing witness. As a journalist, writer, broadcaster and analyst I had endeavored to stand on the outside, looking into history as events unfolded before my eyes.  Epidemics, wars, famines, and grand human struggles have been the paragraphs of my articles and tomes, spanning three decades. I watched, and dissected the steadily expanding plague of our times, starting in 1981 in San Francisco, and eventually all over the AIDS-afflicted world. In Siberia and the Caucasus I studiously noted the falling life expectancies of the post-Cold War masses. In my role in life as objective observer I honed the skills necessary to provide emotional distance from the events that I chronicled.

Some of our special guests this year are hailing all the way from Scandinavia: the Baffin Babes. If you're not familiar with these adventurous ladies, the Baffin Babes are four Scandinavian women who, in 2009, skied 1,200 kilometers across Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Their adventure faced them with everything from 40 below weather to hanging with polar bears. We caught up with Baffin Babe Emma Simonsson to learn more.

What inspired you to put together this expedition?

Our love and passion for the outdoors, and a dream of living among the nature for a longer time. Also the attraction of adventure, where you seek challenges and push your own limits.

What was the hardest part of the expedition? What was the most rewarding?