This is one of the truly great mountain sights on earth yet never seen – except for professional mountaineers and those on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions.  Kanchenjunga at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters) is the world’s 3rd highest mountain (after Everest and K2), with a drop from summit (the peak on the left in front of the cloud) to the glacier at it base of 12,000 feet straight down.

You can be awed by such a picture, but to actually physically be here, to witness this magnificence personally so that it is forever a part of your life, is to feel a depth of awe that has to be experienced to be understood.  Kanchenjunga is part of the Himalayas, now on the border of Nepal and Sikkim, once an independent kingdom now absorbed into India.  We fly right up the North Face, and into the Amphitheatre of the Southwest Face as well.

We hope to be here again in early November if Nepal opens up by then; we’ll be here for sure next April.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #31 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Matterhorn at 14,692 ft in the Swiss Alps is arguably the most famous mountain in the world.  By extreme luck, I was able to reach its summit with my guide Alfons Franzen at age 14 (in 1958!).  The summit is not a point but a ridge 100 feet or so long and only 2 feet wide, like a knife blade in the sky.

This was my formative great adventure that set me on my life path.   For over forty years that path has been providing friends and clients with great adventures for their own lives.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #30 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

You’re looking face on Everest’s West Ridge, the border of Tibet and Nepal.  On the right is the Southwest Face in Nepal, on the left is the North Face in Tibet.  Called Scoundrel’s View because this is a better view than trekkers to Everest Base Camp see (a viewpoint called Kala Patthar).

You have to make another trek up the Ngozumpa glacier (longest in the Himalayas) in the Gokyo valley, where above the fifth Gokyo lake at 16,400 feet you get to call yourself a “scoundrel” for seeing what Everest trekkers don’t.

High on the Northeast Ridge on the left horizon is the last place Mallory and Irvine were seen heading for the summit in 1924, and then disappeared.  Hillary and Tenzing summited in 1953 via the Southeast Ridge over the right horizon.  Everest Base Camp in Nepal is at the foot of the big snowy buttress below the West Ridge.  Called the West Shoulder, it blocks any view of Everest from Base Camp.

On our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions, we get an abundance of spectacular views of Everest, up close and personal – Scoundrel’s View is only one of many. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #29 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Charlatans like Erich von Daniken convinced many gullible readers of his books this “monster” was of an alien in a space suit.  Real archaeologists know it’s of an ancient tribal shaman, to be found among the greatest profusion of prehistoric rock art on earth over 10,000 years old in a remote plateau of the Algerian Sahara called the Tassili n’Ajjer. 

There are no roads – you must climb up here with pack mules carrying your supplies. No one lives up here, it’s uninhabited. You’ll be among spectacularly gigantic rock formations with over 300 huge natural rock arches, so geologically unique it seems unworldly.  In the center of Tassili n’Ajjer known as the Tadrart is a vastly deep gorge, like a knife sliced open the mountain.  Clamber down to the bottom and you will discover a forest of 2,000 year-old Saharan cypress trees – yes, a forest in the Sahara, remnants of when the Sahara was green millennia ago.

My son Jackson and I explored here in 2003.  Perhaps it’s time to be here again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #28  photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The men of the Intha people living on Inle Lake in Burma have a unique way to fish.  Using their large conical nets, they row by standing on one leg on the prow of their canoe, and paddle with their other leg.  They feed their families this way.  Burma (Myanmar) is one of the most picturesque, historical, and serene places on earth.  We’ll be there again next February. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #27 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

900 years ago, the Church of Saint George (Bete Giyorgis in Amharic) was not built – it was hand carved downwards from a horizontal rock ledge.  There is nothing like the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela anywhere else in the world.

Christianity was established in Ethiopia in 330 AD and has flourished ever since.  Experiencing the devotion still so very much alive in one of the oldest Christian countries on earth is inspiring.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #26 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Yes, that’s me at 16 (in 1960!) with Tangamashi, a Shuar Jivaro chief who adopted me into his clan.  The Jivaros are the only people on earth who make a shrunken head of their enemies killed in battle – called a “tsantsa.”

They inhabit the Amazon rain forests of the Ecuador-Peru border; living with them was the first adventure I had by myself alone.  Tangamashi accepted me, taught me how he made a tsantsa from an enemy’s head skin, took me blowgunning monkeys with curare-tipped darts, and introduced me into the Jivaro spirit world with a tea they called “natema” from the Banisteriopsis vine – a very colorful experience. How cool can you get for a 16 year-old kid?

It set me on a path of an adventurous life from which I have never wavered – and there’s no slowing down now. Another great adventure always awaits. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #25, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Nagas are multi-headed dragons who rise up to protect the former royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang.  The city along the Mekong River has been the center of Lao culture since the 600s.  The Kingdom of Laos, “Land of a Million Elephants,” had to struggle for centuries to avoid being absorbed by the empires of Siam and Khmer (Cambodia).  It was the French who wrested Laos from Siam (Thailand) in the 1890s, giving it independence in 1953.

For centuries, devout Buddhists have been building beautifully ornate shrines and temples called Wats here in Luang Prabang.  Every day at dawn, hundreds of red-robed monks living in the Wats parade through the city streets for donations.  Since the Pathet Lao seizure of power in 1975, moving the capital to Vientiane, Luang Prabang is free of politics, preserved as a religious haven and treasure house of Laotian culture.

A few days here is not to be missed.  As you enjoy a glass of good French wine at a riverbank café watching the sunset over the Mekong, give thanks to the Nagas who are still protecting this sanctuary city. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #24, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is the black sand beach the US Marines stormed on February 19, 1945, beginning the legendary Battle of Iwo Jima.  Overlooking the beach is Mount Suribachi, where four days later Joe Rosenthal took his iconic photo of six Marines planting the US flag on its summit.

You can come here once a year at a commemoration jointly held by the US and Japanese militaries.  Guests of honor are the few Marine veterans of the battle still alive.  To be here on these sands and on the summit of Suribachi, where the memorial lauds them – “On Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue” – with these heroic men is an indescribable privilege. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #23, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Caño Cristales, a river flowing through an ancient tableland in a remote roadless region deep in the forests of Colombia.  Known as The Liquid Rainbow, geologists consider it the world’s most beautiful river.

The colors are due to endemic riverweeds that grow only here, clinging to the rocks of the riverbed, and the crystal clarity of the water.  It is not easy to get to – fly a light plane to an airstrip, take a boat upriver for miles, then walk a few miles more.  But then you get to explore one of the most beautiful sights nature has to offer – replete with dozens of small fun waterfalls, surrounded by an uninhabited forest teeming with tropical birds.

No wonder National Geographic calls Caño Cristales “the River of the Garden of Eden.”  Yet it is only one of the many extraordinary experiences in this huge country – for Colombia is larger than Texas and California combined.  Wheeler Expeditions will be conducting an exploration of Hidden Colombia in 2021. Hope you can be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #22 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

My wife Rebel and I love this uniquely picturesque ancient Berber village in Morocco where everything is painted in shades of blue.  Suffused in soothing blue, there’s no more relaxed place than just about anywhere.  Everyone is welcome from the wealthy staying in sumptuous boutique hotels to backpackers in hostels.  There are no “tourist spots,” for every café and bar is where the locals go themselves.  (It’s pronounced shef-shah-win, by the way.)

Berbers – “Amazigh” (Unconquered) in their language, are the original people of Morocco having lived there for over 12,000 years.  They are directly related to the reindeer-herding Lapps of Lapland in northern Scandinavia (they share the same mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U5b1b).  Both are descended from the same stock of Cro-Magnon Ice Age hunters in Western Europe that split in two 15,000 years ago – one moving far north, the other south crossing the Gibraltar Strait to Africa.

One more reason why Morocco is so magical.  Would you like to experience the Magic of Morocco with us next year?  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #21 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

July, 1984.  The KPNLF – Khmer People’s National Liberation Front – was the Anti-Communist guerrilla movement fighting the Soviet-backed Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia.  When I was first there in 1961, Cambodia was then a land of serenity, with a gentle and tranquil people who were at peace with themselves and the world.  Now it was a land of indescribable Communist horror.

It was such a privilege to be with these brave men willing to wage war against that horror and bring freedom to their country.  I told their tale in Turning Back the Terror, the February 1985 cover story for Reason magazine. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #20 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In a hidden corner of Europe, the Radovna River pours off the Julian Alps to carve out the Vintgar Gorge with crystal clear water. A mile-long walkway with towering limestone cliffs on either side is your access.

Nearby is the gorgeous Lake Bled, with Bled Castle suspended atop a shoreline cliff.  The medieval village of Piran, built on a spit of land projecting into the Adriatic Sea and encircled by a white sand beach is a short drive away.  Ljubljana is one of Europe’s most utterly charming capital cities.

Most people have only heard of Slovenia as the birthplace of First Lady Melania Trump, but those who have been here understand it is one of the most entrancing countries on the European continent – pristine beauty, spotless environment, friendly and hospitable people, safe and very well-run.  Whenever your next visit to Europe may be, try to include a few days or week or so here.  You’ll never run out of fascinating things to do.  A stroll through the Vintgar Gorge is an example out of so many.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #19 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Mulafassur waterfall below the village of Gasadalur is only one example of the serenity of the Faroe Islands.  They’re a self-governing Danish possession in the North Atlantic halfway between Norway and Iceland.  You won’t find a place of more captivating serene and peaceful charm.

Warmed by the Gulf Stream, in the summer it’s so strewn with wildflowers the roads are known as “buttercup highways.”  At every turn along them you’re stunned by the incredible scenery. The capital of Torshavn is so laid back the Prime Minister’s Office – the Løgmansskristovan – is a wood cabin with a green grass sod roof.  Great beer from the Faroes’ two breweries is always flowing in the pubs, where the Faroese islanders welcome you like an old friend.

You can easily fly here from Edinburgh, London, Copenhagen, or Reykjavik, Iceland .  A few days here will do wonders for your soul. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #18 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the remotest center of the Sahara Desert lies an unknown, unexcavated mysterious lost city known as Djado.  No one knows who built it or when.  Lying on the ancient Roman trade route from the Saharan salt mines of Fachi and Bilma to the Mediterranean, the Djado oasis flourished for a thousand years (the 1st Millennium AD), but has been forgotten and abandoned for many centuries.

The only people who live near Djado in the vast desert wasteland where Algeria, Libya, Chad, and Niger come together, are the wandering Toubu nomads with no permanent settlements.  It is an indescribable experience to explore such a wondrous lost city right out of an Indiana Jones movie that you have all to yourself.    (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #17, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The most fabulously exotic country on earth is the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.  The Bhutanese religion of Tantric Buddhism is here exemplified by a prayer hall wall painting of Yab-Yum – the physical union of Compassion and Wisdom.  Male compassion is personified as the deity Samvara with a blue body, multiple faces and arms.  He embraces his consort of female wisdom Vajra-varahi.

It is important to understand that Yab-Yum is considered a sacred act as a path to Enlightenment.  It is just one example of how Bhutan may stretch our comfort zone to learn ancient ways and practices, giving us a broader perspective on our humanity.  For an in-depth understanding of Bhutan’s extraordinary culture, consider joining our Wheeler Expedition to the Land of the Thunder Dragon this November. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #16 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

September 1979 – my Hannibal Expedition took two elephants over the same pass Hannibal used in 218 BC across the Alps to attack Rome.  There is only one pass that fits the contemporary descriptions of both Greek historian Polybius and Roman historian Livy:  The Col du Clapier on what is now the French-Italian border.

Unrecognized as Hannibal’s Pass in 1979, it is still a roadless trail today crossed only on foot or mountain bike.  But since our expedition, there are now signs proclaiming it La Route d’Hannibal, and even a life-size statue of an elephant at the French village of Bramans where the track over the pass begins.

The photo you see is us climbing high above Bramans (I’m the one in front with the red backpack). It took us five days to carefully guide our elephants (from an Italian circus) over Clapier and down to the Italian village of Susa. First time in 2,197 years and never repeated 41 years since.

Hannibal’s crossing the Alps with elephants is one of the most epic events of world history.  To retrace it yourself with elephants is to make that famous history a part of your life in the most uniquely powerful way. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #15 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

It is a profoundly somber experience to stand here on this abandoned weed-strewn airstrip.  For this is Runway Able on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas, where 75 years ago today, on August 6, 1945, a B-29 nicknamed Enola Gay piloted by Capt. Paul Tibbets took off with Little Boy in its bomb bay bound for Hiroshima – and three days later on August 9, a B-29 nicknamed Bockscar piloted by Maj. Charles Sweeney flew off with Fat Boy in its bomb bay headed for Nagasaki.

This lost bit of tarmac is the most consequential airstrip on earth.  Be prepared for a deep complex of swirling emotions if you ever stand here yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #14 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When Marco Polo crossed the Tien Shan mountains and reached the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar in 1273, he faced an enormous desert of endless dunes called the Takla Makan, meaning “You go in, you don’t come out.”  To avoid this fate, the Silk Road at Kashgar splits in two – above to the north of the dreaded sand sea via the oases of Aksu and Turfan, and underneath to the south via the oases of Yarkand, Khotan, Charchan and Charklik.  The two routes came together beyond Lop Nor, the eastern extension of the Takla Makan, at the oasis of Dunhuang.

His father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo had earlier taken the northern route to first meet Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan, but now with Marco they took the southern route.  They traveled in caravans of two-humped Bactrian camels, often crossing dunes on the edge – just like the photo you see.  In 2008, I retraced Polo’s route along the southern route – part of it by motorized hang glider. He would be fascinated, I’m sure, to see what a camel caravan looks like from the air! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #13 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We’re all familiar with the famed Rock of Gibraltar, huge and imposing from the outside – but inside the Rock itself is the enormous St. Michael’s Cave with fantastical formations colorfully illuminated.  For millions of years, rainwater created fissures in the Rock’s limestone widening into huge caves with the steady drip of mineralized water creating massive stalactites hanging from cave ceilings and stalagmites rising up from cave floors.  A phantasmagorical experience.

Gibraltar has been a British territory since 1713 when Spain ceded it in the Treaty of Utrecht.  Thus also high up inside the Rock are the Great Siege Tunnels the British dug then lined with cannon emplacements to defeat Spain’s attempt to seize Gibraltar in the 1780s.  Walking through the tunnels, you peer below looking down where the Spaniards and their French allies were vainly dug in – and where there is now an airplane runway stretching across the isthmus.

That’s just a glimpse of what to discover visiting Gibraltar, as there’s so much more!  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #12, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Equivalent to the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific are the Azores in the European Atlantic. You’re looking at Lagoa das Sete Cidades (Lagoon of the Seven Cities), an example of the Azores’ astounding beauty. As Hawaii is a part of the US, the Azores are a part of Portugal – since the 1430s first discovered uninhabited.

Everything grows here, cedar forest to giant tropical tree ferns, fruit from citrus to tropical, plants from corn to taro. Flowers are riotously everywhere. The sea swarms with fish being on the main Atlantic migration route for whales and dolphins. The islands are immaculately cared for by Azoreans, no pollution, air sparkling clear, weather in the 60s in winter, 70s in summer, so peaceful they are virtually crime-free.

Azoreans love drinking parties, cheerful festivals, and bright colors – with their charming homes painted the color of key lime pie, raspberry mousse, or oceanic blue. They love liberty so much they’ve had this motto emblazoned on their coat of arms for centuries: “Antes morrer livres que em paz sujeitos”—" Rather die free than live in peaceful subjugation.”

This is one of our planet’s truly magical places. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #11 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

June 15, 1961.  It was quite a shock to me when I was the surprise guest on Ralph Edwards’ famous television show.  My “Life” at age 17?  How could that be?  The show’s producers were intrigued by a recent Life Magazine story of my swimming the Hellespont as did Leander in Greek mythology (December 12, 1960 issue) that also had photos of me on top of the Matterhorn and with a Jivaro headhunter.

Without my knowing, they flew my guide for the Hellespont swim, Huseyin Uluarslan, from Turkey to LA, the same for my guide on the Matterhorn, Alfons Franzen, from Switzerland, to be on the show.  Most amazing of all, they got the Chief Prefect of Police for Ecuador, Jaime Duran, to pick up Tangamashi (the Jivaro who adopted me) and his brother Naita by helicopter from their Amazon encampment, then fly them from Quito to LA.

I was dumbfounded.  So there we are in the photo, left to right:  Ralph Edwards, Jaime Duran, Tangamashi, Naita, a very young yours truly, and Ralph Ferguson, son of medical researcher Dr. Wilburn Ferguson who translated for Tangamashi. Quite a moment for a 17 year-old boy – and no doubt for Tangamashi!  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #10)

These Mongol nomads in the vast grasslands of central Mongolia milking their goats have a way of life unchanged for centuries. All of our concerns, worries and fears that plague us are totally irrelevant to them. They don’t know about them and wouldn’t care if they did.

Spending time with people such as these gives you an invaluably broader perspective of life on our planet. Our concerns, the issues that dominate our headline news, suddenly seem more parochial and far less important. An evening drinking kumiss (Mongol beer, fermented mare’s milk) in their yurts, telling stories, laughing at jokes – you realize how easy it is to relate to them through the core humanity we all have in our souls.

Exploring Mongolia in this way is a priceless adventure. We’ll be there again in the summer of 2021. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #9 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In these trying times, it’s important to appreciate the beauty of America – both the physical beauty like here at the McWay Waterfall in California’s Big Sur, and the moral beauty of America’s founding principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Driving through all 50 US states as I have done with my sons gives you an awareness of the astounding beauty you discover, together with the cheerful friendliness you’re met with, in every state.  They overwhelm whatever ugliness and unfriendliness you may chance upon.

Studying American history in an unjaundiced way gives you an awareness of how a moral foundation of every individual American’s inalienable right to their own personal life and liberty and the pursuit of their own personal happiness has enabled the creation of the most successful nation ever to exist – a success of widespread freedom and prosperity that overwhelms the multitude of imperfections afflicting our country.

Earth is not Heaven, humans are no angels, America is far from perfect – and we must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It is only with love and respect can we help America strive towards what Aristotle called the Kalon, the morally beautiful. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #8, photo ©Jack Wheeler)  

10,000 years ago, the Sahara was green, with lakes, rivers, and such an abundance of animals it was a hunting paradise for people who lived here. You’ll find their petroglyphs carved on to rock outcroppings like this that my son Jackson and I found on a Trans-Sahara Expedition in 2003.

The Milankovitch astronomical cycles that drive Earth’s climate produced a West African monsoon that greened the Sahara back then. When the cycles shifted ending the monsoon, the Sahara turned dry desert as it remains today. Political cycles that permitted a peaceful crossing of the world’s greatest desert have also shifted, making this too dangerous now.

A Trans-Sahara Expedition is one of the world’s great adventures. Hopefully, one will be possible again in the not-too-distant future. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #7 photo ©Jack Wheeler)