We are delighted that the following have already agreed to speak at the symposium:

Tamotsu Nakamura: Regional Overview
Tamotsu is a veteran of 27 expeditions to the mountains of East Tibet and Sichuan and to the Henduan mountains of Yunnan. He is a world authority on the region. Tamotsu is an inveterate explorer with a keen photographic eye who has mapped the region extensively. He has lived in Hong Kong, Mexico, New Zealand and Pakistan, in addition to his native Japan, and has been exploring and climbing new routes in the greater ranges since 1961.  He is currently a Councillor of the Japanese Alpine Club and editor of the Japanese Alpine News. He will introduce stunning peaks that remain unclimbed, unknown valleys and the friendly Khamba people in the region.

Mike Searle: Geological Evolution of Eastern Tibet - from Namche Barwa Heights to the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake Depths
Mike is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University and has specialised in the geological evolution of the Himalaya and Tibet for 25 years.  He spends about half of each year in the region and has been on over 20 mountaineering and geological expeditions to the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Tibet.  Recently he has been working around the eastern margins of Tibet, in the Namche Barwa gorge region as well as Burma, Yunnan and Vietnam.  In his talk Mike will attempt to explain how and when the Tibetan plateau rose to its present height of 5km, when the great river systems cut the deepest gorges on the planet (Yarlung Tsanpo gorge), and how the Indian plate collision resulted in the formation of the Himalaya, and the initiation of some of the greatest fault systems known (Jiale, KunLun, Red River, Sagaing faults).

Mick Fowler: Exploits in the Qionglai, Daxue and Nyainquentanglha Ranges
Mick has been climbing since his early teens and since then has accomplished extensive hard and adventurous new routes in the UK, Africa, Canada, India, Nepal, Peru and Russia. He is acknowledged as Britain’s pre-eminent adventure climber. While working full time for the Inland Revenue he has still found time for adventurous climbing trips and for the publication of two books. The first,  Vertical Pleasure was published in 1995, and the second, On Thin Ice, will be available from July 2005. Together with Paul Ramsden he was awarded the prestigious Piolet d’Or in 2003 for their ascent of the difficult North Face of Siguniang. During the Symposium Mick will talk about his recent trips to Siguniang, and Grosvenor, in addition to this year's expedition to the Nyainquentanglha.

Mark Jenkins: Adventure is not Dead
Mark is an internationally acclaimed, author and adventurer who has covered the world from Bolivia through Turkey to Tibet and Australia with his activities varying from mountaineering to canyoneering and sea kayaking. He is the author of three award winning books; The Hard Way, To Timbuktu, and Off the Map, and is currently a columnist for Outside Magazine. Mark has made a number of recent trips.  Last year he achieved the first ascent (with Steve Roach) of the West Face Direct of Marguerita in the Rwenzori Mountains and earlier this year he achieved the first ascent of Koh-i-Badar (with Doug Chabod) in the Wakhan Corridor region of northeastern Afghanistan.  By the time of the Symposium he, like many other speakers, will have literally just returned from an expedition to Far Eastern Tibet.  He will be including highlights from this recent trip in his talk, which naturally will focus on his adventures in the region. 

Julie-Ann Clyma: Chomolhari - Divine Queen of Mountains
Julie-Ann works in public health research and as a mountain guide. She has climbed extensively in the European and Southern Alps, in addition to participating in over 20 expeditions to Alaska, India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Peru and Nepal. More recently she has turned her attention to the mountains of China and Tibet, where she has made first ascents on major mountains.

Chomolhari (7326m), standing on the border between Bhutan and Tibet, had only received three ascents since the notable first ascent by Freddy Spencer Chapman and Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama in 1937. The lack of activity on this impressive mountain is because climbing is forbidden from the Bhutanese side, and there has been great difficulty of access into Yadong County on the Tibetan side. However, in 2004 Clyma and Payne were able to reach the mountain to make the first attempt on the difficult NW ridge, and an alpine-style ascent of the S ridge.  

Martin Scott: Haizi Shan - King of Mountains
A physicist by training, followed by a career in Information Technology, often abroad, Martin has spent much of his spare time in the mountains. He is a prominent member of the Alpine Club, currently holding the position of Club Secretary.  Martin has taken part in expeditions to Greenland, Alaska, Tibet, Sichuan, Nepal, the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Pakistan and the Andes, in addition to numerous trips to the Alps. He has been on eight expeditions in the past five years, mostly to China and Tibet where he has made the first ascents of the two 6,000m peaks Beu-tse and Nganglong Kangri. In his talk Martin will describe his recent trip to the Dashue Shan with an emphasis on the logistics of travel, access, permits etc, for the whole area.

TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION DETAILS
Rheged is easily accessed from (in 2 minutes) the M6 motorway: from Junction 40 of the M6 take the A66 towards Keswick for a few hundred metres, then first left at the Texaco petrol station. Rheged is behind the petrol station. Those wishing to attend are strongly advised to reserve their accommodation early and the following link to hotels and guest house in the area may prove useful: www.visiteden.co.uk.

For further details please visit the Rheged website.