Some research questions cannot be answered from the lab.
Sea to Sky Explorers Association is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supplies the logistics, technical support, and skilled volunteers that scientific fieldwork requires in remote and difficult environments. When access, terrain, equipment, or personnel exceed what a research team can supply on its own, we take responsibility for that part of the work.
Explorers
Explore with us. Bring real skills to real fieldwork. Rope, dive, flight, engineering, or field experience.
Supporters
Support field science. Help fund the equipment, travel, and preparation that puts teams in the field and move science forward.
Researchers
Plan a research project. Hand us the field operation. Access, logistics, equipment, personnel, and data collection.
Explore our completed and ongoing projects
Buried Star
Ongoing. A survey site in Marjum Canyon that could not be reached with the research team's existing equipment and personnel. An eight-person team planned the access, rigging, and equipment movement required to suspend and tension a roughly 50 kg payload on a long line across complex terrain, with engineering input at the design stage.
Follow us on BlueSky to keep up with our progress!
Lichen’s Edge
Ongoing. A coastal lichen survey run with volunteer field teams. STSEA handled capability assessment for each volunteer, GIS support for the survey design, and the field data collection.
How we operate:
Before a field operation reaches the terrain, it begins with a research question. We take that research question and work out what access, permissions, equipment, and skills are required to answer it. Then we assemble a team of volunteer explorers and professionals who already hold those skills, prepare them for the specific site, and run the fieldwork so the research team receives the best possible quality of data. While rare, if a site can’t be reached safely with the people and equipment available, we’ll say so.
Our Board Members
Khaled
Executive Director & Co-founder
Sam
Vice-president & Co-founder
Ashlie “Ash”
Secretary & Co-founder
Dmitri
Development & Fundraising Board Member
Grant
Media & Outreach Board Member
Sea to Sky Explorers Association is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our status is verifiable through public records.
Hear from Explorers and Researchers:
“Volunteering with STSEA has given my outdoor adventures a whole new dimension, taking me to remote locations I would never have had the chance to visit. Every mission helps me sharpen technical skills, from scrambling and climbing to field radio communications.
It’s a blast collaborating with teammates who bring rich backgrounds in climbing, aviation, technology, etc. Everyone is remarkably patient and eager to share their knowledge. We operate with a truly collaborative, supportive, and blameless culture.
Contributing directly to scientific discovery while doing what I love adds a profound sense of purpose to every journey.”
— Yongsheng, explorer“I was really amazed that there might be a group out there that was interested in helping us do our science. It has taken a huge load off of me worrying about my students.
We’ve gone back and forth on the design for our suspension system and we’ve developed it a lot from my original concepts, which were not going to work, to something that has worked, and that’s been really fantastic!
Just to watch the precision coordinating between people at different base stations pulling things up, us on the ground watching it go up, it went really smoothly!”
— Aaron Parsons, Astrophysics Researcher“I’ve had the pleasure of training many of the STSEA team members in rope and safety systems. The team is always focused, goal oriented, intelligent, and overall really fun to train with. Their assignments/projects are intriguing, and their leadership is well organized and forward thinking. I look forward to more projects and training days with this team!”
— Max Stewart, SAANO Adventures, Training Partner“STSEA has been invaluable to my PhD thesis work at UC Berkeley. My thesis involves building EIGSEP, one of the best-calibrated radio telescopes in the world, to study the faint radio signature associated with the birth of the first stars in the universe. To do this, EIGSEP is suspended 100 meters above the ground in a canyon at a remote site in Utah. STSEA has made this possible by joining us in Utah four times, climbing the canyon walls and lifting the telescope in 100-degree heat. They have been consistently professional and have done everything necessary to suspend the telescope safely and quickly.
They have also taught me and the EIGSEP science team how to work in the heat, along with the knots and other techniques we need to maintain the telescope in the field. I am grateful to STSEA for making my thesis work possible, and I look forward to working with them again.”
— Christian Bye, Astrophysics PhD Student