Tune into Sir Christian Bonington, explorer of remote mountain regions and leader of some of the most famous big-mountain expeditions, at 11am PST on Thursday. Topics of discussion may include highlights of his career, his views on the future of climbing and his own plans for the future.

Bonington, at age 63, continues to seek out remote areas, including Greenland and the interior of Tibet, for new and unexplored peaks and climbs. His career has spanned five decades, from the gritstone climbs of his youth in England, to the large-scale Himalayan expeditions of the 1970s and more recently to lightweight, low impact trips to exotic locales.

At 3pm PST on Friday, American alpinist Kitty Calhoun, who has summitted Dhaulagiri and Makalu in bold fashion on difficult routes, will be available to chat about her career and the future of cutting-edge Himalayan alpinism.

Calhoun started climbing in decidedly un-alpine Georgia, but soon discovered that ice, snow and rock in the mountains were where she belonged. Since her ascents of Dhaulagiri and Makalu, she has specialized in light-and-fast alpinism on difficult peaks in Alaska, the Karakoram, Krygyzstan and the Himalaya.