Crossing the Empty Quarter
In the Footsteps of Bertram Thomas
by Mark Evans

196pp • 220x280mm
ISBN: 978-1-908531-60-5
Price: £25
Publication: Autumn 2016
In 1930...

“Arabia’s Empty Quarter constituted the broadest expanse of unexplored territory outside the Antarctic continent...”
            The Explorers' Club


Arabia's vast Rub Al Khali desert is one of the world’s most extreme and inhospitable environments, and in 1930 the race was on to become the first European to cross what is the biggest sand desert on earth.

The potential hardship was not to deter Bertram Thomas, the intrepid British explorer who set out to travel from south to north in the winter of 1930-31, guided by Omani Sheikh Saleh Bin Kalut al Rashidi al Kathiri. Challenged by the unknown, they walked for nearly 1,000 kilometres from Salalah on the coast of Oman, through the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to Doha, the capital of Qatar; it was to be the first recorded crossing, dashing the hopes of Ibn Philby.

Now, some 85 years later leading British explorer, Mark Evans, has taken on the challenge again. Accompanied by an equally intrepid Omani team, he embarked on the 1,300km journey on foot and by camel in December 2015, crossing the same stretch of desert in 49 days.

Crossing the Empty Quarter is a large format celebration of the journey in all its aspects. Combining extensive photography - both archive and contemporary - with an authoritative yet highly readable text, this book will be a unique exploration of the region as it was more than eighty years ago, and as it stands today.


In 1930 one Omani and one British explorer made the first ever recorded crossing of the Rub Al Khali desert. Now that 1,000 kilometre journey across the largest sand desert in the world is about to be repeated for the first time.

Be part of the adventure...

Visit the expedition site:
Crossing the Empty Quarter


Picture


10 of the most inspiring adventures of 2016
About the Author

Mark Evans, 54, has lived in the region for twenty years. A fellow of the Explorers’ Club of New York and The Royal Geographical Society in London, in 2009 Mark set up Outward Bound Oman.

Over a period of 55 days in 2001 he kayaked the entire 1,700 km coastline of Oman, from Musandam to Yemen, and in 2004 he set up the University of the Desert, which is Oman’s gift to UNESCO, using the power of the desert environment to foster intercultural dialogue between young people from western and Arab cultures, for which he was awarded the MBE in 2011.
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www.markevans.global 
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EVANS OF ARABIA

A British adventurer rediscovers desert life without strife
“...Mr Evans’s desert crossing is by no means the first since Mr Thomas’s. Sir Wilfred Thesiger made his name criss-crossing the Empty Quarter in the 1940s . . . But the trek coming to an end this week among the skyscrapers of Doha will bring welcome diversity to the annals of British exploration, which have been dominated for decades by snow, ice, rock and cold. It is also a gentle reminder that the Arabian peninsula has more to offer than blood, oil, sweat and tears.”
                                                      
The Times, 25th January, 2016