Colin O’Brady Completes Crossing of Antarctica with Final 32-Hour Push

[maxxxxx]

Just this week I read a story about Henry Worsley who died trying the same thing: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-dark.... After reading, I wonder if you have to a certain level of insanity for doing something like this.

[FPGAhacker]

I don't know, but it's an interesting thought. What drives someone do to this? I'm in awe of it. It seems to me that it has to be tied to finding meaning in life one way or another.

I have to wonder though, how long does it take for the afterglow of such a massive accomplishment to wear off and to start asking yourself "what now?"

[beefield]

> I wonder if you have to a certain level of insanity for doing something like this.

My assumption is that people want and need some level of "excitement"[1] to feel like living a meaningful life. Say, in scale 1-10, if you only get exposure to level 1 excitement, you kill yourself to avoid a boring life, occasional level 5 keeps your life interesting, 7-8 starts to be so uncomfortable that you rather avoid and 10 is so much that you rather kill yourself than expose yourself to this level of excitement.

Now, the problem is that same things give very different levels of excitement. There are people for whom game of Monopoly is level 5 excitement. And there are people for whom game of Monopoly is solid level 1 excitement.

With this model you see why some people decide to take risks some other find outright stupid or insane. So next time you think someone is doing something insanely risky, you might want to think how fulfilling your life would be if the things you do to get emotions would be stripped from you before calling the persons with pejorative adjectives...

[1]no, I have no good definition for this word

[badideaprojects]

Lou Rudd is also currently making the same journey, partly in memory of Henry Worsley who he knew.

https://m.facebook.com/louis.rudd.7

Him and Colin set off on the same day, 1 mile apart on the ice.

[basementcat]

This level of insanity is not as foreign as you might think. The feeling of accomplishment I get from climbing a mountain, finishing a marathon or a long bike trip is comparable to the feeling I get after taping out a chip, shipping a major software release or delivering first-of-a-kind hardware to a customer.

For some of us, getting Tetris to work in Conway's Game of Life is insanity. For other people, walking across a continent is insanity.

[tootie]

I read that and just thought this guy is a moron. There's no discovery, no profit, just vanity.

[tedunangst]

What is the definition of crossing Antarctica? It seems you have start at some point on the coast, go to the South Pole, then go to another point on the coast. But the South Pole isn't the midpoint. Nor are the two coastal points 180 degrees apart. Like what's the smallest angle that qualifies as a crossing? (If I hike along the France Spain border, is that hiking across Europe?)

Not to say it's any easier, but ever since these stories started coming out I've been wondering who decides what it means to cross the continent. Would going from Dronning Maud Land to George V Land, a journey of double the distance but passing north of the South Pole, count?

[Stratoscope]

His website has a map and discussion of the route:

https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst

[CydeWeys]

You're right that it would make more sense if the route had to go through the midpoint of Antarctica (defined as the point that is farthest from any coast) rather than to the south pole. That remains un-done. For now, the "through the south pole" route is the longest trek that's been completed.

[gumby]

At first I was shocked by how large a sled he dragged. I use a much smaller sled (just a deer sled). Then I saw how smooth the terrain was at least where the photo was taken.

Then I read that he was out for 53 days. And of course his conditions are far, far more grueling than I have ever faced (all in North America). So then I was shocked at how little he had with him!

[lostlogin]

I talked to a guy who tried to cross it once. To get the huge number of required calories in a compact form they drank olive oil. He didn’t like it and it sure sounds nasty.

[hanley]

> Then I saw how smooth the terrain was at least where the photo was taken.

If you look through Colin's earlier instagram posts [1] you'll see that the terrain was not smooth for much of his journey. The terrain is covered in sastrugi [2] and this year was marked with unexpected higher temperatures and snowfall which made the skiing very slow for Colin and all the other explorers out there. Explorers Web has a good collection of blog posts about the various expeditions that are happening this season [3].

[1] https://www.instagram.com/colinobrady/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sastrugi [3] https://explorersweb.com/category/poles/antarctic/

[gameswithgo]

For long stretches the terrain was awful, as well there was climbing up to ~8500 feet or so

[dana321]

That's got to be the best place in the world, imagine the solitude, the quietness and amazing scenery. Must have been an amazing experience.

[davidstoker]

Colin just accomplished an incredible feat of endurance! His daily Instagram postings have been inspirational to read for the past 53 days. Other info about his expedition:

https://www.colinobrady.com/theimpossiblefirst

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/18/sports/antarc...

[lucidstack]

To those inspired by this achievement to look more into polar expeditions, I can highly recommend Michael Palin’s “Erebus”. It’s a riveting read on the challenges, successes, and tragedies of the British explorer ship Erebus, its commanders, officers, and crews.

[ignoramous]

Outline for people geowalled http://outline.com/ezrgYS

[neaanopri]

This is right out of "The Left Hand of Darkness."

[curiousgal]

Tangent.

I once met a guy who told be about a historical book of, as far as I can remember, 2 or 3 explorers who were friends (?) and were racing to explore Antarctica. Does anyone happen to know the name of said book? It's been my white whale.

[aedocw]

Not the book the guy told you about, but one of the finest memoirs ever written about exploring Antarctica - The Worst Journey In The World.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World

It's a fantastic read, written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard who was part of Scott's expedition. Such an amazing story, and to think they were doing this in a day where sat phones and GPS were not a thing (not even flashlights!)

[LeifCarrotson]

If it was about Antarctica, it might be Lansing's "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage": I recall that it opened with some chapters describing the preparations and some descriptions of the spirit of camaraderie among Arctic and Antarctic explorers of various nationalities. It's set just after the race to reach the pole. It was a best seller, and they made a movie about it in 2000, so it had reach enough to be mentioned.

It's definitely not a story about 3 friends racing to explore Antarcica - for one, while it takes a few small creative liberties, it's an historical narrative, and only one of the three are significantly included.

But it is a fantastic read, and even if it isn't the one you're looking for it is both well worth your and it is concerning the same topic.

[gregtaleck]

Scott and Amundsen

"The race to the South Pole, 1911. In 1911, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen went head to head to be the first to reach the South Pole. In the early 20th century, the race was on to reach the South Pole, with a number of explorers setting out to claim it for their own."

https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/race-south-pole-1911

[atiffany]

Maybe it’s a book on Shackleton?

[tbassetto]

Wasn’t the crossing of Antartica unsupported already done in http://www.travelexplorations.com/cecilie-skog-and-ryan-wate...? Asking because Colin’s website says it’s a first but I must be missing something.

[npstr]

You are missing that Colin did it solo.

[vegardx]

Yes, by Børge Ousland in 96/97. But the whole concept of a first is sort of vague. Ousland used a kite, but he also went almost 1000km further. But I think it's widely accepted that he was the first to cross Antarctica unsupported and solo.

It would surprise me if it wasn't a Norwegian that did it, we seem to have some sort of obsession with the South Pole. Cecilie Skog in the article you linked to is, no surprise, also Norwegian.

If you ever want to walk in the tracks of people like Roald Amundsen you should check out Expedition Amundsen, a 100km ski trip by sled over three days at Hardangervidda. Hardangervidda is absolutely stunning, but also known for taking a toll on even the most seasoned polar explorers.

[kirrent]

And Mike Horn did it solo as well. It's a bit of an artificial category, but still impressive as well.

[tunesmith]

Is it easier now because of climate change? (Not to take anything away from the accomplishment, it might actually be harder due to how climate change works.)

[codezero]

If anything I would wonder if it’s easier because they can contact the outside world. Having a sat phone, gps, and a sympathetic ear had to help. At one point he got a call from Elton John! Imagine the morale boost :) also, knowing there is an escape hatch. Someone to send a rescue team etc...

[gameswithgo]

It wouldn't change how far he was going, as he was crossing the actual land part, not ice extent. Might be 1 or 2 degrees warmer than it was 50 years ago or something.

[therealdrag0]

Where was a report recently that said some parts of Antarctica have grown in amount of snow. So that might make it harder or make there be more "land" to cover?

[hanley]

It was actually much harder this year due to unexpected higher temperatures for this time of year, more snowfall, and whiteout conditions which all led to slower skiing. Many explorers failed to accomplish their goals this year due to poor conditions.

https://explorersweb.com/category/poles/antarctic/

[sky_rw]

As I understand it, a big part of the challenge that is mitigated by technological advancement is nutrition. It is incredibly difficult to carry enough calories with you to support the journey. Colin's food supply was largely custom made by a nutrition company named Standard Process.

[s_y_n_t_a_x]

At that temp 2 degrees is negligible.

[porpoisely]

Anyone else seeing 6 nytimes articles on the frontpage? Why not just redirect us to the nytimes at this point?

[dang]

Any stochastic process is going to involve runs of 6 sometimes. HN seems best served by looking at article quality individually and not worrying too much about domains.

I do wish users would submit more weird out-of-the way articles, though, and less major media. Especially ones that haven't appeared here before. Edit: like this one! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18760852

[na85]

I'd rather read the current crop of NYT articles than some medium.com blogspam, or an announcement that yet another go-nowhere language that compiles to javascript has released a new minor version.

[narrator]

NYTimes is ok as long as it is not one of their ubiquitous "Anonymous sources within the intelligence community say..." political articles.

[bookofjoe]

3 of top 6 right now

[nyc111]

And NYT is locked. They get so much traffic from HN but they don't let us read it. Maybe a deal needs to be negotiated similar to FB and WSJ deal so that HN referrers could read the article.