Antarctica Traverse

[Greg Mihalik]

53 days

“In what could go down as one of the great feats in polar history, the American Colin O’Brady, 33, covered the final 77.54 miles of the 921-mile journey across Antarctica in one final sleepless, 32-hour burst, becoming the first person ever to traverse Antarctica from coast to coast solo, unsupported and unaided by wind.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/sports/antarctica-race-colin-obrady.html

[Ken Thompson]

Great that there are still firsts of this sort.

[Jerry Adams]

nice that he’s waiting for the other guy

[David Thomas]

Børge Ousland became the first person to do an unsupported solo crossing of Antarctica 21 years ago.  I’m trying to decide if it’s an odd caveat that O’Brady did it without a kite.  Relevant, yes, and a first of a sort, but if Scott had survived and reached the South Pole, would Amundsen and Scott be remembered as equal firsts because one used dogs and the other tried to use horses?  OTOH, the first to *swim* across the English Channel does seem distinct from the first to *sail* across hundreds of years earlier.

A fabulous achievement and a grueling expedition by each of them.  For me, the pucker factor would have been much higher getting dragged across unknown terrain behind a kite.

Kristin is on a boat to Antarctica now.  With nothing so ambitious planned, although she’s going to swim in the Weddell Sea (she and our lab have far greater tolerance of cold water than I do).

[Eric B]

Let’s not forget Mike Horn – in my opinion his traverse deserves mention as it was much more of a traverse:

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