Adventure
https://youtu.be/1Gtrg6R7b3w
From YouTube:
Colin O’Brady is a professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker and adventurer. He is a three-time world record holder, and just became the first person in the world to travel across Antarctica unassisted. In 2016 he set the Explorers Grand Slam and Seven Summits speed records.
Update added below.
According to his website, Colin O’Brady has completed the first-ever solo, unsupported, unaided crossing of Antarctica. He has reportedly arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf on the Pacific Ocean.
Aaron Teasdale, writing for National Geographic »
Using solely his own muscle power, O’Brady skied 932 miles pulling a 300-pound sled over 54 frigid days across the coldest, windiest, most remote continent on Earth, crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean via the South Pole. After a remarkable 80-mile continuous push over the last two days, almost five times his strenuous daily average, he emerged from the TransAntarctic Mountains onto the Ross Ice Shelf a little before 1 p.m. EST, December 26 and stamped his name into the annals of polar lore.
Peter Winsor, writing for Explorersweb »
But was O’Brady’s crossing really unassisted? O’Brady and Rudd have been skiing on a packed road all the way from the South Pole to their finish line. Known as the McMurdo-South Pole Highway, or the South Pole Overland Traverse Road (SPOT), it is a flattened trail groomed by tractors towing heavy sledges. It conveys personnel and supplies from McMurdo Station to the South Pole. Flags every 100m or so make navigation easy during whiteouts, and all the crevasses were filled in by the original construction crew. Most importantly for a skier, it eliminates the rock-hard, bumpy sastrugi that the wind shapes out of loose snow.
“It is a highway,” says veteran polar guide Eric Philips, “[that] more than doubles someone’s speed and negates the need for navigation. An expedition cannot be classed as unassisted if someone is skiing on a road.”
In polar travel, while “unsupported” means no supply drops, “unassisted” additionally requires no outside help of any kind to make the distance easier: no kites, dogs, roads or navigation flags. Norway’s Borge Ousland crossed Antarctica alone and unsupported in 1996-7, but his journey is not considered unassisted because a kite towed him part of the way.
Update 2020.02.03
Aaron Teasdale, writing for National Geographic »
National Geographic also reported on O’Brady and Rudd during their treks in 2018, and when O’Brady completed his journey, described it as “historic” and “unsupported.” After reviewing those stories and gathering more information, we’ve amended them with an editor’s note.
Prominent leaders of the adventure and polar communities were less enthusiastic about O’Brady’s claims. Conrad Anker, Alex Honnold, Mike Horn, Borge Ousland, and others spoke out against him, accusing O’Brady of exaggerating his accomplishment or worse.
Over the last several months, National Geographic has investigated O’Brady’s claims. He agreed to three phone interviews but recently stopped responding to requests for comment. We also spoke with an array of leading polar explorers, including some of O’Brady’s mentors, many of whom believe he has distorted the truth in pursuit of fame.
O’Brady “didn’t do what [he] advertised,” says Australian polar explorer Eric Philips, cofounder and president of the International Polar Guides Association. “This wasn’t some Last Great Polar Journey. Rather, it was a truncated route that was a first in only a very limited way.”
Mark Agnew, writing in the South China Morning Post:
[Leandro] Martins is trying to go one step further than Daniel Burton, who was the first person to cycle to the South Pole, by passing through the landmark and onto the coast on the other side by covering.
From Antarctica New Zealand:
“I’m such an excited scientist right now!”
Dr Regina Eisert, marine mammal expert at the University of Canterbury, still can’t believe the underwater footage her team captured on a recent Antarctic expedition to study killer whales.
“The whole whale glides past – this is such a lucky shot!” she says as she watches her computer screen.
With a serenity that belies its massive size, a minke whale floats gracefully through the frame. Little is known about Antarctic minke whales that can grow up to 10 m long and weigh 9 tonnes. Dr Eisert believes this may be the first time a minke whale has been filmed underwater, and in the sea ice, in the Ross Sea.
Dr Eisert is particularly excited as she didn’t think anything had been captured on a new prototype underwater camera designed by Antarctic film expert Anthony Powell of Antzworks.
“The plan was to film continuously across the icebreaker channel that is prepared for the re-supply vessel to cross McMurdo Sound. The water’s so clear, you can see right across the 50-80 m lane and monitor all the whales that use the channel,” Dr Eisert says. “Unfortunately, the system only recorded for just a few hours, due to teething problems for this new technology in the field. We had no idea that we had this footage until Anthony found it when checking the camera back in Christchurch!”
Dr Eisert’s research programme focusses on fish-eating (Type C) killer whales, but she also became interested in minke whales when she realised that they are champions of ice navigation, beating even the Type-C killer whales in their ability to infiltrate deep into McMurdo Sound.
According to IWC estimates, there are about 180,000 minke whales in Area V, the area of Southern Ocean that includes the Ross Sea region. Dr Eisert says while this species is likely to be an important part of the Ross Sea food web, little is known about their precise role in the ecosystem. Minke whales are also the only whales that are still hunted in the Southern Ocean, ostensibly for scientific purposes. But there are other ways to study whales that cause no harm, such as photo-identification and dart biopsies.
When a minke swims by, Dr Eisert and her team take a photo – and a skin samples using a small dart.
“We can learn so much from a small tissue sample, such as their diet – we think they just eat krill, but do they eat small fish as well? Also, DNA analysis can tell us whether Ross Sea minkes are separate from other minke whales on the Antarctic Peninsula or further north, or if they are all part of one larger population,” she says.
As filter feeders that primarily target krill, Dr Eisert says minke whales feed low in the food web and follow the retreating sea ice to find the richest feeding grounds.
“This means they’re excellent indicators of ‘ecosystem hotspots’ – particularly productive areas. This information in turn feeds into environmental stewardship, in particular by supporting the objectives of the Ross Sea region Marine Protected Area (MPA).”
The Ross Sea region MPA came into effect on 1 December 2017. It covers 1.55 million square kilometres, and is the world’s largest marine protected area. Ongoing research and monitoring are required to show that the MPA meets its objectives and to ensure the MPA’s continued existence.
Dr Eisert’s team travelled to Scott Base with Antarctica New Zealand in January, and she hopes analysis of the samples and images they collected will begin a valuable data set for Ross Sea minke whale research.
Footage also available on Vimeo.
More:
Rare footage of minke whale a ‘lucky shot” – Otago Daily Times
National Geographic:
A penguin mega-colony has been discovered off the western coast of Antarctica. The Danger Islands are home to more than 1.5 million Adélie penguins that were hiding in plain sight.
Take a 4-minute escape and soar above whales, icebergs, and snow-capped mountains of Antarctica. The ethereal vocals of Inga Liljestrom snuggle you next to penguins and seals in this mesmerizing short from Aliscia Young and Richard Sidey. (Best viewed full screen and volume up.)
Wild Antarctica from GALAXIID on Vimeo.
Jade Hameister, a 16 year old student from Melbourne, Australia, is breaking records in Antarctica. She just become the the youngest person to ski to the North Pole, Greenland Ice Shelf, and now The South Pole.
Nicole Precel, writing in The Age:
The teen arrived at the South Pole after a gruelling 37-day journey and is the youngest to complete the polar hat-trick but is also the first woman to set a new route through Kansas Glacier from the Amundsen Coast of Antarctica.
“The one (record) I think is really special is the first woman to set a new route to the South Pole, and that’s kind of the one that I keep bringing up, the rest of them I’m not really fussed,” she said.
The ‘rest of them’ includes, at age 14, becoming the youngest to ski to the North Pole from anywhere outside the last degree of latitude, resulting in her being awarded Australian Geographic Society’s Young Adventurer of the Year.
Additional information is available from National Geographic Australia.
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