Race to the Bottom of the Earth Page 2

  “As the names were called, every single man had his ‘Yes’ ready,” Amundsen remembered.17 Not a single man quit.

  The Fram set sail for Antarctica on September 9, 1910.

  Leon saw them off from the docks in Madeira, and then he got to work. The brother that Roald had trusted to keep silent was now about to send three of the most important messages of his life. One went to Amundsen’s mentor, apologizing for keeping his true goal a secret. One went to the press, announcing the challenge for the South Pole. And one message, a telegram, headed farther south.

  Melbourne, Australia—1910

  The Terra Nova sailed into Melbourne, Australia, on October 12, 1910. The crew was light and joking after the easy passage from South Africa. After this, all that was left was a quick trip to New Zealand to pick up the ponies and then on to the ice. Scott’s crew was a team, happy to be working together and looking forward to the years they would spend on the frozen desert. They were in it for the long haul.

  Letters and mail waited for Scott that followed any leader of an expedition. Bills to be paid, sponsors and fans asking for updates and advice, and orders for supplies to be sorted through. It was routine, expected, and familiar.

  Until he opened a single telegram.

  “BEG LEAVE TO INFORM YOU FRAM PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC—AMUNDSEN”18

  Scott had settled in for a siege.

  Now, it was a race.

  “I know the journey ahead will be more challenging than anything I’ve ever experienced but that struggle is what will make the joy of the finish line even sweeter.”

  ~Colin O’Brady, October 16, 201819

  “I am under no illusions as to the enormity of the task.”

  ~Lou Rudd, April 1, 201820

  CHAPTER 2

  THE RACE,

  O’BRADY/RUDD: 2007–2018

  Antarctica—2011

  In the space of a heartbeat, everything can change. Hundreds of miles from the nearest person, on the driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth, Englishmen Henry Worsley and Lou Rudd had no one but themselves to depend on for survival. Every move and every decision had consequences.

  It was the summer of 2011 in Antarctica. They had stopped for a break from their work hauling polar sleds called pulks across the ice. Lou had gotten out the canteen and a cup, just as he had done during their journey so many times before.

  He had forgotten about the wind. The wind could kill.

  A gust rose up, and, in the flash of a moment, the wind caught the stream of water as Lou poured from the canteen. The water spilled, soaking his glove and drenching his hand underneath.

  Henry rushed to his side. They had to get Lou dry. His skin had already frozen, and seconds mattered in saving his hand. Quickly, they wiped away every drop of water with whatever cloth was nearest.

  “Get wet, you die.” Henry had said it before, and he said it again now.21 It wasn’t the last time that he would teach Lou how to survive at the very bottom of the earth.

  Lou was in great shape; they both were. He had excelled at all the cold-weather training, and, at home in England, he had read all of the books and training manuals and instructions about venturing into the Antarctic. But the thin line between life and death rested on experience more than book learning; nothing could take the place of practice.

  Henry was the seasoned expert, and Lou was the novice. For weeks they skied, climbed glaciers, crossed mountains, and skirted crevasses. Lou soaked it all in, falling in love with “the sheer vastness of Antarctica,” he said, and learning everything he could from the best leader.22 “I knew absolutely nothing about polar travel; the dark arts, the routines, the kit,” Lou recalled. “He [Henry] taught me everything.”23

  But just five years later, Henry Worsley was dead.

  In 2016, Henry had tried to traverse Antarctica—crossing from one end to the other—alone, unsupported, and unassisted. Only 110 miles from the finish, he collapsed, in too much pain to go farther. For two days he lay in his tent, too weak to even boil water, hoping against hope that he could continue on. But his strength never returned, and his mind started to follow his body’s unraveling. Finally, in a moment of lucidity, he called for rescue. He was flown to Chile for emergency surgery, but it was too late. He died in the operating room.

  Henry Worsley, a mentor and friend to Lou. His death from an attempted solo, unsupported, unaided traverse of Antarctica spurred Lou to take on the 2018 solo, unassisted, unsupported crossing. [National Museums Liverpool/Wikimedia Commons]

  Henry had tried to do the impossible, people said. Only six people had managed to traverse the continent on foot. “More people have walked on the moon (twelve) than have traversed Antarctica,” Lou wrote.24 And none had ever crossed alone, unaided, and unsupported. Perhaps it just couldn’t be done.

  “Unsupported” meant Henry had carried everything he needed with him on the pulk. Every bit of food, every liter of fuel, every piece of clothing, backup gear, emergency equipment, and any little item of comfort. When he passed the research base full of scientists at the South Pole, he couldn’t even accept a tissue or a cup of tea.

  “Unaided” meant he traveled under his own power. Mile after mile, through violent headwinds and up 10,000 feet of elevation, he alone, without any help, had pulled his pulk. No sails, no kites, and certainly no powered vehicles. The only way forward was with his own feet.

  For men like Lou, Henry was a mentor, a friend, an inspiration. It was his enthusiasm that shaped their expeditions, and it was his knowledge they relied on to conquer each obstacle. His death stunned them all.

  Captain Lou Rudd (2018). [René Koster Photography]

  Through his grief at his friend’s death, Lou planned another trip of his own. Like him, the whole team would be composed of soldiers from the British military. Lou would lead the team of six men to finish the journey that Henry had started, a traverse of Antarctica. They would mostly follow Henry’s route, but, unlike Henry, Lou’s team would travel together and resupply at the South Pole. It wouldn’t be the solo, unsupported, unaided expedition that Henry had undertaken, but it would be a memorial to a hero.

  Lou’s five companions were eager and athletic, but “they were polar novices, some had never been on skis,” Lou said.25 They trained and studied, just as Lou had. And Lou taught them, just as Henry had taught him.

  When they reached the Transantarctic Mountains where Henry had spent his last days, Lou and his teammates climbed to a peak with a brilliant view. Here, in a place that Henry had loved, they held a memorial service for Lou’s dear friend. As they came down the mountain, Lou watched his compass, the very same one that Henry had used, letting his friend guide him once more. They reached the far side of the continent twelve days later. They had finished, for Henry.

  Lou understood why Henry had come back, again and again, even in the face of great danger. Antarctica was unlike anywhere else in the world. There was loneliness in its vast, empty wasteland of ice and wind. But there was loneliness in leaving it, too.

  “Like a siren song,” Lou explained, “she draws you back.”26

  One year after Lou’s return, Ben Saunders, an accomplished British polar explorer, set out to make his own attempt at the solo, unaided, unsupported crossing. He had also known Henry and dedicated the journey to his memory. But Ben never finished, either. At the South Pole, he realized the remaining thirteen days of food left in his pulk weren’t enough—the finish was at least seventeen days away. The best way to honor Henry, he decided, was to come home alive.

  “Impossible,” people kept saying, kept labeling the lonely crossing. It wasn’t called that out of respect for those who had failed. It wasn’t labeled that as a taunt for those that might attempt it, either. A solo, unaided, unsupported crossing of Antarctica seemed impossible, because no one knew if the equation between the weight of the pulk and the food needed for survival could ever be solved.

  Food is heavy. The more weight you carry, the more energy you burn. The more energy yo
u burn, the more food you need and the more fuel you need to prepare that food. Which means more weight to carry. And on and on and on. No one knew if it was humanly possible to survive for long enough on the food and fuel that one man could pull behind him. “It’s right at the limits,” Lou said.27

  Yet Lou couldn’t stop thinking about Antarctica. There was opportunity in the challenge; he saw it just as Henry had. In leading his last expedition, Lou had traversed Antarctica, something Henry had never done before attempting the record. Lou knew the terrain. He knew the environment. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was set up for success. His experience, the invaluable knowledge that could only come from living and doing, was unlike anyone else’s.

  Henry had died, leaving a record unset; Lou would see it finished. Lou was going back to Antarctica. He would see his treasured land of ice and wind, and he would raise money for The Soldiers’ Charity, honoring veterans and their families. Each step he took would help others. He would do some good while doing the impossible.

  Lou threw himself into training. He was on active duty in the British Army, and he prepared in the early hours before work and in the late nights after he came home. Along the banks of the River Wye, he pulled giant Land Rover tires behind him, harnessed to his body just like the pulk would be. For hours at a time, with his dog scampering alongside, he pulled the tires over dirt and gravel and bumpy hills. The more difficult the terrain, the better, as he towed a “20 kg tire through quite long grass.”28 He switched it up every few days, going to the gym to train lower body strength with dead lifts and squats and off-road racing on his bike for cardiac endurance.

  In the spring, he headed to Greenland, pulling a pulk on skis and honing his reflexes on the ice sheet. Greenland was the next best thing to actually being in Antarctica, and there was always more to learn.

  As a tribute and a blessing, Henry’s widow gave Lou the Worsley family crest. He would carry it for courage and fly it at the finish in triumph.

  As the UK summer cooled into fall and the winter darkness began to lighten in Antarctica, Lou made final checks to his pulk and ate his last meals at home. Then, as much as he had been counting down the days, it seemed to suddenly appear: October 2018. It was almost time to leave.

  He was ready to do the impossible.

  Washington, United States—2018

  For Colin O’Brady, there was a Before, and there was an After.

  Before, he had taken life for granted. Before, his mom had nicknamed him “Mr. A-minus.”29 Before, he had never done more than the bare minimum needed to win.

  He won a lot. He was a high-performer, so naturally smart that he skipped third grade. He started swimming competitively at five years old, and by the time he was a teenager, he was nationally ranked in two sports: swimming and soccer.

  He was talented—really talented!—so, what was the point of doing more than necessary? If he could do minimal work and receive an A-, he reasoned, then why bother doing extra work just to score a little higher and get an A? It drove his coaches and teachers crazy. Over and over he heard, “Don’t you know how good you could be, if you only tried your hardest?”30 He just couldn’t quite see why he should bother.

  He looked at life differently, After.

  After meant challenging himself every day. After meant inspiring others, not just winning for himself alone. After meant never taking health—life—for granted, ever.

  In 2006, Colin took all the money he had made from painting houses for the past six summers and set out to travel around the world. He took his surfboard and a backpack, looking for adventure and fun, determined to say yes to everything.

  On the remote island of Koh Tao in Thailand, he said yes to fire jumping, a dazzling celebration of light and fun in the dark of night. Up and down the beach, tourists and locals took turns skipping rope. Except this rope had been soaked in kerosene and lit on fire.

  Colin only took a few jumps before it went “terribly wrong,” he later remembered.31

  Usually, if someone tripped, the rope would simply bounce off their body. But when Colin stumbled, the rope didn’t peel away. The flaming cord twisted around his legs, trapping him and wrapping him in fire.

  Fire jumping on a beach in Thailand. [Nika Vee/Flickr]

  Kerosene washed over him, soaking his clothes and drenching his skin, as flames laced over his body from his feet to his neck.

  “Instinct takes over,” he later said.32 Somehow, he remembered the ocean.

  He ran 10 feet to the waves, extinguishing the flames in salt water that ate into his raw flesh. The last thing he did before shock racked his body was to look at his friend and plead, “Help.”

  The fire was out, but the damage was done.

  He had eight surgeries in eight days. Second- and third-degree burns covered 25 percent of his body, stripping his legs of skin and severely damaging the tendons of his knees and ankles. Even if he made it through without life-threatening infection, the doctors told him he would never walk, much less run or swim, the same way again.

  It was “the darkest time of my life,” he said.33 “It was like so much of my identity had been taken away from me.”34

  They moved him to world-class facilities in Bangkok, and the surgeons were stellar. The risk of infection went down with each day. He would live.

  But, if it hadn’t been for his mom, he might never have recovered.

  She flew to Thailand five days after the accident. Though she was terrified and grieving for her son’s loss, she never let him see her cry. The minute she opened his hospital door, all Colin saw was optimism. “Let’s stay positive,” she kept insisting, always upbeat and maddeningly cheerful.35 She was convinced he could heal, that his body would do what his mind instructed.

  The key was to visualize who he wanted to be. Every day, she asked him about his future: “Let’s set a goal together,” she said.36 What did he want to do with the rest of his life? Who did he want to be after he got home? What was his goal, his dream? Legs aside—she didn’t let him think of them—what did he want to do?

  Finally, mostly to get her off his back, he tossed out an idea: a triathlon. When he imagined himself healthy with fully-functioning legs—as impossible a dream as that might be—he saw himself “crossing the finish line of a triathlon, which is not something I’d ever done before,” he later said.37

  It was just what his mom wanted to hear. Now, he had a goal. Now, she wouldn’t let him off the hook.

  They threw themselves into research, spending hours scouring the internet for information on distances, gear, races, and training plans. Colin’s mom never let it feel like a wild dream. To her, they were working toward a reasonable, achievable ambition.

  Even before his legs could handle any weight, Colin began training his arms in his hospital room. Later, he laughed to himself as he remembered, “I literally have this photo of me with the Thai doctor. I’m, you know, my legs are bandaged to my waist and the Thai doctor is like looking at me like I’m crazy but I’m lifting these like ten-pound barbells. In my head going, ‘I’m training for a triathlon now!’”38

  His mom already had his mind focused on what would come next. Colin’s motivation for rehab, for taking his first step, for taking that first slow, agonizing walk outside, was always to get ready for a triathlon. Painful step by painful step, he had her voice in his mind.

  Keep going. Keep at it. You can do it.

  He repeated her words so often they became his own.

  Until one day, he could not only walk but run. Then, one day, he started to train. He got stronger, faster, more agile. Before long, he was ready to compete.

  Eighteen months after his accident, eighteen months after learning that he might never walk again like he had before the accident, Colin entered the Chicago triathlon, amid a field of four thousand competitors. Half a world and a seeming-lifetime away from the Thai beach where he very nearly died, Colin plunged into open water once more.

  To his “complete
and utter surprise,” he didn’t just compete—he won.39

  After meant no more Mr. A-minus. After meant giving it his all, all the time.

  Colin quit his job in finance the day after the race, and for six years he competed as a professional triathlete, traveling around the world for the US National team. Then, when he decided he needed a new challenge, he turned to breaking adventure records. In 2016, he summited the highest peak on each continent and skied the final degree to both the North and South Poles—the Explorers Grand Slam—in only 139 days, smashing the previous record by 53 days.

  His mother had been right. The burns had not been hopeless, and he had recovered. It had been hard work, at times seemingly impossible, but he overcame. Colin had found the key to success: what counts is the voice you choose to listen to, which mantras you take as your own.

  It was staggering what mental strength could do. When Colin found himself climbing Denali, the highest peak in North America, only a hundred hours after summiting Everest, every ounce of his energy went to convincing himself he could make it. If his brain was convinced, his body would follow. Over and over, he repeated: “You’re strong. You’re capable.” And when the pain threatened to overwhelm him: “This too shall pass.”40 His body would always do what his mind instructed.

  Around the world, people lined up to hear about his adventures. With every story he told and jaw-dropping picture he showed, he demonstrated the power of mental strength. He told them that they, too, had the strength within them to overcome whatever challenges they faced. That consciously telling your brain messages of resiliency and courage would help make resiliency and courage a reality. He challenged his audience—in every auditorium and every classroom: What impossible goal do you want to achieve?

  It was a question he returned to again and again. What was his body, his mind, capable of?