Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Who are your heroes? That question was recently asked Sebastian by Adventure Journal. Who are yours?

http://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/12/my-heroes-by-sebastian-copeland/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+adventure-journal+%28adventure+journal%29

This is the cover of the latest issue of Men’s Journal.  In it you’ll find, “81 Days on the Ice: Two men embark on an adventure alone across Antarctica, overcoming broken ribs, frostbite and storms – and setting world records in the coldest place on Earth.”, Sebastian’s 6-page article detailing his most recent expedition. Pick up your copy at newsstands today! The story can be read online here: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/81-days-on-the-ice-20130704

 

Throughout the month of September, Green Cross International will be featuring a photo exhibit to be held at the Quai Wilson exhibit space on the Lake Geneva promenade. Sebastian is proud to be one of the photographers collaborating on this project.

Click on the image below for more info!

Taken from the Guinness World Records site:

ClimatePartner has awarded us with a carbon offset certificate for the 2011-12 Antarctica Legacy Crossing.  What this means is, 28,170 kg of CO₂ (carbon) was created by flights taken for this expedition. These emissions were neutralized by supporting a recognized and certified climate protection project. In this case, the Agro forestry and forest conservation project in Gorongosa National Park in eastern Mozambique.  You can find more information on the project and ClimatePartner by visiting http://www.climatepartner.com/

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February 1, 2012

The days spent here in Chile are all about rest, food, social re-acclimating, and the slow re-integration to communication and interaction with the world. The basic, if arduous, daily objective of simply moving forward on the ice and making miles is always refreshing in its simplicity. No clutter; no emails; no to-do lists. The limited and mostly one-way communication, dictated by the isolation and the self-defining nature of constant movement, go a long way to facilitate a deep cycle mind-altering calmness. In spite of all the challenges, aches and pains and eventual injuries, the peace this brings mostly defines the appeal of the exercise. Simplicity, in a complex world, is hard to come by! The extraction from that state is always jarring in the first few days. But with a slow thaw, I am coming back to face the music; and it doesn’t sound so bad!

Food has been a great, new companion in this recovery process. Eric is thin to begin with at about 160 pounds wet. His weight loss was in the order of twelve pounds. Mine has been more substantial: from 213 pounds, I came in at 183, or a net loss of thirty pounds. My body fat is presently between 7 and 8 percent: skin and bones! I have been wanting to work out to regain some strength in the atrophied areas. Many muscle groups don’t work while kiting and the body cannibalizes those areas, as well as fat, to generate warmth and energy in a cold environment. Consequently, while some areas like thighs, abdominals and upper back remain well developed, others such as chest, biceps, triceps, shoulders, lats and quad muscles go the way of the dodo. They will come back. Unfortunately, my sore toes, and the dressing that covers them, hinders a variety of exercise routines; so I will take a couple of weeks off—and eat. It is interesting to see the body filling up—it doesn’t waste anytime, particularly in re-storing fat reserves! Polar travel is the best weight loss program I have come across!

An expedition of this scope relies on broad people support, sponsors, factors, and benefactors. While the attention invariably centers on the lead actors, there are a host of financial, logistics and emotional players without whom the expedition could not proceed. I would like to take a moment to thank and acknowledge those.

First come my sponsors. Most have been lending me support for multiple years and have remained loyal to my efforts. It is hard to find ways that properly address the debt of gratitude that I hold for your faith in my endeavors. This is made all the more special as each one is top of class, and benchmark of quality. HP, whose corporate sustainability culture has made for an ideal partner, also lent technology to the trip: the iPack, now smart phone, is an invaluable and bombproof tool, and a staple of expedition communication, the world over. Thank you Karen Cage for your steadfast commitment to see this one through! Andrea, Alessandra and Martino and my friends at Napapijri: not only have you supported my endeavors since 2005, the designs and customized alterations have made for the best cold environment clothing that I know. They have kept us warm and stylish on the ice and I am proud to be your ambassador. Julie and REVO sunglasses: hands down the best polarized glass anywhere. I cannot think of an environment that is more exacting on eyewear than Antarctica. Thank you for meeting my specification for the frames while outfitting them with the best lenses on the market. Jason and the team at Rossignol: between Greenland and Antarctica, I have put over 6500 kilometers on one pair of skis over some of the most shredded, bone jarring ice anywhere! The fact that the sticks have held as well as they have is a testament to the company’s manufacturing excellence. You are the gold standard. I am proud to have kept my life in your hands. Matt and Ozone Kites: thank you for once again promoting the sport by supporting this expedition and allowing us to push the limits of polar travel. Ozone kites are the criterion by which all others are measured, and the very best kites in the world. Hilleberg tents have sheltered, cocooned and otherwise saved my life on multiple trip. ON this trip, the tent was also a friend and a beacon of warmth at the end of long, hard day. Thank you for being there, Petra, once again. The Herbalife powders and supplements have been a part of my expedition for four years now; I would not dream of leaving for the ice without them. Thank you Luigi for your ongoing support. I have relied on my trusty, bombproof Canon 5D Mark II’s to capture both photos and stunning 1080 HD video footage for the upcoming documentary chronicling the mission. The cameras have survived some of the harshest treatment imaginable; I don’t know how but they still hold up. On a kite skiing mission where peanuts turn to butter from the shake, this says a lot! Thank you Scott for your ongoing support. Thank you Jeff Cable and Lexar: your cards I have used from the North Pole to the South Pole, across many ice caps. They have never failed on me, in spite of the abuse. The best memory on the market. Climate Partner has once again made the trip carbon neutral. Thank you for your support and allowing me to put consequence behind my positions! For the first time this trip, we brought Organic Food Bars to supplement our lunches. I would not leave on a trip without them from now on: organic and sometimes even vegan, the bar’s cooking process prevents them from freezing even in 50C below, all the while delivering over 300 healthy calories.  Cold Avenger masks provided facial warmth for the colder days, and prevented sucking on cold air all day long.Finally, there are all my friends at Global Green whose tireless work on climate change inspires me to be better: thank you!

I also want to thank all of the supporters who put their money where their mouths are to endorse our kickstarter efforts leading into this expedition. Your help was invaluable; your generosity crucial. Just as important are all of you who kept up with the expedition, left comments on my website, shared the information on FaceBook or followed us an re-posted on Twitter. Knowing from the ice that so many remained faithful to the daily updates was a huge factor in motivating me to share more insight into our experience. You provided an audience to our unfolding play, and gave us wings to fly to the finish line. Thank you!

Of critical importance to the success of the mission, were the logisitics teams overseeing our SAR (search&rescue), providing medical advice and with whom I communicated daily. I want to thank Victor Serov of TAC for being such a gentleman in Cape Town,  as well as Andrey and Mikhail who provided daily support form Novolazarevskaya until we reached the South Pole. From the South Pole on, the folks at ALE never failed to deliver encouragement and enthusiasm for our mission. Thank you Marc de Keyser for once again lending your eye into the future: your spot on weather predictions helped appease our spirits when it was needed. The scope of ALE’s logistics expertise is hard to describe: it has to be seen to be believed. Mike, Steve, Peter and the whole crew at ALE: bravo!

I want to acknowledge Jessica, my assistant, who from behind the scenes, made sure that all updates were posted, while every other detail was overseen smoothly during a three and a half months absence. Jess, you were the pillar that held the house. Thank you.

I want to thank Eric, my partner on one more expedition. Your calm under pressure, kiting expertise, and deft, MacGyver skills make you an invaluable asset on any mission. While your right boot, lent without hesitation to protect my frostbitten toe, single handedly saved our mission!

Finally, I want to thank my soul mate and life partner. You are my rock and the angel that sits on my shoulder. Your patience is the currency that kept my spirits up, and had me smiling through the tough times.  Four months of absence is a high price to ask of anyone. Yours was the greatest of sacrifices. I cannot wait to thank you for the rest of our lives.

Oh, and I almost forgot: she said yes!

*Photo Caption: Chilling in Chile, in search of a good barber!

January 23, 2012

S79°58.370 W079°43.314

Elevation 712 feet

The day looked promising from the start. Yesterday’s up and down conditions were likely the head of a wind front. From the time we had set up camp, and all through the night, consistent winds had held strong. In the morning, they were still blowing snow on the side of the tent and setting up what looked to be a great travel day. With 230 kilometers left to our trip, those were just the kind of conditions we needed. We hoped to close the gap by end of day.
The thirteen meters were set out at 07:00 hours and immediately shot out of the gate. Our first hour section netted 43 kilometers. The winds grew from there and, for our last day, delivered epic conditions! We quickly switched down to the nine meter kites and stayed on them until the very end. On a broad reach and downwind tack, which has been our heading, kiting overpowered makes for fast, easy and adrenaline-fueled miles. The ice flies below the skis; the terrain races by; the pull on the lines and legs is very manageable. But whatever you do, just don’t crash! At those speeds, it would make for a hell of a yard sale! The scenery was commensurate with the conditions: blowing snow lent a chaotic and wild setting to the landscape. Backlit by the sun, the sastrugi ice was covered by a racing cloud of snow, undulating over the surface like a wave. On our breaks, that snow would hit us with gusts of over forty kilometers per hour; it was chilly and somewhat overwhelming. But once the kite shot up off the ground, generating speeds often exceeding that, the surrounding conditions suddenly felt tamer. We raced along side the blowing snow in what then felt like a graceful, orchestrated choreography. Our tack neutralized the wind, and the chill along with it.

About halfway into our day, we ran into two Australians, Cass and Jonesy, who are setting up to be the first team ever to complete a South Pole and back unsupported skiing trip from Hercules Inlet. We have been following each other’s progress on the ice, as you do with other ambitious expeditions. And again, without having met them previously, instantly felt a brotherhood kinship. We congratulated each other over our impending accomplishments. They asked me about my ribs; I asked Cass about his approaching wedding, especially seeing as I have one coming up myself! We both agreed that thinking about our weddings, and wives-to-be on the trail always brought strength, a smile and a warm feeling in the challenging times. Their progress has been remarkable–they should be three long days from the finish line. It seemed unfair to zip off in front of them, especially with the speeds we were traveling at. From their position, were were hoping to reach Hercules within five hours! In no time, the two black silhouettes that had been sticking out of the ice faded in the blowing snow. We were racing to our own finish line! They disappeared in the distance.

Two hours later, the Ellesworth mountain range appeared like a dot on the horizon, announcing the approaching coastline. We were fifty kilometers away.
The winds held for most of the day, right up to our approach of the Hercules Inlet area. Descending to the Ronne iceshelf amongst glazed ice patches, crevasses and hard, jagged sastrugi would have made strong winds a real nuisance, and a liability. As if on cue, they turned down, almost instantly, to a moderate twelve knots just to accommodate the last hour of our final approach! We could not have hoped for better. Slowly, we negotiated the treacherous terrain, quickly losing elevation: in less than thirty minutes we had dropped two thousand feet. The sun was out; the low altitude raised the temperature; we were baking! The approach route I was given by ALE was remarkably light on crevasses. I was marveling about that to myself when, all of a sudden, I was on top of a set of three small ones. The glazed ice , while moving downhill, made stopping impossible at that point. I chose what looked like a decent bridge, and sped across. One. Two. Three. No harm done! Eric was slightly behind, and looked for an open passage; unable to stop as well, he found another set of bridges and proceeded as I had! We were home free, on our way down the last slope, towards the iceshelf. But suddenly, as in a final wink, Eric’s and my kite simultaneously fell out of the sky, right next to each other. The winds had shut off completely. I looked at my GPS: we were 2.53 kilometers from our landing spot! In a final show of “who’s the boss”, Antarctica was playing its last joke on us. We sat on our sledges for a moment, hoping the winds would come back on. They did not. “I guess that means we’re walking”, I said. “Looks that way”, Eric shot back, in disbelief. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we had started walking at the other end of the continent, and walking is how we would finish! We strapped our skis to the top of the sledges, hooked in our pulling traces, and begun our descent. No sooner had we started walking that a weak gust announced some wind… We quickly set up the thirteen’s and lifted them in the air! It was light, but enough to slide down. Some. Within two minutes, they, too, fell out of the sky! That was it. We had done one kilometer! With one and a half left to the trip, we folded the kites and wrapped the lines one last time, then resumed back to our downhill walk, and our conversation.

In addition to winds that held in a remarkably, delivering the best kiting day–hands down–of the entire trip, another extraordinary thing happened today. I have mentioned that my sledge had developed a six inch crack two months ago. That crack remained stable for the following 3500 kilometers, and the worst I can say about it was the amount of stowaway snow it accumulated inside. Yesterday, the crack had started showing increased signs of weakening, and throughout today, the weakening increased to a widening fissure, while the runner under its right ski begun falling apart. I removed some of the contents, and gave them to Eric, to reduce compounded weight. I attempted briefly to strap the trace to the back of the sledge, and pull it backwards; but the unavoidable fishtailing generated while kiting, had disastrous consequences. The crack, now in the rear, was catching the ice while fishtailing and the sledge’s unraveling was precipitated; its right side was utterly falling apart. Eric followed me closely for the final four hours of traveling, so scared I was to lose items from the widening gap. It seemed utterly possible at this point that, with our speeds of travel, the sledge would simply split in half! Instead, it held, worsening incrementally, until our final landing spot. There, a massive crack along its side finally opened, which would have made further travel simply impossible. That sledge had held for the entire trip, just to die, on my lap, on the very last moment! Amazing. A little angel was evidently sitting on my shoulder…

We set down on our final campsite at 22:30 hours. We had been on the trail for close to sixteen hours. We had spent three months crossing the Antarctica continent, from East to West, coast to coast, through two of it poles, over four thousand kilometers and have been the first to do so in the long history of polar expeditions. Eric and I had succeeded in the third and final mandate of this mission. Exhausted, we hugged and laughed. I called ALE, our logistics support team, to report on our position, and was met with enthusiastic and congratulatory exclamations. We will be picked up tomorrow if conditions are favorable. Two days later, we will ship off to Punta Arenas, Chile. Our work here is done: mission accomplished! And now, I could really use a bath!

And now for the numbers:
We covered 231.5 kilometers today.
We left on November 4th, exactly 81 days ago; in that time we covered a total distance of 3854 kilometers (about 4100 adjusted kilometers, or 2500 miles) and arrived one day earlier than my scheduled assumption!
The 1120 kilometers from South Pole, we covered in 12 days for an average of 93.3 kilometers per day, which doubles our daily average for the entire trip–about 47.5 kilometers per day for 81 days.
Interestingly, it also took us 12 days to cover the 880 kilometers separating the POI from the South Pole, for an average there of 73.3 kilometers per day.
Our Novo-POI daily average was just about 34 kilometers per day!

January 8, 2012

S90°00.000

Elevation 9301 feet

First, they were the tracks. More of them. Beyond the rigid, five ski platform, the tracks of which we had crossed for the last forty eight hours, we then saw, faintly, mostly lost to the blowing snow, the remains of three skiers’ tracks. Then came vehicle tracks which left what amounts to a highway out here. If all roads lead to Rome, all tracks in Antarctica lead to the Pole; the inescapable iconic destination and sometimes pit stop of the white continent.
The conditions were gusty, and light when we decided to hit the trail, in spite of dying and very light wind predictions for the day. Still, we figured we’d chip away at it, as we had the previous two days. Eighty kilometers separated us from the Pole, thanks to the Clean Air Sector. Our approach angle, from the POI did not serve us well, tacking almost 150 additional kilometers onto our trip. Still, given the purity of the air in Antarctica, this large wedge, extending from the Pole, provides important research to scientists measuring ozone depletion, CO2 and methane content, as well as other greenhouse gases linked to the shift in global climate. In fact, the South Pole research station boasts the longest continuous record of gases in our atmosphere dating back to 1957.
Still, that wedge was a thorn for us, eating up precious time and what could be days in light winds. The tracks we found were somehow re-assuring: both a testament to our correct heading, as well as an indication of other human activity. After so many weeks of autonomy and isolation, it is easy to imagine roaming a post-apocalyptic planet, stripped of civilization, and shrouded in a thick cap of ice. Those tracks confirms that we are not living inside a Hollywood production!
The night had been cold again, due to cloud cover, and I slept cold; without a sleeping bag, I’ll admit that I may as well be out on the trail. The sun was in hiding all day, which made for chilled travel conditions. The gusts would propel us forward for a few minutes of fast travel, but the lulls counter punched with tediously slow speeds.
Nonetheless, we were making decent progress. Five hours into the day, clearing off the clouds in the horizon, appeared a faint gray shading. Something was breaking the singularity of the ice, and it had to be human made. We were thirty five kilometers from the Pole, so this could not possibly be the station quite yet. As we approached, we could now make up the tents that formed an encampment: fifteen or so tents, with a large center mess tent in the middle. We landed the kites, and poked around. The place was deserted, and no fresh tracks were to be found indicating any recent activity. It was eerie, like a ghost town. Inside the mess was a fully stocked kitchen, replete with gas stoves and food. It turned out to be the Russian outpost base for Novolazarevskaya, whose logistics team, TAC, has been monitoring our expedition since its start and providing search and rescue support; in that respect, we were home! I called them from there to report our position, and the two dessert packs that will be missing from their stock! We boiled water and heated the tent. I chose the cinnamon rice pudding; Eric the chocolate mousse (does this actually make us re-supplied…?). And soon, we were back out. A few miles later, the same type of encampment appeared in the distance. We repeated our visit, only to find the same deserted spaces. This time, it was the British Extreme Challenge camp, whose folks we had run into on the ice with their trucks six weeks back.
Not long after that, we were back out wrestling the very fluky winds. Now on an upwind tack, with eighty meters of line on the Yakuza’s, this was not fun. In the gusts, the pull on the lines forces serious strain on the legs; in the lulls, the bearing stalled the kite to a stand still.
But all of a sudden, clearing from the distance, looming on the horizon, was the outline of a much larger complex. I landed my kite to take in that first sighting. About ten kilometers in front of us stood the unmistakable outline of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, with its dome and futuristic looking research buildings, built on the very spot that has captured the imagination of all explorers and adventure seeker long before its discovery, one hundred years ago. I thought of Amundsen and Scott, and their successful reach, and with mixed emotion thought of all those who have, from one place or another, approached that point of the globe with the same knot in their stomach. And then I thought of us, here, today. And how, in the history of Antarctica exploration, the route we had covered from the POI to the South Pole was about to be open for the very first time. We were now staring at the success of that mission. A destination gives an expedition is sense of purpose; it is its DNA. And no destination holds more mystic than the Poles. For us, that purpose was about to be realized.
But the South Pole, on that day, would not give itself up that easily: the sharp upwind tack would see to that.
The South Pole Station is quite regulated; one thing that it regulates is where you can, and cannot go as you approach it. There are two flagged paths leading you in, and they are insistent that you follow them to avoid conflicting with their research fields, airports and other activities. Unfortunately for us, the path from our approach was a steep upwind tack that stole the glory out of our arrival. It forced us to pull tacks, and slowed our speed considerably. Besides, the fluky winds had me wonder if we would actually reach the station that evening, or be forced to walk to it, or worse, camp in plane sight of it!
But somehow, foot by foot, we gained ground. At 00:30 GST, after sixty five days of challenging travel across the heart of Antarctica, we set our kites down and unclipped our harnesses. The GPS read South 90°00.000: we had finally reached the iconic geographic South Pole!