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Somewhere in the back of the world, Colin O 'Brady, 33, is preparing for a task that no man has managed to do. He is about to travel 1,000 kilometers through Antarctica without any replenishment support.
Anyone who has ever tried this solo trip has given up or died.
"It's something that no one in history has ever accomplished and that people have been trying for 100 years," said the American explorer at Business Insider. He spoke to us from his Airbnb in Punta Arenas, Chile, just 10 hours before heading to Antarctica on a Russian cargo plane.
With the help of his wife, Jenna, O 'Brady finished his last minute preparation: they sewed a piece of warm fleece on his mask, weighed food and packed it all in 400 bags. books in which he will carry everything. he needs to survive the next 70 days.
"Every little gram I put in my sleigh must be worth it," he said. "I'm carrying 220 pounds of food, but a pair of underwear, I'll be dirty at the end!"
O 'Brady begins his trek at the top of Ross's ice floe. A small plane will drop him there. Then, a little time nowHe will start the uphill climb – on skis – towards the South Pole. He hopes to find himself on the Ronne ice floe, which borders the Weddell Sea.
Trekking 1,000 miles in 70 days means that O & # 39; Brady will have to travel an average of 14 miles a day with his sled. But he said that the daily distance would vary from beginning to end. Every night, a sleeping bag and a tent will protect it from the biting cold.
If something goes wrong, O 'Brady is equipped with a satellite phone.
Just a man and a sled
Most of the burden that O & # 39; Brady carries on the sled is made up of food because it is convinced that it is the element that has pushed everyone who has tried it before him to miscalculate.
In addition to his skis and tent, he also brings a GPS tracker, some cameras, extra phones and a solar charger for these electronic devices. It should not be difficult to come to the sun, as daylight lasts 24 hours in the Antarctic summer. For this reason, he will use a sleep mask when he is resting.
The only "extra" garment that O & Brady has is a pair of stockings. All other clothing will be layered to keep it warm: Temperatures at the South Pole are averaging -18 degrees Fahrenheit (-28.2 Celsius) at this time of year.
When it's cold, the body tends to put on more protective brown fat. Unlike white fat, brown fat is a survival mechanism: it turns the food we eat into heat. People who live and work in cold temperatures, such as loggers and farmers in cold weather, tend to have more of this type of fat wrapped around their necks and hearts.
In order to keep the bodies warm, the brown fat increases metabolism, which means that O 'Brady will have to consume about 8,000 calories a day to fuel his sled pull sessions by 10 to 12 hours.
To this end, the O & # 39; Brady package contains special energy bars, developed by its sponsor, the Process Standard complements, with a capacity of about 1,250 calories. They call it Colin Bar.
The bar is rich in oily coconut oil and also contains nuts, seeds, vegetable proteins and cocoa powder. O & # 39; Brady will eat four a day, which will account for most of his calories (nearly 5,000).
The rest of his diet will consist of freeze-dried meals in the manner of an astronaut that he will consume at the beginning and end of the day. They can be rehydrated with boiling water, heated with a camping stove and some of the 15 kilos of fuel it contains.
He is aware that this meal plan seems slightly miserable.
"Unfortunately, the fresh food is a little too heavy," he said.
His road makes a 'L'. across Antarctica
O 'Brady will begin his journey near Mount Markham, one of the highest peaks on the continent at over 14,270 feet. From there, he will head to the South Pole, at an altitude of 9,186 feet. At that time, it will be a little less than half of the trek.
"It's imperceptible to go up and down at the naked eye," said O & Brady about the ski route he plans to borrow. "But you can really feel it when you're dragging so much weight."
After passing the bar, O 'Brady hopes to pick up speed as he will tow a lightened load from here to here. His path will make a kind of "L" pointing to the ice cap of West Antarctica.
"While I eat my food and burn my fuel … the sled will become lighter," he said.
O & # 39; Brady knows how to go fast. In 2016, he climbed to the summit of the highest peaks of the seven continents, including Everest and Antarctica, in just 132 days. This earned him the world record of the fastest climb of the seven summits.
He has also participated in triathlons, treks to the North and South Poles, and has just completed a 30-day, 400-km training session with his sled in Greenland.
But this trip to the driest and coldest continent in the world is perhaps its slowest venture to date.
"When you have a 400-pound sled, you do not run, it's very slow," he said. "When it's minus 40 degrees outside, it's a big effort to move."
The journey can cool your fingers with your fingertips
While crossing Antarctica unassisted remains an open challenge, adventurer Mike Horn has completed a 57-day ski tour from north to south on the continent in 2017, using a kite. That same year, 40-year-old Englishman Ben Saunders attempted a solo crossing but was forced to end his quest after 52 days of lack of food.
Before Saunders, Henry Worsley, 55, had traveled more than 800 km, as detailed The New Yorker. He lost 40 pounds and one finger before calling for an emergency rescue. Saunders died as a result of a bacterial infection in a hospital in Punta Arenas, Chile – the same town where O & Brady stayed before leaving for his trip.
O 'Brady is not the only one to attempt a solo trek this month. Louis Rudd, 49, of the United Kingdom, leaves the opposite shore of Antarctica, as recently reported the New Yorker. It is possible for the two men to cross each other when they reach the summit of their climbs.
Preparing "O" Brady for this quest has required a lot of workout. His strength and anaerobic power have increased, as has his weight. The 6-foot athlete normally weighs 165 pounds, but after months of dead lifts, squats and weight training, he has taken nearly 20 pounds of muscle mass.
As this will be the longest years in which O 'Brady has remained without human contact, he has also spent years training his mind. He regularly participates in Vipassana sessions, like monks, during which he spends 10 days in complete silence. No reading, no writing, no eye contact.
Being in Antarctica will obviously not be the same as a Buddhist retreat, but O & # 39; Brady hopes the training will help.
"There are not many extra hours in the day or extra energy, so I probably will not spend a lot of time sitting in my tent meditating in a traditional sense," she said. he declared. "But in many ways, I think it will be a walking meditation."
There will however be some opportunities for human interaction. O & # 39; Brady intends to post regularly on Instagram to answer questions about his background. There will also be an occasional conversation with his wife.
"It's very expensive to make those phone calls," he said. "So it's not like I'm sitting there chatting on the phone."
He joked that he would be so stinky when all was over, he did not know if his wife, Jenna, would even want to take him in his arms.
"Tanks of untapped potential"
Joking aside, O 'Brady said that he felt his hike was a "testament" of "the human spirit".
"Everyone has reservoirs of untapped potential inside of themselves and can do some really incredible things," he said.
But he noted that even strength and determination have their limits.
"The risks are very real, and I am aware of that, and I have prepared myself accordingly, not to die, but to make the best and safest decisions possible," said O. Brady.
It is now starting to experience the white and icy stretch of Antarctica. Thursday, O & # 39; Brady posted his first dispatch on Twitter. He said that he was holding a compass attached to the chest to make sure he was heading in the right direction without dropping his ski poles.
If you're curious to find out where O & # 39; Brady is currently, you can follow his GPS plotter in real time or check his posts on Instagram.
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