On Top of the World
Polar Explorer Wave Vidmar Goes It Alone
Interviewed by Alistair Wearmouth
Photo © Corel
In March 2004, 39-year-old explorer Wave Vidmar will set off from Russia's Artichevsky Peninsula on a solo, unsupported 600-mile trek to the North Pole. If he makes it, he will have walked, skied, and swum his way into the record books, becoming the first American to reach the Pole entirely on his own steam.
North Pole Solo
Track Wave Vidmar’s progress as he attempts to become the first American to trek solo and unsupported to the North Pole at: www.northpolesolo.com.
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In 1909, American Robert Peary was the first man credited with reaching the North Pole. He didn't have long to bask in his glory, though. Peary returned to the U.S to face a competing claim from fellow American Frederick Cook, an explorer who said he'd reached the Pole one year earlier. (Cook's claim was eventually refuted by a 1911 Congressional inquiry.) Critics now afforded the hindsight of modern navigational equipment also contend Peary missed the North Pole by a country mile, deciding instead to fake his achievement in the knowledge that his seventh shot at glory would also likely be his last.
Photo © Wave Vidmar
In the ensuing years, polar exploration has lurched from the landmark to the bizarre: the first round-trip air flight was in 1926; Ann Bancroft became the first woman to walk to the Pole in 1986; two nuclear submarines were the first to rendezvous beneath the polar ice crust in 1962. Today, as with Everest, the North Pole has even been besieged by capitalism-cum-adventure tourism: you can ski the "last degree," skydive, or drop in by hot-air balloon—and that's just for starters.
For people like Vidmar, though, the North Pole is not a trophy to be bagged, but a challenge that expresses the very essence of exploration: an endeavor that pits human endurance and determination against some of the harshest elements on earth. Vidmar is gunning to walk in the footsteps of explorers David Hempelman-Adams and Børge Ousland, both of whom have made record-breaking solo and unsupported treks to the North Pole. The magnitude of such achievements are brought into sharp focus when you consider that Peary's 1909 expeditionary retinue numbered 23 men, 133 dogs, and 19 sleds on its departure from Canada's Ellesmere Island.
Last month, we caught up with Wave Vidmar, steadily beefing up to an optimal 200-pound bodyweight as he prepared to set off on his trek to the Pole, and tried to get a glimpse into what drives some people to this kind of adventure extreme.
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