Mike Horn plans to haul 440 pounds of gear across both the Arctic and Antartic via ski, kite, and straight-up crawling. Mike Horn photo.
According to the Japan Times, South African-born Swiss explorer Mike Horn is attempting a 16,800-mile circumnavigation of the globe without using a single drop of fossil fuels to make it happen, depending instead on the wind and his own brute strength to get him to his goal. Calling it "the greatest exploratory expedition of the 21st century," Horn is looking to cross all the seas by sail and then the two poles by ski and kite, expecting to spend four months towing a 440-pound sled across the Antartic in the process.
Horn already completed a solo and unmotorized circumnavigation of the equator in 2001, but this time will cross the globe longitudinally north to south, having left Monaco in his sailboat, Pangea, headed for his home country of South Africa before crossing the Southern Ocean to Antartica. As his boat traverses the globe, Horn will invite on a rotating cast of athletes, filmmakers, scientists, and students to make the most of the exploration of remote corners of the world.
You can find out more about the expedition – a truly ambitious one in a world where the final frontiers of exploration seem limited – at Mike Horn's website.
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stash member Ryan Dunfee
Former Managing Editor at Teton Gravity Research, current Senior Contributor, current professional hippy at the Sierra Club, and avid weekend recreationalist.