Conquering the Impossible

by Mike Horn

  “And what about the kerosene,” he added. “Do you have kerosene of your own, or would you like to buy some of ours?” Because the military base was short on fuel, it had been necessary to persuade—with U.S. dollars—the captain of an oil tanker cruising in the Arctic Ocean to make port at Cape Arktichesky to resupply the helicopter. The result? The most expensive tankful of fuel in history.

  Gouram had then been obliged to reach out to his contacts in Moscow in order to obtain authorization for us to enter Russian territory—me, my gun, and my lack of papers. There, too, large quantities of cash had changed hands. And it was because the mayor of Dickson had also been generously paid off that he had been so solicitous—and so generous—to me.

  It’s enough to make you a cynic.

  * * *

  Aboard the private jet, I was welcomed by Cathy, the great Dr. Cauchy from Chamonix, a stewardess, and three pilots. Fed and pampered like a first-class passenger, I enjoyed a trip back home that would have been heavenly had the specialist, probing my frostbitten fingertips with the end of his scalpel, not delivered a prognosis of the loss of most of my first finger joints. It would be necessary in any case to amputate from the point where the bone was frostbitten, he said. We only needed to determine with greater precision just where that point was, which could not be done just yet. All the same, there was one last hope: a new type of treatment that was supposed to revive dead tissue.

  I rejoiced inwardly. Whatever happened, I would be able to use my hands.

  In Geneva, since the damage to my toes prevented me from wearing any shoes at all, I exited the plane barefoot and with bandaged hands. The media were there, uninvited but eager to greet me nonetheless.

  After being admitted to the clinic in Chamonix, where I arrived at about one in the morning, the treatment began. The treatment consisted of injecting a vasodilator into my fingers, while my hands were soaking in a solution of Betadine; the vasodilator was to force the blood toward the extremities of my fingers. Each time the tissues became accustomed to the pressure, it was increased. I was on the verge of fainting for the three hours of the first session. There were two sessions a day for many days running, alternating with baths of Betadine.

  Once the treatment had been completed, Dr. Cauchy told me that we had a choice between either amputating immediately or waiting a month, perhaps six weeks, to see how things developed. The second option was a double-edged sword, so to speak. It might help to save a little more of the joint, or it might result in my losing that much more.

  I decided to run the risk.

  With my fingers still bandaged, I returned home. The media peppered me with questions, and not always friendly ones. I didn’t bother to answer most of them. In an attempt to escape the photographers trying to get shots of my fingers, I spent hours every day running or bicycling (even though it was difficult to grip the handlebars), both to get back into shape and in order to boost my circulation. Cathy changed my bandages every day. My fingers began to turn black, withering and desiccating, and taking on the general appearance of jerky. The fingernails fell off, and pus oozed out. I couldn’t tell if things were getting better or worse. But I decided not to give in to adversity, and to do everything I could to get the upper hand, as it were.

  After a month, I went back to Chamonix, where they injected a substance into me, a radioactive compound that had the property of bonding with all the living tissues it encountered, so that X-rays could distinguish clearly between living zones and dead zones. This examination revealed—hear ye, hear ye!—that I had recovered a bit of life in certain tissues. But the rest was dead—definitively, this time.

  Ten days later, the extremities of three of my fingers were amputated, and the lifeless tip of one of my thumbs was shaved off. Later, the amputated fingers were reshaped to look more like fingers. After the operation, the surgeon decided not to close the wound but to allow the skin to grow back as much as possible, which resulted in a further layer of growth.

  When I went back to see him a few weeks later, my amputations were barely visible to the naked eye. The tips of my fingers were flat, with a bevel cut instead of being rounded, and the pads of the extremities had been replaced with a horny layer.

  Admittedly, my fingertips had lost their sensitivity, and I had difficulty picking up a needle or twisting a nut onto a small bolt. But I still had ten fingers, and that was what counted.

  One thing is certain, my surgeon told me: if I had spent just a few more days on the ice field, I would have lost my fingers.

  I asked him when I could go back to the Far North.

  “You are absolutely forbidden to expose your hands to extreme cold for at least two years, Mike,” the doctor answered me.

  Four months later, I set out to travel around the Arctic Circle.

  2

  Terra Incognita

  I WAS POSITIVE OF ONE THING. I needed to go back as soon as possible. Starting from the moment I got back home, during the treatment, during the operation, and during my convalescence, I never stopped thinking about what it was like up there. It was as if I was sitting on the bench, waiting to be put back into the game.

  Regardless of what my specialist said about it, I couldn’t possibly wait for two years. It would feel as if I had been buried alive. For that matter, I am a professional, and a professional could not afford to be off the circuit for such a long time. People have short memories.

  I calculated that if I were to leave at the beginning of August, I would have three months of relatively mild temperatures in which to become reacclimated to the cold. Moreover, I would be done with the long maritime section of my voyage right away, and under the best conditions, since the Greenland Sea would be free of ice. Once I was on solid ground, so to speak, whatever bad weather did hit wouldn’t impede my progress. And I could also expect Baffin Bay, between Greenland and Canada, to be navigable.

  I had a two-month window to make it by boat across these two bodies of water before they froze and were no longer navigable. That was why I would start there, to avoid the risk that a delay in Russia or elsewhere might force me to wait for the thaw, stuck somewhere for eight months.

  Now, if everything worked more or less according to plan, I would be on the shores of the Bering Strait (between Alaska and Siberia) sometime around September 2003, during the time of the year when the daunting waters of the Bering Sea observe a sort of summer truce. Two months later, the sea would be covered with ice, and I would have to wait until February of the following year for the ice to be sufficiently thick and solid to cross on foot.

  In short, a relatively tight “slot.” I decided to start out on my journey around the Arctic Circle on August 4, 2002.

  Far from having beaten me, my relative failure in my effort to reach the North Pole had given me an invaluable body of experience and a single clear lesson. By learning to say stop, I had taken a giant step toward greater wisdom.

  Everything started to move more quickly. The things that Børge had taught me were now enriched with my own hard-earned experience, which allowed me to customize my gear to better suit it to my own personal preferences. I took advantage of the four months that remained before the big departure to have new prototypes of my kites produced, both larger and smaller in size, to haul me across the ice like a sailboat in different wind conditions. When I went shopping at Salomon, I selected a pair of “improved” telemark skis, that is, skis whose width was between that of cross-country skis and downhill skis. It would take more effort to move forward, but I would also have a larger load-bearing surface, which would help me to stay on top of the snow instead of sinking into it. The company specialists worked with me to determine the ideal balance between the wood of the laths, the steel of the edges, and the Pytex of the bottom runners, so that the optimum curvature of the ski structure would be maintained, even at forty degrees below zero.

  I modified certain buttons, levers, and springs so that I could work them even with frozen fingers. I selected double-sealed bottles so
that I wouldn’t lose the contents and the container if a stopper were to break. I carefully avoided the new high-pressure thermos bottles with springs and other gadgets that seemed certain to break in conditions of intense cold. If their contents were to leak or freeze, I would be in serious trouble.

  It wasn’t that I was being picky. It was that I wanted to survive. I could only recite with greater conviction what I had said before setting out for the North Pole: my life was going to depend on each piece of equipment, as it never had before.

  Panerai specially manufactured for me an antimagnetic watch whose mechanism avoided all contact with the case in order to withstand the cold and was therefore suspended by means of a contrivance so secret that its inventors refused to reveal it even to me. I would wear it on my sleeve, by means of a long Velcro bracelet, and not against my skin, because the metal would stick to it in the extreme cold and—incredible but true!—it would draw the body heat out of my fingers. As for the idea of a plastic watch, it wouldn’t last twenty-four hours. I would be the first person to test this Panerai watch, the Arktos model, virtually indestructible and created especially for my expedition. If it made it through this challenge, it would be marketed in a limited edition.

  Yvan Ravussin specially manufactured a snow shovel for me that was a little jewel. It was made of carbon Kevlar, just like chainsaw-proof trousers and bulletproof vests; it was both unbreakable and light as a feather.

  But first of all and most important, I had my tents completely redesigned by my Italian manufacturer, Ferrino, to whom I took a number of sketches and a daunting list of specifications—daunting even for them. While the company had done a lot of work with polar expeditions, it had never yet designed or produced a tent intended for long-term use in such extreme conditions.

  I reexamined everything, beginning with the materials themselves. My tent would be made out of nylon composed of small squares that would prevent any tear from spreading. This nylon would theoretically remain unbreakable even when exposed to temperatures at which metal becomes fragile as glass, or elastic loses its stretchiness, or a folded tent stiffens like a sheet of steel.

  At the factory, we thought a lot about the ideal shape: dome, half-tube, A-frame, or tepee? A half-tube tent—that is, tunnel-shaped—is ideal when it stands facing the wind (you get the same wing-effect as with an airplane). But in the Arctic the wind constantly shifts direction, and a side-gust will collapse the tunnel shape in the middle because there is no central arch. I decided to opt for a hybrid shape, a blend of tube and dome, with crossing struts in the middle that would provide greater strength in high winds, blowing from whatever quarter. This tent would be relatively close to the ground to minimize heat loss, but not too low, so that I would be able to sit upright in it, especially when bad weather forced me to stay inside for days at a time. In order to avoid wasting a single square inch of tent space, or carrying any unnecessary fabric (a few ounces can constitute a considerable difference), I had them narrow the tent at the base and widen it farther up, where I needed more room to move around. Suddenly, my cross between a tube and a dome was beginning to look a lot like a suppository.

  Also, I didn’t want a lot of guy wires or a lot of tent stakes, either. Instead of stakes I would use my ski poles and skis buried in the snow, and my sled. If there was a very strong wind, I’d drive two ice screws into the ground, and I’d moor my tent to them once it was pitched.

  It needed to be perfectly ventilated in order to allow the escape of the moisture and steam I would create each time I melted snow or heated my food. Otherwise, the moisture would coat the inner walls of the tent—as well as my clothes—with ice, and I would freeze on the spot. The ventilation would work as follows: the cold air would enter the tent at ground level through a vent, and then it would be heated before escaping from a sort of chimney at the top of the tent. Moreover, the tent would be composed of two layers: the second layer, the fly, would serve as insulation. Between the two layers, the slightly warmer—or less frigid—air would help to warm the interior, and the condensation, which would form on the cover, would be easier to get rid of. Last, I asked them to create a sort of vestibule where, each evening, I could leave my ice-cold, snow-covered footwear. If that snow got inside the tent, it would eventually turn into an icy crust that would be impossible to get rid of.

  I would need a window to see what was going on outside (in case of an emergency, for instance) without actually having to leave the tent. Therefore, it was necessary to perfect a transparent material that would not break when subjected to extreme cold.

  The opening at the front of the tent required an oversized zipper fastening so that snow and ice would not block it, with a zipper tongue big enough that I could grab it with my mittens and injection-molded from a rigorously unbreakable plastic. To protect the zipper from the elements, it was covered with a flap. And I added a Velcro fastening as well, but at extremely low temperatures Velcro breaks. So do fiberglass tent poles when they are bent at temperatures this low. We would therefore have to use aluminum, but manufactured at a density carefully calibrated to ensure that the tent poles didn’t shrink in the cold; otherwise, they would no longer fit together. There were six of them in all, about a foot and a half in length. I would also bring two spare poles.

  As for the delicate matter of answering the call of nature, it was out of the question to drop my pants outdoors in the howling wind at sixty or more degrees below zero. To solve this problem I had them make a trapdoor in the tent floor with a Velcro fastening. All I would have to do was open the trapdoor, dig a little hole in the snow, and close the trapdoor when I was done.

  I also had to be able to set up my tent in less than twenty seconds. With that end in mind, I needed to be able to open it as easily as an umbrella, by means of a simple, solid mechanism that I could fix myself, if necessary.

  I even built in a breaking point. If the tent gave way when the winds got too strong, it would keep the whole structure from being ripped to shreds. This Achilles’ heel was located at ground level near the main opening, which would make it possible for me to fix it without having to go outside.

  In short, like all the rest of my gear, my tent would comply with my three basic requirements: it would be sturdy, easy to use, and easy to fix.

  That, among other qualities, is what I expected from my sleeping bag as well. It would be my only source of physical comfort, the only warm place in my environment, the one thing that would absolutely need to stay dry and ice-free. To that end, the most important addition would be the insulating sheath recommended by Børge Ousland to prevent the quart of sweat that I would emit every night from freezing in the sleeping bag, making it a full two pounds heavier every day and turning me into a sleeping icicle each night. (I would have to empty the lining each morning.) Thus, it was out of the question to think of slipping my head down into the warmth of the sleeping bag where the vapor from my breath would form ice inside the bag. To hold in the warm air, the sleeping bag would have a collar that closed with a zipper, fitting snugly around my neck. There were no seams and no stitching, which would let the heat escape (and the cold in) if my knees pressed against them when I curled up asleep. At the points of support—shoulders, hips, knees—the bag was reinforced with a quilted padding that softened the thin foam mat on which the bag lay in order to allow air to circulate on all sides and to preserve the insulation. When you’re sleeping on ice, it’s not a luxury experience. For the same reasons the width of the base of the sleeping bag corresponded to the length of my feet plus an inch or so.

  The sleeping bag’s zipper opening ended midway down because I would get in from the top, and it was located on the left side to ensure that my bag stayed well clear of my stove when I unzipped it.

  If everything needed to be easy to fix, I would also need materials with which to fix things. I gradually assembled a repair kit, a sort of first-aid kit for my gear, which contained swatches of wool, Polartec, and Gore-Tex; needles strong enough to pierce leather; u
nbreakable thread; resin epoxy cloth repair; metal wire; Kevlar thread; twine; sandpaper; glue; nails; and so on. In short, everything I would need to fix absolutely everything that could conceivably break.

  Then, once all my requirements had been met, an unexpected difficulty arose. It was impossible to test this new equipment under real-world conditions. Most industrial cold chambers would not get any colder than about zero or four degrees below zero. For me on the ice field, that’s so warm that I would be tempted to put on shorts and a T-shirt! (I’m only barely exaggerating.)

  This situation clearly illustrated once again the need for total trust between me and Ferrino, my tentmaker. This wasn’t a matter of sales or marketing. It was a life-and-death matter. This tent, this tenth-of-an-inch-thick sheet of nylon that stood between me and the elements was a barrier between life and death. If I lost the tent, it would be the end of my expedition, and possibly the end of me, too, as I couldn’t afford to carry the weight of a backup tent with me.

  All of this activity made me completely forget about the still raw wounds on my fingers. Mentally I was already out there, and I sensed—I knew—that this totally positive attitude could only have a beneficial effect on my body’s capacity to heal.

  As always, my team gave me invaluable help and support. Jean-Philippe Patthey was in charge of logistics, together with Cathy. Sebastian Devenish would be the expedition photographer, just as he had been for the trip around the equator. Raphaël Blanc was in charge of directing the video footage of my adventure. Since I would be alone most of the time, though, I would do most of the actual filming. Sebastian developed a camera especially for me, equipped with a dual battery to make up for the loss of voltage due to the extreme cold and an oversized shutter release so that I could get my finger onto it even with mittens on. Because film tends to break at twenty-two degrees below zero, the camera rolled the film into the canister as each shot was taken, rather than the other way around. With this system any photographs I took would be saved automatically.