With 200 grams of food left to spare, professional explorers Mike Horn and Børge Ousland, successfully crossed the North Pole on an 88-day expedition with only 85 days of food. Leaving Nome, Alaska in early September aboard Pangaea, a sailing vessel built by Mike, the goal was to get as far north as possible before continuing on ice to make the crossing on skis, unsupported and without assistance.

History was made as the crew managed to make it to 85° 30′ N,  the farthest north that any non-icebreaking sailing vessel has ever reached. It was an extraordinary feat for the team, but unfortunately, a bad sign for the planet.

“The changes were apparent from the very beginning,” Mike said. “The ambient temperatures were a lot warmer than expected and the simple fact that we managed to navigate Pangaea farther north than any previous sailing vessel has ever traveled to, is a clear indication that the ice thickness is decreasing.”

The feat marks the end of Mike Horn’s three-year Pole2Pole expedition, a circumnavigation of the globe via the South and North Poles including overland and ocean crossings. It began back in May 2016, when Mike Horn first embarked on his journey to cross the Antarctic Ocean, or the South Pole, solo.

On the flip side, quite literally so, he completed the North Pole crossing alongside partner and longtime friend, Børge Ousland. This isn’t a first for these two explorers; back in 2006, they partnered up to accomplish what would be the first-ever winter expedition to the North Pole. “He’s probably one of the world’s greatest polar explorers,” Mike boasted.

Each has over 20 years of exploration under their belts and combining their skills was integral to the success of an expedition this difficult and this complex. While Børge had experience crossing on ice, Mike had knowledge navigating during the night. Both were vital once they reached 85° 30′ N and parted ways with Pangaea, their home for the past month.

From here, the explorers were to continue the 1,557km journey across the North Pole before heading south toward the ice edge near Svalbard, Norway, where another boat would pick them up. As mentioned before, the expedition was to be carried out unsupported and unassisted. For one, that meant pulling a 185kg (408lb) sled containing their food, gear, tent, and other supplies for 6-8 hours each day. Every 15 minutes, for 2 hours at a time, Mike and Børge would alternate being the one in the front, the more energy-demanding position.

“During the day we can’t speak with each other,” Mike said. “There’s no conversation. It’s just move forward, stop to eat, to drink…and you’ve got 7-10 minutes to do that and then you keep on going.” On breaks, they would eat a paste which consisted of oatmeal mixed with olive oil, butter, and nuts. They would drink from their 2L thermos that contained hot water because otherwise, temperatures were so cold that the water would freeze.

The farther north they traveled, the shorter the daylight hours got until eventually, they had to travel in complete darkness. Skiing in darkness was a huge added stress to the physical challenges that they were already dealing with.

The open water leads, which were larger and more frequent than originally anticipated, were like the Arctic’s booby traps. Formed wherever ice cracked and drifted apart, these open leads resulted from the breakdown of thin ice, exposing the Arctic water below. On this expedition, the ice layer was a mere 3-6in, a dramatic difference compared to the 9ft ice layer during the 2006 North Pole expedition.

Every time they encountered these open leads, Mike and Børge had to paddle across them in an inflatable raft, pulling their sleds through the water behind them. With strong winds and -30°C temperatures, “It’s like these leads became waves in the ocean… and you can’t go out there– the moment you get one wave or you get wet, you’re finished,” said Mike.

Now, imagine this: you’re stuck walking on an escalator going the wrong direction. That’s the analogy Mike used to describe the never-ending ice drift. Because thin ice is lighter than thick ice, it can be moved more easily by the wind. When the wind blew against Mike and Børge, which was typically the case, it was as if they were “walking on a platform that’s forever in movement.”

Despite being significantly shorter in distance (3,543km shorter to be exact), the North Pole expedition far surpassed the South Pole expedition in terms of difficulty, according to Mike. “There’s so much to deal with that slowly and surely the darkness and the challenges are psychologically killing you.”

In fact, he warned that one shouldn’t exceed three months on the Arctic Ocean because one could seriously go into depression. This is why time became so important as they were running out of food and walked east, yet drifted to the west. Two and a half months in and “We were at the limit of everything psychologically, physically,” Mike said.

You might be wondering, how did two modern-day, professional explorers manage to complete an 88-day expedition with an 85-day food supply? By extending their biological clocks, of course. It was a process that involved adding six hours to a typical 24-hour day to make it 30 hours long in order to ski longer hours and cover bigger distances. This was decided in efforts to combat the never-ending ice drift that put them behind schedule. After some quick math, you’d come to realize the ingenuity. Extending the day by six hours meant they could gain one day every fourth since six extra hours multiplied by four days is equal to 24 hours, and more importantly, a day’s supply of food. Pretty brilliant if you ask me, but for Mike and Børge, they’d say it’s just survival.

They weren’t the only ones putting up a fight against mother nature. In 2006, the explorers spotted polar bears every fourth day on average, whereas this time, they did not see a single polar bear throughout the entire 88-day expedition. “Not one. Only tracks. Not one polar bear. Where have they gone? I’ve crossed the polar ocean.” It wasn’t until after they made it to their pickup point and arrived safely on the boat that they spotted not one, but three polar bears!

The boat, Lance, was trapped in the ice, preventing the crew from heading back to Norway quite yet. It was the morning of Christmas Eve when the smell of frying bacon attracted the healthy-looking mama bear with her two cubs (according to Mike, polar bears can smell up to 50km away!) I asked him if seeing the polar bears in good health was a good sign. He said it, unfortunately, was not. A good sign would have been to spot them earlier and regularly throughout their time on the ice.

“Due to the decreasing ice thickness, open water stretches and strong drifts, bears are further forced north towards colder and thus more stable conditions; or alternatively, bears have also started making their way down south towards solid land. Both scenarios require the bear to adapt to a changing environment, but the issue with the former is that once the bears reach the pole, there will be nowhere left to go. As for the latter scenario, bears are now being spotted in northern villages in search for food, causing unrest, and in some rare cases bear shootings to prevent attacks on humans or dog sleds. The good news though is that all of us humans and animals have the ability to adapt to change.”

As a longtime explorer, Mike Horn has witnessed firsthand the changes happening on this Earth. His account is special because not only does he see the changes, but he must also learn to adapt to them to survive. Therefore, his relationship and knowledge with the land are deeply intimate. This is why something like rain, which they experienced one day on the ice, completely baffled him, challenging his existing knowledge about a place he has spent so much time in. In the polar ocean region, “either it snows or it’s just frozen.” Mike said the rainfall was likely caused by the drastic change in very cold temperatures to extremely warm temperatures.

Curious to know if he felt saddened by all the changes he observed, I asked him something along those lines to which he responded, “For me, everything that concerns nature is emotional.” But ultimately, he wanted to emphasize, “I am not a researcher traveling to remote areas to log observations; I am above all, an explorer traveling to remote areas to push the limits of the human mind and body. The planet is my office, it is the environment in which I perform and to which I adapt in order to survive.”

For now, Mike says that this is likely the last expedition on the polar ocean for him, but he plans to write a book, give talks, and possibly produce a documentary on Pole2Pole. He hopes that the stories he and Borge share serve to educate, inspire, and shed light on parts of the world many know only little about.

For more on Mike Horn and Borge Ousland’s journey check out Fram to Pangaea and Reaching the North Pole.

Check out our next Expedition: Reaching the North Pole