Meet Mike Horn
The world-renowned explorer Mike Horn recently visited his country of birth to launch a new book. Erns Grundling felt his bonecrushing handshake and spoke to him about his expeditions.
There’s a passage in Mike Horn’s new book Dream of a Lifetime that strikes home: “An average life lasts 30 000 days and it is our duty to make every one count, to make the most of each passing minute. We don’t come into this world to be simple bystanders to our own existence.”
The book is a gripping account of his world-record expedition in 2017 when he did a solo, unaided crossing of Antarctica. He travelled 5 100 km in 57 days, on foot and by kite ski, and had to deal with crevasses, glaciers, temperatures in the region of -50° C – and a dislocated shoulder.
During one of my (hopefully) 30 000 days on Planet Earth, I get the opportunity to interview Mike for an hour at a hotel in Green Point, Cape Town. He’s on a whirlwind visit to South Africa to launch his book. He was born in Johannesburg but has been living for decades in the Swiss village of Château-d’Oex. It sounds like an idyllic place, but Mike is seldom at home. Three nights before our interview, I saw him on TV at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Berlin, Germany.
In the hotel foyer, clean-shaven and dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt and cap, the 54-year-old looks totally different to the grizzled adventurer in the book’s photo section. There, he trudges through an ice desert wearing layer upon layer of protective clothing, his moustache and beard frozen, his nose seriously close to frostbite, with an unfathomable look in his eyes.
Mike is shorter than I expected, with the stocky build of an openside flanker, but with zero percent body fat. He has a farmer’s handshake – such a clencher that I almost yell “Ouch!” and for a moment I fear I will be typing this article with my left hand only. He surprises me by speaking fluent Afrikaans. The previous day he landed in South Africa from Geneva and did four media interviews and a book launch. Clearly Mike has an appetite for expeditions and interviews.
“If survival is your job you can never get away from it,” he says. “The past twelve months I sailed from New Zealand to Hong Kong, climbed K2 in Pakistan, sailed to Japan and then crossed the North Pole. I also took part in the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia. This is what I do to keep myself busy. And all of it is rather dangerous.”
His most recent expedition ended in December last year, when he and the Norwegian explorer Børge Ousland walked 1 800 km in 87 days over the frozen Arctic Ocean. By achieving this, Mike successfully completed his Pole2Pole adventure.
Modern-day Amundsen
Mike is widely regarded as one of the modern era’s greatest explorers, mentioned in the same breath as the legends whose books he devoured as a child: Roald Amundsen (they were both born on 16 July), Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott.
“Only a handful of people are still doing this and we’re getting fewer,” he says. “Anyway, who would want to spend nine months a year sitting in a tent or lying in a sleeping bag? I think you’re born with that spirit. If you do extraordinary things outside your comfort zone, it doesn’t make you an extraordinary person. I don’t see myself as special, I just do what I do.”
Mike orders a cappuccino with almond milk even though he assures me he’s a meat eater. He speaks passionately and often uses his hands. His gaze is focused and intense.
In the book he writes about how he set off on day one in Antarctica. All alone, with his boat Pangaea sailing away, pulling a sled with provisions and gear weighing 256 kg.
“At first I could only travel about 3 km per day. It felt like I was pulling half a VW Polo with no wheels. But since I had no other option, I had to do it. The only way I could get to the other side alive was by pulling that weight.”
The motivational speaker in him makes an effortless cameo: “That’s the weight we all pull along in our daily lives. Each of us pulls a sled, only in different ways. I know only three things: I dream it, I plan it, I do it – and I surround myself with people who reinforce that message.”
Mike had to tackle the expedition in Antarctica without his most loyal supporter.
His wife, Cathy, died in February 2015 of breast cancer. In several of the book’s most moving chapters, he addresses her directly. Cathy’s parting words were constantly on his mind: “Live for me… Live for both of us…”
“Pole2Pole was a project that we started together. But after she died, I buried the dream with her. I put on a mask and pretended I was okay. My two daughters, Annika and Jessica, sensed I wasn’t happy. They supported me just like Cathy had always done.”
His daughters realised the expedition would be about much more than Mike’s physical journey. “I did it to deal with the loss of my wife,” he says. “I had to accept the responsibility to keep on living, to see light again in the world, to get away from everything and do what I do in the best way possible, with the real risk of dying myself.”
The glass is what it is
In his book, Mike shares something his late father told him decades ago: “If your dreams don’t scare you, then they’re not big enough.” Mike nods when I mention it. “Sometimes I wake up in the night before an expedition and I worry if I’ll actually be able to do it. That’s the right kind of dream. If you know you can do something, it’s probably not interesting. And if you can learn to love the things you hate, then you’re really living. You become adaptable. In my life as an explorer, I deal with freezing temperatures, the wind blows like crazy, and I know if I fall into a crevasse, I won’t survive. Then I realise that life is not only about the things I like doing in my comfort zone.”
For some perspective: “Outside” of Mike’s comfort zone means literally drilling through his toenails when his feet are frozen, or losing a fingertip because of frostbite…
He never looks at a glass as half full or half empty. “The glass is what it is, period,” he writes. He’s also not a big fan of positive psychology. “Positive thoughts have never made me walk one metre further,” he says. “Often it’s negativity that drives me not to give up. You should be able to use any emotion, from excitement to disappointment, as motivation to carry on.”
His goal – during an expedition or life itself – is to always move forward, even if he gets there by going backwards. “If I can’t see what’s going on in front of me, it’s unknown. And it’s difficult to enter the unknown, so from time to time I walk backwards.”
Mike’s book was published in French as L’Antarctique, le rêve d’une vie and is a bestseller. He’s a celebrity in the French-speaking parts of Europe and the presenter of an adventure TV show called À l’état sauvage. He’s been described as France’s Bear Grylls.
He specifically wanted to translate his book into English and launch it in South Africa. “I sailed from Cape Town to Antarctica,” he says. “I want to share this dream I had with South Africans and encourage them to move forward in life. We should dream big and do things together. It’s more crucial here than anywhere else in the world.”
To go deeper
Mike has motivated several sport teams to triumphant heights, like India’s cricket team in 2011 and Germany’s football team in 2014, both of which won World Cup tournaments.
He still finds it hard to accept that the Proteas didn’t win the Cricket World Cup in 2015. He was the team’s motivational consultant during the tournament. “I’m very competitive, I’m someone who wants to win. I was part of that team and I wanted to really add value with my experience. When I don’t reach my goals, I become frustrated, like most people. I should be able to just say I tried my best, and that’s enough, but as an explorer I don’t have that luxury. If I lose, I lose my life.”
Mike is proud of the triumphant Springbok rugby team, who also won the recent Laureaus Sport Award for Team of the Year. “I had a great chat with the guys in Berlin. They’re hungry and they want to be the best. When you reach the top, it’s psychologically very difficult to remain there for a long time.”
What lies ahead, now that he’s reached the pinnacle of his career? He has swum the Amazon River, circumnavigated the equator without motorised transport, crossed both the South and North Pole… But Elon Musk is not on Mars. Yet.
Mike chuckles. “I think I’m the right guy for Mars. I look forward to another few years of expeditions, I feel physically young and strong enough. Few explorers reach the age of 54, it opens many doors. Hopefully I can share more of my experience with a younger generation and take on projects with an educational and environmental focus.”
He remains silent for a few seconds. “I have taken so much from life. At times I feel guilty about it. But there’s still more to see. Before I go to Mars, I want to explore under the sea.”
As a 13-year-old, Mike watched the JacquesYves Cousteau documentary The Silent World.
He writes about how he dreamt to be one of Cousteau’s crewmembers on board the Calypso.
He even wrote Cousteau a letter, but never received an answer. He decided all those years ago: “One day I will build my own boat and travel the world with young people.”
He’s done that, too. Now he wants to go deeper. “We live on this beautiful planet; we know about the land, but we still don’t know everything that happens underwater. I want to go down into the Mariana Trench, 11 000 m deep, and see what’s going on there that might be able to help us in the future.” We need to wrap up. Mike signs my book and we pose for a photo. He still needs to do four more interviews and has a function in the evening. I’m impressed by his stamina. Of course, he’s used to far worse things than a day filled with media appointments! And if you look at his expedition CV, it’s probably more appropriate to describe Bear Grylls as the UK’s answer to Mike Horn…
Again, the firm handshake. It’s still strange to reconcile the person in front of me, here in the hotel, with the almost supernatural being who pulled a sled across Antarctica. But perhaps that’s the secret: Ordinary people can dream and do extraordinary things. He walks away, in the only direction that makes sense to him: forward. Back in the car I open the book that he signed. Below his name, he wrote: “Dare to dream big.”