Death had us covered from top to bottom

Not many 21-year-olds in our modern, cossetted world have had a near-death experience, but James Hooper and Rob Gauntlett have already had more than enough to last a lifetime. The two adventurers have become the first people to travel from the geomagnetic North Pole to the magnetic South Pole entirely under natural power.

The 22,000-mile journey took almost 13 months and involved skis, dog sleds, a yacht and bicycles. The pair travelled through more than a dozen countries on three continents, including Greenland, the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Chile and Argentina – as well as the wastelands of the Arctic and Antarctic. Along the way they nearly froze to death after falling through the ice in the Arctic and almost drowned when their yacht capsized under 80ft waves in the Southern Ocean.

When they arrived in Sydney last month where they were greeted by friends and family, Matt Brown, the New South Wales tourism minister, welcomed them with the words: “Some people will do anything to get to Sydney.”

The epic expedition began on April 8, 2007, when the pair departed from the geomagnetic North Pole on skis, each pulling a sled laden with food and supplies in temperatures that reached -35C. Their first goal was to find the supply cache they had buried on the eight-day journey to reach the start point, which they had completed with the help of Inuit hunters and their dog sleds. They needed 6,000 calories a day to stay healthy and their supplies consisted of a mix of high-energy pig fat and bird seed. “It was disgusting,” says Hooper.

Six weeks into the journey, disaster struck when Gauntlett retraced his steps on the ice to retrieve a glove and it gave way under him. He hit his head and ended up unconscious face down in the water.

“He was in there for at least three minutes before I managed to get to him across the ice and snow,” explains Hooper, whose knowledge of first aid was confined to a short course in north Wales. “I was desperately trying to remember what they’d taught me: I quickly removed his wet clothes, put him in a sleeping bag inside a tent next to a gas stove, and called for help.”

“It’s quite funny looking back,” says Gauntlett. “While I was near death in the sleeping bag, James was recording in front of the video camera, saying, ‘Oh this is bad’.”

The film shows an exhausted and worried-looking Hooper speaking to the camera against a backdrop of unrelenting snow and ice. “We can’t get a response out of him,” he says. Gauntlett remained unconscious for almost four hours, until he was airlifted to hospital, where he spent the next six days recuperating.

The incident would prove to be only the beginning of their travails. As they continued on their trek the wind whipped up, reducing visibility and plunging the temperature to -58C. Eventually, after 70 days on the ice, they reached Upernavik, in Greenland, from where they would catch an ice-breaker yacht to sail the 3,000 miles across the north Atlantic to New York.

Even this part of the journey wasn’t easy. Within days they were dodging icebergs the size of houses in the Atlantic.

“There were sometimes more orange blobs [icebergs] on the radar screen than black spaces [water], and many of them were bigger than our 37ft boat,” says Hooper, who was sharing the helm with two more experienced sailors. “It was absolutely exhausting. We had very little sleep.”

When they finally docked in New York City – 30 days later – and jumped on their custom-made titanium bikes to begin crossing the United States, then down through Central and South America, the expedition was rapidly beginning to resemble a triathlon from hell.

Arduous as the trip was beginning to look, it wasn’t the first time the two had pushed themselves to the limit. In 2006, aged 19, they scaled Everest, with Gauntlett becoming the youngest Briton to reach the summit.

The pair have been friends since childhood and attended the same school in West Sussex and have a history of adventuring. They have punctuated their studies with climbing in the Alps and the Himalayas and completed a 3,000-mile cycle from Bilbao to Istanbul, before undertaking the “big one” of scaling Everest.

“We had friends whose ambition was to go to Cambridge University, and others who wanted to go to art college. We just wanted to climb Mount Everest,” says Hooper. “Life is full of risks, of things outside your comfort zone, and dealing with them is what makes it fun.”

Whereas once the popular image of an explorer was of a grizzled middle-aged man, possibly with a knighthood to his name, a new generation of adventurers is showing that age is no barrier to achieving the near impossible. In April Camilla Hempleman-Adams, 15, became the youngest British female to ski to the North Pole, a feat she accomplished with her father, the explorer David Hempleman-Adams. Last year Michael Perham, a 14-year-old schoolboy from Hertfordshire, became the youngest yachtsman to cross the Atlantic single-handed when he ended a 3,500-mile, six-week voyage.

Back on the road in America, Hooper and Gauntlett had exchanged the freezing temperatures of the Arctic for the searing heat of the southern states. Covering between 70 and 100 miles a day, Gauntlett’s body buckled yet again, this time from achilles tedonitis, which led to more hospital treatment. “The doctor told me to rest it, which obviously wasn’t an option,” he says.

“Physically, it was probably the hardest part of the expedition,” reflects Hooper. “There were times when we had to drink 20 litres of water a day, each, just to stay hydrated.”

The cycling continued through Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama, where things came to an abrupt halt: despite being sponsored by Adidas, the sportswear company, they ran out of money and spent a month trying to raise extra funds, including writing hundreds of e-mails to potential sponsors, giving talks to local schools, and selling “180degree” T-shirts wherever they could.

“We were always struggling against something,” says Hooper. “Pushing ourselves to our limits, both physically and mentally. We were beyond our limits, in a way, completely out of our depth.”

“We’ve been out of our depth for the past three years,” adds Gauntlett.

They eventually managed to “blag” a 32ft yacht from a sailing school in Panama City to sail down to Ecuador – they needed to avoid the Darien Gap, between Panama and Colombia, which has virtually no usable roads and is riddled with drug lords. A Colombian helped them sail it, and it took nine days to get to Ecuador, where they jumped back on their bikes.

Another 37 days, and 5,500 miles down the road – through Ecuador, Peru, Chile and over the Andes – and they arrived at the tip of South America, ready for their final two-month push across the Southern Ocean – the most treacherous body of water in the world.

The delay in Panama meant they would be attempting this part of the journey late in the season, when the weather quickly deteriorates – two vessels had sunk while attempting the same voyage the year before.

“Only eight yachts have ever been to the magnetic South Pole,” says Gauntlett. We were s******* ourselves, basically.”

Their fears were well founded: 55 days into the journey, the 67ft yacht capsized in rough seas and it took all the experience of the five-man crew as well as the efforts of Hooper and Gauntlett to correct it. “There was two inches of ice on deck, 70mph winds of blinding spray, and a few sets of 75-80ft waves, which were much taller than our sails. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” says Hooper.

Finally, on April 25, Gauntlett and Hooper reached the finishing line, the magnetic South Pole, just off the coast of Antarctica. Two weeks later they sailed into Sydney for the reunion with their families.

“There were times when I thought it was horrible,” reflects Hooper. “Like being utterly numb in a tent in the Arctic, or having all your clothing cold and damp in the Southern Ocean. But it soon becomes part of your life, and you just get on with it.”