What I’ve learnt from climbing the world’s highest mountains

• I have spent the last 25 years travelling to some of the most beautiful and remote places in our natural world. The initial goal was new experiences, adventure and climbing, but I soon felt myself being drawn to pursue the Seven Summits, the highest peak on every continent of the world. Only later came the intention to complete the Explorers Grand Slam – a polar haul of the last degree (111 km) to the North and South Poles in addition to climbing the Seven Summits. After the Explorers Grand Slam, I began my Volcanic Seven Summits bid with a climb to the top of the highest volcano on each continent. On Saturday 18 January 2020, this cherished objective became a reality. I am now one of only two South Africans (and of five individuals worldwide) to have ever completed this rare feat, a dream I had never imagined when I first set off with two like-minded strangers to tackle the Drakensberg Grand Traverse in the winter of 1994.

Since then, I have visited over 30 different countries and every continent several times, from the dense jungles of Papua New Guinea to the arid, rocky desert of Iran, to the dramatic snow-capped mountains of Alaska. Each climb has brought its unique challenges, like when I summited the North Side of Everest with a defective oxygen system and a sick Sherpa. At the South Pole, I hauled a sledge with a collapsed disc which later required spinal fusion surgery. On Mount Giluwe, in far-flung Papua New Guinea, I endured the agonising pain of a kidney stone for two weeks, choosing to continue the trip and summit, but often doubled over in stabbing pain, using an adapted form of labour breathing to manage it! On my first attempt at Ojos de Salado in Chile, I failed to summit because I was underprepared and became ill with severe flu and altitude sickness.

I have made a lot of mistakes during this journey of discovery from which I have learnt patience, endurance, and a stubborn, steadfast resolution. I built up my experience with every expedition and found new strategies to succeed. There is also no doubt that a good dose of luck has always played an important role in my mountain climbing career. I have often seen others fail where I too could have failed, and I have faced the harsh reality of death on the mountains on many occasions, where I too could have perished. The mountain gods have granted me safe passage each time, and I am always indescribably grateful to return safely home to my family.

Things were quite different when I started climbing all those years ago. Between 1953 and the end of 2000, Everest had only been summited by 1383 people. By the end of the 2019 climbing season, the number had reached 4833 people. The Explorers Grand Slam was only completed for the first time by David Hempleman-Adams in 1998. Currently, over 70 people (including myself) share this incredible honour.

I think what impresses me most about my fellow mountain climbers in achieving this milestone is the awareness of the substantial hurdles that must be overcome. To climb one of the world’s highest mountains, you need an abundance of qualities: the desire to summit; focused preparation, planning and training; financing and sponsorship to pay for gear, travel costs, visas, guides and numerous additional expenses as well as immense grit and fierce determination to reach the top of each mountain. You also need good fortune since Mother Nature is not always forgiving or benevolent and extreme conditions can wreck summit bids for even the best prepared and most skilled climbers.

To have all these factors come together for a successful climb is a remarkable feat. A massive amount of planning is involved in a mountain climbing expedition. Just to reach Mount Sidley in Antarctica, I had to take five different flights from Johannesburg to Santiago to S?o Paulo to Punta Arenas to Union Glacier to the drop-off point at the icy base of Sidley. Another substantial hurdle is cost. It is extremely expensive to fly to these remote parts of the world due to the logistics of the trip, the necessary guides, the distance and complexity of passage, and the extensive resources required for the climbs.

There are also a few political and/or social barriers that accompany some climbs. Various countries do not readily grant visas to travellers, particularly from countries that might be experiencing political tension. This is evident in the difficulties American climbers face when trying to gain entry to Iran to summit Mount Damavand. The Americans, for their part, tend to regard anyone who has visited countries such as Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Yemen with deep suspicion and are likely to refuse a visa for travel.

In 2019, tensions and political wrangling between Russia and Ukraine prevented the opening of Camp Barneo on the Arctic ice for the 2019 season. A Russian-made camp at 89 degrees, Barneo has been set up every year since 2002. The 2019 Arctic explorers and North Pole skiers were thus unable to fulfil their planned adventures and, for this reason alone, an Indian and Australian climber were unable to complete the same goal that I and my climbing partner have just reached. In fact, the North Pole is swiftly becoming inaccessible. The rapidly warming Arctic is making the ice conditions increasingly unpredictable. In 2018, Barneo was only open for 12 days. The sea ice always has the final say and it is disappearing faster than we think.

Social instability can also be a hurdle. In 2019, a South Korean climber was turned away from attempting her summit on Carstensz Pyramid due to riots and protests in New Guinea. The final hurdles on the journey to the summit are what I call objective dangers – challenges usually out of an individual’s control. These are natural events such as weather conditions, acts of nature like avalanches, and even the health of a climber. They are almost impossible to predict, such as the earthquake on Everest in April 2015 that killed over 20 people on the mountain.

All the challenges that must be overcome make reaching the summit even more significant. Only mountaineers fully comprehend the multiple difficulties that must be surmounted to access the top. Undoubtedly this is part of the reason that mountain climbers share such a unique bond – we confront many hurdles, even before we set off to climb, and we know the high stakes involved. Sharing these extraordinary experiences gives us a strong sense of camaraderie. Despite the rise in popularity of climbing in recent years, the climbing community remains a small group of people across the globe who are willing to risk everything for the climb and their brief moment on top of a mountain.

My recent Mount Sidley adventure was a momentous culmination of all the climbs I’ve done before, each one preparing me in a different way for this ultimate summit to achieve my goal. I learnt from my mistakes and made sure I was well prepared for this journey, allowing my failures to remind me of the risks on this isolated peak. I also used my successes as motivation. I savour the feeling of complete exhilaration and accomplishment that comes from reaching the summit of a mountain and this craving keeps me going during difficult parts of my journey.

A great team is another essential feature of success. My stalwart climbing partner, Vaughan de la Harpe, has been by my side for many of my summits and we have shared some of the most awe-inspiring and exhilarating experiences. Our Mount Sidley team of eight was made up of strong, experienced climbers from South Africa, Russia and the United States. Each one had already climbed many of the world’s highest mountains and volcanoes which ensured a team of skilled individuals to support each other on this historic climb. At the end of this expedition, several climbers had succeeded in achieving the Volcanic Summits and/or the Explorers Grand Slam.

Vaughan and I had now completed the Explorers Grand Slam to the last degree and the Volcanic Seven Summits, the first South Africans to achieve this epic milestone. The other three climbers worldwide to have attained this goal are Fran?ois Bernard (France), Vitaliy Simonovic (Russia) and Vladislav Lachkaryev (Russia).

Our Antarctic journey began at Union Glacier Base Camp in West Antarctica. This camp is only open during the short summer season (November to January) and everything is removed at the end of the season. A specialised transport plane – the Ilyushin IL-76 TD from Kazakhstan – delivered us to this camp from Punta Arenas in Chile. To give you a measure of the extreme cold at Union Glacier, once the Ilyushin lands there, the pilots never switch off the engines to prevent them from freezing! The plane is essential for this camp because it brings guests and supplies throughout the season.

Most of the camp runs off aviation fuel that needs to be restocked consistently, which adds significantly to the cost of this camp. Antarctica has very strict rules on preserving the environment, so nothing is ever left on the land. Everything must be processed and flown back to Punta Arenas. This includes all human waste, even from Mount Sidley! It might not always be an agreeable experience, but preserving this beautiful land is essential so we work to make as little impact on the environment as possible during our expeditions. 

Union Glacier is surrounded by breathtaking mountains. We enjoyed a superb hike while waiting for our team members to fly in from Mount Vinson. Unfortunately, thick fog kept them confined to camp, unable to fly out. We had to wait for three days before they could join us to fly to Mount Sidley to start our expedition. The time at Union Glacier was an excellent opportunity to acclimatise to the cold and altitude. In this adventure hub, there are always interesting people to meet, preparing to embark on exciting expeditions.

I was fortunate to encounter some well-known mountain climbers, such as Conrad Anker who led the 1999 team that found George Mallory’s body after 75 years on Everest, and American Garret Madison who holds multiple high-altitude mountaineering world records, including ten summits of Mount Everest to date, and being the only person to have climbed Everest and nearby Mount Lhotse in a day – three times. I also met Jimmy Chin, an accomplished climber and 2018 winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Free Solo.

I must also mention that I met Sir Robert Swan in Punta Arenas. It was thrilling to meet him because he holds the record for the longest unassisted walk in history – 900 miles to the South Pole. He was also the first person to walk to both the North and South Poles and is a champion for preserving Antarctica and for renewable energy. So, we had a great deal to occupy us while we waited to begin our journey.

Reaching Mount Sidley is about a five-hour flight from Union Glacier on a ski aircraft – a modified 1942 Basler plane. This volcano is so isolated that the pilot, flight engineer and crew stay with us for the duration of our expedition which prevents us from being stranded at Sidley without support if the weather turns hostile. The flying team is highly specialised and experienced in extreme conditions. Based in Antarctica during the summer, they spend the balance of the year flying adventurers around Canada, Alaska and the Arctic.

We landed on the ice sheet and arrived at Mount Sidley base camp on Monday, 13 January 2020 in good weather. Unfortunately, dense fog and poor weather conditions higher up the mountain prevailed for four days, which meant we could only begin our ascent on Friday, 17 January.

It was frustrating being so close to the summit I had dreamt about for so long, but not being able to tackle it because of the weather. On reflection, I recognise the immense privilege of spending time in this magnificent, isolated and pristine land of snow and ice without any other people around for 1000 km. The wait allowed me to realise how fortunate I have been to savour a quarter-century of adventure that has taken me to numerous points on the globe and introduced me to challenges most people can only imagine. It also reminded me that mountains and nature are unpredictable and implacable, unbound by schedules, flight plans or any human-made constructs.

The wind chill at Mount Sidley sometimes decreased the temperature to minus 50C. The conditions on the mountain were beyond what any human can survive, so we waited patiently for the weather to improve, the volcano reminding us of its power and demanding respect with every gust of wind.

Finally, at 10.00 (MDT) on Friday 17 January, we began our ski ascent up the mountain. The weather conditions were the best we could hope for with clear skies and no wind at high base camp. It was a tough first day, each of us pulled 45kg sleds and carried 15kg backpacks with all our food, tents and equipment for high camp. Wasting no time, we started our bid for the summit the next morning on Saturday, 18 January. The piercingly clear blue skies and the immeasurable expanse of snow all around will forever remain etched in my memory. Crossing untouched snow and passing 25-metre-high ice mushrooms formed by the wind is an experience that's difficult to describe, almost like being on another planet.

We made it to the summit and back down in a round trip of about 15 hours with little incident, apart from the relentless cold reaching temperatures below minus 25?C and gaining almost 1500 metres in a single day. The sense of accomplishment I felt at the top of Mount Sidley is unlike any other ascent and summit I’ve experienced before. This climb was the culmination of 25 years of climbing adventures and countless expeditions. Now, here I was, one of only two South Africans in the world to have stood on the top of the world’s highest mountains and volcanoes.

We returned victorious to Union Glacier the very next day, in need of some proper food and a well-deserved celebratory drink of 16-year-old Aberlour whisky! It was a time to celebrate and recover from our journey to this remote part of Antarctica. I suffered from some frostbite on my toe and everyone else had similar, minor injuries.

Even though I couldn’t wait to return home and celebrate with my family, I felt a poignant sense of sadness that this was probably the last time I would visit this beautiful, isolated place of ice and snow. Setting foot in Antarctica has always created an extraordinary feeling of connection with all the intrepid adventurers from the ‘Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration’ who I have always loved to read about, such as Sir Ernest Shackleton, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen. Having explored remote parts of Antarctica myself, I can only imagine the awe and wonder they must have felt during their treacherous expeditions trying to reach the South Pole and the brutal challenges they encountered from this harsh, unpredictable landscape. I am so privileged to have followed in their footsteps on this awe-inspiring continent, experiences that I know have only been shared by a small number of people worldwide. We returned to Punta Arenas to continue our long journey home, but not before stopping at the elegant, historic Shackleton Bar to share stories and drinks surrounded by photographs from Shackleton’s inspiring adventures in Antarctica.

Reflecting on my remarkable journey, I am proud of my achievements but also humbled by all the difficulties I've faced along the way and by the indomitable spirit and courage of the early explorers. Mountain climbing is not a straightforward hobby that you can simply start up and enjoy immediate success. It takes years of training and experience to reach the more challenging summits. Despite my experience, I continue to learn on every single climb, finding ways to improve and discovering new challenges to tackle. Success is never effortless or simple, behind every successful summit lies years of preparation, huge cost and ongoing dangers and sacrifices. The lessons gained from the mountains I have climbed can be used in every aspect of my life. Learning to persevere, even when things are difficult or seem hopeless, is one of my greatest skills.

Success is all about the journey, the preparation and training, the determination and commitment. These qualities give you the upper hand when confronting difficulties. The greatest dangers are faced on the ascent and descent, which is something we don’t always consider. The most difficult part of achieving a goal is setting it. The related research, dedicated preparation, meticulous planning and focused execution of your plan to the best of your ability are the true keys to reaching the top of your mountain and success.

Already I have been convinced that there is a new set of climbs on the horizon, but for now, we still have some planning to do before these exciting expeditions can begin. I feel myself bring drawn to doing some climbs out of the mainstream so I can explore more isolated and remote parts of our beautiful planet. 

Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who followed and supported this once-in-a-lifetime journey to Mount Sidley. Your words of hope were inspiring and motivating. Your donations to Liberty’s #DriveHope campaign are also greatly appreciated. Many children will benefit from new school shoes, easing their daily journey to school and back. As always, I thank the Liberty Group with immense gratitude for their incredible support over the past 25 years. I would not have reached these goals without their belief in me and their backing. It is an honour to be part of an organisation that encourages passion and determination in everything we do.