The media embraced his accomplishment as “historic,” but questions about
the legitimacy of his claims from the adventure community soon arose.
TAMARA MERINO, THE NEW YORK TIMES, REDUX
This, too, shall/will pass: These troubles are temporary; be patient and things will work out.
This term originally was used in a very serious way about the fleeting nature of human life,
words, and endeavors.
It was so used in the biblical Apocrypha (ca. 100 b.c.), as well as later philosophical writings.
The current cliché is a more lighthearted expression of forbearance.
Colin O’Brady was traveling through Thailand in 2008 when he was severely burned while attempting to fire jump rope at a beach party. With third-degree burns covering 25 percent of his body, the competitive swimmer was told he may never walk again.
He returned home to Portland, Oregon, where his mother’s positivity inspired him to set lofty goals. Eighteen months later, he competed in the 2009 Chicago Triathlon—and won the amateur division.
“That was the beginning of the path I’m on now,” says O’Brady, 34. “I realized that with the right mindset, you can access the reservoir of untapped potential inside of you.”
He went on to finish more than 50 triathlons before taking on even bigger challenges: summiting the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents and climbing to the highest point in every U.S. state.
In December 2018, he became the first person to complete an unsupported, solo
crossing of Antarctica. O’Brady recounts the 932-mile, 54-day expedition in his memoir, “The Impossible First.”
Even after that, he felt there was more to accomplish. His next feat, he decided, would involve rowing, something he’d never done. “I was curious to see if I could take what I’d learned from other expeditions and bring it to a new discipline,” he says.
O’Brady and five other men set their sights on rowing themselves across the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, a 700-mile journey that includes some of the roughest, coldest, and iciest waters on earth. The group left Chile on December 13, 2019, completed the first human-powered crossing on the 25th. (Discovery TV chronicled the quest for the documentary The Impossible Row.)
Furthermore, caught up with O’Brady after he returned to shore to find out what it took
to survive almost two weeks on a 29-foot boat, rowing in 90-minute stints with nothing but protein bars for fuel.
While skiing across Antarctica, American Colin O’Brady, the self-proclaimed first person to ski alone and unassisted across the frozen continent, came to what he describes in his new book, The Impossible First, as “a hellish stretch…one of the hardest places on the continent to get across.”
A polar wind he estimates at “fifty or even sixty miles an hour” lashed him as he entered
a precarious area that was “off the map—unreachable and inaccessible.” Potential rescue aircraft cannot land here, he explains, because the terrain’s jagged, wind-whipped ice formations “made landing impossible.”
Before he began his journey,
O’Brady writes, safety managers for the company that would rescue him in an emergency, Antarctica Logistics and Expeditions (ALE), ominously told him of this area, “If you call for help in here, you won’t get it.” This perilous reach of Antarctica was one of many reasons no one had achieved this crossing before, he writes.
“With my next steps,” O’Brady states, “I’d be on my own in a way I’d never been before.”
It’s a riveting description, but like other critical elements in his book and promotion of
his Antarctica expedition, key details do not withstand scrutiny. Safety managers for ALE, which has helped organize and plan expeditions to many remote areas of the continent for 35 years, deny saying he couldn’t be rescued.
None of the polar experts O’Brady mentions consulting before his trip and considered his journey impossible. And in the “off the map” location he describes above, O’Brady was in fact on a graded and flagged vehicle route used frequently by wealthy tourists where a call from his satellite phone could summon rescue by ski-equipped Twin Otter airplanes within hours.
A Controversy Is Born:
In the final months of 2018, people around the world were captivated as the 33-year-old O’Brady raced the 49-year-old Briton Louis Rudd to complete what they both called the “first-ever solo, unsupported, unassisted” crossing of Antarctica.
Through 54 days and 932 marrow-freezing miles, the men pulled 300-pound sleds alone and with no outside assistance—even accepting a cup of coffee at the South Pole research station would disqualify them from claiming the feat. A newcomer to polar expeditions, O’Brady finished two days ahead of the more experienced Rudd.
Global media coverage was rapturous, with the young adventurer gracing magazine covers, speaking at the Smithsonian Institution, and seeing his hometown of Portland, Oregon declare Colin O’Brady Day. His appearance on CNN was typical, whereas he declared “No human has ever done this before…. [accomplishing it] was extraordinary after so many people had failed trying.”
Read More: The problem with Colin O’Brady (nationalgeographic.com)
IMPOSSIBLE FIRST – THE INSPIRING STORY OF COLIN O’BRADY – BING VIDEO
Colin O’Brady is a ten-time world record breaking explorer, New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker, and an expert on mindset. He is focused on sharing his hard-won wisdom to encourage others to step outside of their comfort zone and unlock their best lives. Colin’s highly publicized expeditions have been seen by millions and his work has been featured by The New York Times, The Tonight Show, BBC, The Joe Rogan Experience, Forbes, and Today.
Colin O’Brady’s awe-inspiring, New York Times bestselling memoir recounting
his recovery from a tragic accident and his record-setting 932-mile solo crossing of
Antarctica is a “jaw-dropping tale of passion and perseverance” (Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit).
“Colin O’Brady may be physically and mentally superhuman. He holds speed records for astonishing feats—climbing the highest peaks in all 50 U.S. states and completing the Explorers Grand Slam of climbing the highest mountain on each continent, plus reaching the North and South Pole.
In this memoir, he recounts being the first to traverse Antarctica alone and unsupported. . . O’Brady’s sincerity is never in doubt, and the image of him dancing on the ice to Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ is sure to generate a smile.”
His world-renowned feats include the world’s first solo, unsupported, and fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica, speed records for the Explorers Grand Slam & the Seven Summits, as well as the first human-powered row across Drake Passage. He is a regular speaker at Fortune 100 companies like Nike, Google, and Amazon and top Universities including UPenn, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins. Native to the Pacific Northwest,
he now lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with his wife, Jenna Besaw, and dog, Jack.
Engage with Colin on social media @ColinOBrady or at ColinOBrady.com.
Prior to December 2018,
No individual had ever crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone, without support and completely human powered. Yet, Colin O’Brady was determined to do just that, even if,
ten years earlier, there was doubt that he’d ever walk again normally.
From the depths of a tragic accident, he fought his way back. In a quest to unlock his potential and discover what was possible, he went on to set three mountaineering world records before turning to this historic Antarctic challenge.
O’Brady’s pursuit of a goal that had eluded many others was made even more intense
by a head-to-head battle that emerged with British polar explorer Captain Louis Rudd—also striving to be “the first.” Enduring Antarctica’s sub-zero temperatures and pulling a sled that initially weighed 375 pounds—in complete isolation and through a succession of whiteouts, storms, and a series of near disasters—O’Brady persevered.
Alone with his thoughts for nearly two months in the vastness of the frozen continent—gripped by fear and doubt—he reflected on his past, seeking courage and inspiration in
the relationships and experiences that had shaped his life.
“Incredibly engaging and well-written” (The Wall Street Journal)—and set against
the backdrop of some of the most extreme environments on earth, from Mt. Everest to Antarctica—this is “an unforgettable memoir of perseverance, survival, daring to dream big, and showing the world how to make the impossible possible” (Booklist, starred review).
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Sean Swarner was the recipient of the Don’t Ever Give Up Award presented by the
Jimmy V Foundation and ESPN in 2007. He is a two-time cancer survivor who was first diagnosed at age 13 with Hodgkin’s Disease and later with Askin’s sarcoma. He was given just two weeks to live in 1990 and is believed to be the only person in the world to ever have been diagnosed with both these deadly cancers. Sean told ESPN Radio’s Bob Valvano, brother of Jimmy, that he would have been more likely to win the lottery four or five times than to have survived both these cancers.
However, he did survive, although he has only one fully functioning lung due to the removal of a golf ball-sized tumor found with the Askin’s diagnoses.
He graduated from Willard High School in Willard, Ohio, in 1993, and Westminster College in 1997. Sean was recently featured on ESPN with a 10-minute segment on his life story and struggle. He established his own foundation which promotes cancer awareness and helps raise money for cancer research.
True North: The Sean Swarner Story (truenorthdocfilm.com) is an unflinching documentary about one man’s relentless quest to prove that nothing is stronger than the human spirit! As a teenager, Sean Swarner was diagnosed with two lethal forms of cancer. Both times he was given only weeks to live and both times he fought back and survived, but not before the disease claimed one of his lungs.
Now, he’s trekking to the brutal and unforgiving North Pole, where temperatures hover around minus 40 degrees. If he makes it, he will have completed The Explorers’ Grand Slam – climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents and then trekking to the South and North Poles.
His feat is daunting, but Sean is on a mission– a Mission of Hope.
Swarner has dedicated each one of his climbs to the cancer patients he hopes to inspire– symbolized by a flag he carries with him to each peak. His exploration to the North Pole
is no different. With the help of Vern Yip, television personality and interior designer,
Sean designs the Flag of Hope.
Months leading up to his final endeavor, Sean takes the Flag of Hope across the country. One by one, those affected by cancer put their names and loved ones on the flag.
United by one purpose, Sean hopes to cover the world in hope.
True North, The Sean Swarner Story is a jaw-dropping look at how far a man will go to
feel alive, and to bring hope to millions of people touched by cancer around the world.
♫ E47 Sean Swarner on Climbing Mount Everest and Blowing up Cancer with Lasers (iheart.com)
February 23, 2021, • 50 min
Sean joins Aalia to talk about his cancer diagnoses (7:58), climbing Mount Everest
with one lung (10:55), and the Amazon Prime documentary based on him, True North:
The Sean Swarner Story. Sean talks about falling to his knees at the top of the highest mountains in the world, being unable to stop climbing lest his sweat freeze to his body
and fostering the mind-body connection to make it possible.
Sean recounts a vivid vision of himself entering his own bloodstream in a miniscule red blood cell spaceship, traveling through his heart and to his cancer, and demolishing the growth with his ship’s lasers (35:22). Consistency, good habits, & positive visualizations are important to Sean, who was named as one of the topmost inspirational people in history. Inspire your own resilience with Episode 47 of Unsugar coated with Aalia.
Still peaking: Ohio ‘cancer climber’ finds new ways to inspire (mansfieldnewsjournal.com)
Virus Expert Just Predicted How This All Ends (msn.com)
The terror that was the Gulag (msn.com)