Alex Hibbert made the longest unsupported Arctic journey in history when he was just 21 years old. He had no support helicopter, no dogs, no sleds, no electricity. “I decided early on I wanted to be a purist. I wanted to do things the hard way.”

Travelling unspported is a philosophical decision. “You’re on your own. You haul more gear and if something breaks you have to fix it. “That is the big difference between what I would call an explorer and a tourist: the ability to be self-sufficient and look after yourself.” Most people can only imagine what it’s like lying in a tent in the middle of the Arctic, thousands of miles from civilisation, with only the howling wind and pitch-black darkness for company.

“To begin with it is bloody terrifying. It really is,” says Hibbert.

“You tend to go from complete comfort – even in the Inuit village Qaanaaq I was staying in a friend’s house with showers – to complete discomfort in a split second and that takes time to get used to.”

He is referring to the Tiso Trans Greenland journey he did with George Bullard over 113 days in 2008 without back-up.

“After a few days I started to settle into it and feel comfortable. After a couple of weeks, we just felt like we were living there. “We felt like it was our office. There was our home, and we went out and skied all day, then we came home and ate then slept. “Your idea of what is scary and stressful tends to shift over a few days.”

The 27-year-old polar explorer, Oxford graduate and former Royal Marine trainee skied, walked, slid and climbed 1,374 miles from Kulusuk to the West Coast and back in the dark and hostile Arctic spring. The cold, the backpacks, the sledge, the tent fires, the crevasse fields and the starvation were not the main problems. “Our plan was to ski as far as we possibly could. That meant an awful lot of days of skiing in a straight line because the Greenland ice cap is crevassed around the coast and the middle bit is flat. “It means 12 to 15 hours of walking in a straight line and all you are doing is navigating, which is simple. “So it’s a mental challenge.”

He used to split the day up into chunks, thinking about a different topic every hour. He would let his mind drift at other times. During his ten-minute breaks he would scribble down ideas in a notebook from his sledge.

“Some ideas were barmy, but it was something which allowed me to occupy my mind. If I shelved the ideas afterwards, so be it.”

They might be practical – where he might be going next year – or philosophical. Which brings us to the obvious question: why does he do it? “The answer is certainly not a quick, witty one-liner. I see it as a platform. In my initial years I am trying to build a reputation for good planning, having the skills needed to do expeditions, which will hopefully allow me to have some influence in the latter stages of my life.”

Hibbert, a self-confessed impatient man who wanted to have done things five years ahead of everyone else, wants to deliver “something of real value”. We’ve lost sight of what constitutes a good life, he says. He wants to show us there are other ways of living without employment (“For people in the high Arctic it is an unusual thing. I’m interested in looking at how a long time ago that was similar in other parts of the world”). Also, that the word retirement is an “unnecessary academic term”. “People should think of their lives as an open-ended journey during which they can achieve from the beginning to the end.” Indeed, he adds, “My overriding motivation is not just to play in the snow for the rest of my life.”

Hungry polar bears looking for prey suggests he’s not just been playing in the snow. “I’ve never had an out-and-out attack but I’ve been stalked, which is no good thing. There is not a lot you can do if they are committed to an attack other than kill them, which is very sad.”

It was the wind that gave him the shivers on his journey in 2008.

“The wind can destroy your shelter. That’s what killed a guy up in Greenland recently. His tent was blown to pieces.”

His family prefer the expeditions to his brief time in the Marines because at least he is not in the line of fire. But as soon as he is back he is making good the plans he formed on the ice for his next trip. “Apparently after the long-haul flight, I just spoke ‘at’ people when I returned to England. I just transmitted. I was so confused by the fact there were people and cars. It took me a few days to realise a conversation was a two-way process. Then I started planning my next trip.”

Polar bears and melting ice will be the challenges on The Dark Ice Project.

The expedition beginning later this year will involve seven months in the Northern Polar winter, in total darkness.

Hibbert and Julian Miles are aiming to become the first people to reach the North Pole unsupported from the southern edge of Greenland on a 210-day expedition. They will return back to via the same route. “There are more dangers. Polar bears will actively hunt us. We’re taking a dog with us to give us advanced warning a bear is approaching.”

Dangerous liaisons

Hungry bears, starving for months, will be sharing the same ice. “We have a 100% chance of encountering a polar bear this winter.” The best way to scare off a polar bear is to yell and scream or bang pots and pans to let it know you are not prey. As for the melting ice, when it is breaking up, moving round and forming into big pressure ridges which pull apart, Hibbert will find open water he’ll have to swim across. They’ll have orange rubber immersion suits they can climb into, clothes on, and swim across. The sledges float like boats.

“The Russians tried to use inflatable boats but they punctured pretty quickly. Back in the old days they had to wait for the ice to freeze.”

He did his first trip to Greenland aged 19 – and his trips since have been turned into three books, TV appearances and a place on the motivational speaker circuit.

In terms of breaking new ground in exploration, Hibbert says they are tackling expeditions which are relatively (with modern technology) as difficult as those done by Scott 100 years ago. Sir Ranulph Fiennes said of him, “[He undertakes] what is proving increasingly scarce in modern times – genuinely groundbreaking polar travel.”

Hibbert is unflinching about his rivals. He thinks anyone who has to chop a finger off is unprofessional. “Frostbite isn’t a trophy, it’s a sign of incompetence – that you can’t look after yourself. If I was to get such bad frostbite I would not be proud.”

 

  • Alex Hibbert appears on July 20 at 1.30pm as part of the Lewes Speakers Festival.
  • The festival takes place at the All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes, from Tuesday, July 2 to Sunday, July 21.
     
  • A festival pass costs £95, one-day pass, £45, two-day pass, £70. Tickets are £12.50 for each individual talk. Purchase two tickets
     
  • to one talk for £11 each, or three or more for £10 each. 
  • Call 0844 8700887 for more information.