They had a lot of people worried... On Friday, November 22nd, the South African explorer's daughter told reporters that her father and his Norwegian expedition partner Borge Ousland were in danger. They set off on their three-month journey on September 25th, travelling through the Arctic on skis, and have faced many difficulties along the way. Their greatest obstacle has been thinning ice, which can be credited to global warming.
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Despite these hardships, the two explorers have no intention of giving up. 'There is no evacuation underway. (...) They are determined at this point to make it on their own,' Bard Mortensen, spokesman for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Northern Norway, told AFP.
'We are feeling tired but unstoppable'
After struggling for several days, Mike Horn shared a picture of himself and Borge Ousland on Instagram last Monday. The caption under the photo was quite alarming:
'(...) With this unstable climate and ice drift, it is extremely difficult for us to predict how many miles we have left. As I speak, we are exhausted, we lost a lot of weight. We feel weak and we do not have much food, we have enough to get us out of here but it will be very hard.'
Later that day, the South African explorer deleted his post, then shared a picture of Borge Ousland with a bloody nose. This time, Mike Horn's caption was more optimistic.
'Today, despite our sores (as seen on this photo), we are feeling tired but unstoppable…we know the end is near, so now, we must gather up the strength we have left, and fight to get there,' he wrote. He added: 'It is a hostile world up here…and the constant unstable conditions have made it quite clear that we are not welcome up here. In some twisted way, I ask myself if nature has been taking it out on us because of the manner in which we humans have been treating and respecting our planet.'
