Pen Hadow Biography - General

Pen Hadow shot to international fame in 2003 when he made history by completing the first solo journey, without re-supply, from Canada to the North Geographic Pole – a feat thought comparable to climbing Everest solo without oxygen.  He remains the only person to have achieved this feat.  Apparently he also thinks ‘I’m the most normal person I’ve ever met!'

And just 9 months following his return Pen went on to become the only Briton to have trekked, without re-supply, to both Poles when he led an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire, Simon Murray, on a new 1,200 km route to the South Geographic Pole.  The 58-day journey from the continental coast of Antarctica enabled his 63 year-old sledging partner to become the oldest to have achieved this journey, while raising £280,000 to restore the most important artefacts held within the Royal Geographical Society’s polar collection.

Recognised within the polar community as one of its most pioneering spirits, Pen has dedicated his life to pushing back the boundaries of what is known to be possible both personally, commercially and geographically – an approach first observed when his mother found him, aged 7, hanging upside-down by his legs, high in an apple tree, to see how long he could do it … about 4 hours when she discovered him, head noticeably swollen.

He began exploring in his twenties and soon turned his passion into a business when he launched the world's first polar guide service.  The company took people from all walks of life to the most inaccessible and extreme environments on Earth - the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica.  Personally selecting and preparing the expedition teams, most of which he led himself, his company was famously responsible in 1997 for the first all-women expedition to reach the North Geographic Pole, and thus for their entry into the Guinness Book of Records.

Pen’s autobiography 'Solo' published in 2004 became one of Penguin's leading Christmas titles and was voted 'Book of the Week' by The Sunday Times.  He made a TV documentary for the National Geographic Channel, and his debut as a presenter with a five-part series for Radio 4 about Jules Verne.

Not surprisingly, Pen's knowledge of, and passion for the Arctic Ocean, one of the world's most vulnerable and highest-profile environments affected by global climate change, has now led to his next endeavour – Arctic Survey - taking place in Spring 2009.

Arctic Survey, directed by Pen, will undertake the first detailed surface survey of the thickness of the North Pole ice cap. It addresses the one of the biggest environmental question of our time – how long will the ice cap be with us?

Most climate change scientists believe 80% of the ice cap will have melted within 30-100 years’ time, with many dramatic consequences, both locally and globally.  However some leading oceanographers have recently suggested it may go within just 5 years. Pen’s survey will provide the missing data set so urgently needed by scientists and policy-makers to confirm the most likely date.

Pen Hadow Biography - Environmental

When Pen was a schoolboy in the 1960s, a globe was produced in a geography lesson showing our world. It comprised three fundamental geophysical features: continents as mottled green splodges, oceans as swathes of sapphire blue, and two ‘white bits’ on the bottom and the top – the polar ice caps. This was our planet.

Within the next 5 to 100 years, the North Pole ice cap, already up to 40% thinner since 1978 and currently thought to be just 9ft thick, will have all but melted to non-existence – a scenario last occurring about 40,000 years ago. But it is the cause and the speed of its disappearance that is the most alarming aspect of this planetary-scale change.

The North Pole ice cap is both a vital and surprisingly vulnerable geophysical feature, covering 3% of our planet’s surface.  It contributes to holding in balance the entire global system of ocean currents.  This system is in turn inextricably linked with global atmospheric circulations and thus local weather patterns worldwide. The present balance will be rapidly distorted if the ice cap’s reflective heat-shield effect is lost. For example, even small changes to rainfall and thus water supply are likely to result in large-scale, cross-border population migrations which may prove to be politically unmanageable.

Pen’s personal experience of the disappearing ice cap came in Spring 2003, when he made history and shot to international attention when he completed the first solo journey, without re-supply by aircraft, from Canada to the North Geographic Pole - a feat thought comparable to climbing Everest solo without oxygen.  He remains the only person to have achieved this.  But to succeed he had to swim for over 50 cumulative hours (of the 850 hours spent trekking) across stretches of open water, towing his sledge modified to double-up as a boat.

For the previous 15 years Pen had set up and been running the world's first polar guide service.  It had taken small teams of people from all walks of life to the most inaccessible and extreme environments on Earth - the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica.  Personally selecting and preparing the expedition teams, most of which he led himself, his company was famously responsible in 1997 for the first all-women expedition to reach the North Geographic Pole, and thus for their entry into the Guinness Book of Records.

However he closed the operation down to concentrate his long-term efforts on promoting better understanding around the world of the issues coming out of a disappearing ice cap.  He is currently working on his next project: Arctic Survey, setting out to make the first detailed surface survey of the thickness of the North Pole ice cap.  It addresses one of the biggest environmental questions of our time – how long will will the North Pole ice cap be with us?

Most climate change scientists believe 80% of the ice cap will have melted within 30-100 years’ time, with many dramatic consequences, both locally and globally.  Some leading oceanographers have recently suggested it may go within just five years. Pen’s survey will provide the missing data set so urgently needed by scientists and policy-makers to confirm the most likely date.

Pen Hadow Biography - Short

Pen Hadow is an internationally acclaimed polar explorer. Pen shot to fame in May 2003 when he became the first person to trek successfully alone, and without re-supply by aircraft, from Canada to the North Geographic Pole. It had taken Pen 15 years and three attempts to fulfil his dream.

This feat required an exceptional degree of skill, endurance and commitment. It was thought by some to be harder than making the first solo ascent of Everest without oxygen, and by others to have been impossible. Pen is currently working with NASA, the European Space Agency, the Met Office, Cambridge University, and other research organisations dedicated to global climate change issues, to use his unique first-hand experiences of the Arctic Ocean to promote better understanding amongst the public and policy-makers of the rapid changes taking place in this vulnerable environment.

His next endeavour (Spring 2009), Arctic Survey, undertakes the first accurate measurement of the thickness of the North Pole ice cap to determine how much longer it will be with us. Pen lives on Dartmoor with his wife, Mary, and two children, Wilf and Freya.