Pfft. I can walk the width of New Zealand in about 20 minutes. Where’s my parade?
If Robert Falcon Scott had done it this way, he might not have ended up as a Popsicle.
But for a sea/land reversal, the topology of the English Channel is not equivalent. An equivalent sea/land reversal would be swimming “across” a body of water that’s surrounded by land. Take the Black Sea - if you started swimming north from Istanbul, then turned west toward Bulgaria, people might question whether you swam “across” it.
map:
One person’s opinion, YMWV:
If you are walking “across America” that means (more or less) NYC to the Pacific Ocean. A purist might demand Nantucket to the Pacific, but I’m willing to cut some slack. Atlantic to Pacific.
It does not mean Canada to the Caribbean. And it definitely doesn’t mean across Florida.
If you are sailing “across the Pacific”, that means the coast of North America to the coast of China, maybe Japan. It doesn’t mean leaving SF, going to Hawaii, and then landing in Guatemala.
“Across Europe” means Lisbon to…the Ukraine? Not Amsterdam to Monaco. “Across the Mediterranean” means Gibraltar to Lebanon, not Gibraltar to Tangier.
Across should mean the longest way, more or less. The fact that it’s a difficult journey, worthy of acclaim, one I could never do, has nothing to do with it. To call 930 miles as being “Across” Antartica is to diminish the efforts of those who actually do go the long way.
I’m a little surprised that neither the OP nor any other Dopers mentioned Borge Ousland, who crossed the continent solo in 1996, without the aid of GPS or satellite phone. Unlike O’Brady and Briton Louis Rudd, who trekked from points where the ice shelf meets the land mass, about 920 miles, Borge started and ended from points where the ice shelf meet open water, more than twice as far: 1,864 miles. Clearly, this should meet the OP’s criteria for a real “crossing.”
The article in the link also points out that “from the South Pole to the ‘finish line’ at the bottom of the Leverett Glacier, both Mr. O’Brady and Mr. Rudd skied along the South Pole Overland Traverse track, ‘a flattened trail groomed by tractors towing heavy sledges’ to resupply the polar station. ‘Flags every 100 meters or so make navigation easy during whiteouts.’ What’s more, the tractors scrape away the hard ridges of sastrugi — the wavelike ridges of hard snow — that are a sledder’s nightmare, and the track is routed to avoid crevasses.”
Apparently, O’Brady claims that because Ousland used a small sail at certain points of his trek, he wasn’t “unsupported,” and that he (O’Brady) deserves a “first” distinction that Ousland doesn’t. I think this is rather petty and fatuous. Although trekking solo for over 900 miles in the coldest, least hospitable place on earth is an amazing accomplishment, covering twice as much distance without using plowed paths or GPS is an even greater feat, even if part of it was assisted by wind power.
To his credit, Ousland is rather magnanimous about being overlooked in all the recent coverage. But he told a reporter, “It should not be necessary for me to have to stand up and fight for my ‘honor.’ I believe that I should be credited as the first to have crossed Antarctica solo and unsupported from coast to coast. Period.”
I plead ignorance in omitting the Ousland expedition. It certainly appears to be a more credible crossing of the continent of Antarctica. I would yield credit to the next adventurer who traverses the continent in an even longer route.
So in 1492 Columbus didn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean? Not too many people have sailed from Reykjavík to 60° S where the Austral Ocean starts.
Not to detract from Ousland’s accomplishment - curious how many of those 1,864 miles were crossed by wind-sail.
If I can cross all antipodal points through my living room to the kitchen to get a beer, that’s accomplishment enough.
Not sure how accurate this is, but the NY Times today had a piecethat said this on the “wind sail”: On the “downhill” leg from the pole to the coast, Mr. Ousland occasionally unfurled a “ski sail” of his own devising: in his words, “a simple piece of square fabric” that would catch the wind and help propel him as he skied across the snow.
Why would it mean that? In my Pacific example, I said east-west, not north-south, Arctic to Antarctic, and crossing the Atlantic would be the same.
That’s the kind of a nitpick I have come to expect from the 'Dope.
Why do you wish “to diminish the efforts of those who actually do go the long way.”?
Why is the “easiest” route across the Atlantic a “crossing” but not in Antartica. Seriously you could almost toss a bottle off the shore and it would end up in the same place Columbus did. My nitpick is exactly that you are appealing to confirmation bias via special pleading.
Well, it seems disingenuous at best for O’Brady to claim the first “unsupported” crossing by insinuating that Ousland’s small sail constitutes some kind of support that his own use of the flattened and marked trail somehow does not.
Not really a Colin O’Brady fan, but with your nickname I am surprised “unsupported” is an issue as in *sailing *it means zero physical outside help outside of information and support received electronically.
Looking at the map, a better analogy might be to hiking across France just north of the Pyrenees from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, and claiming that you’d hiked across Europe. In both cases, you’ve cut across a narrow neck of the continent, while avoiding the vast majority of the land mass that lies entirely off to one side of your route.
What an excellent post, thank you. As usual, a subject I know very little about, and now know a lot more.
In light of the above, in my view these are all extremely impressive accomplishments, but Ousland deserves the most acclamation AND the title of “first unsupported”.