Around the world: the hard way

Feb. 12, 2012 - PRLog -- The multinational 360 Extremes Expedition will embark on a journey around the world, not along the traditional way going from east-to-west (or vice versa), but facing the massive challenges of completing the circle largely over land: along the polar axis.

The team members, from Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, will cycle, hike and climb their way north from São Paulo, through the Americas and over the North Pole, turn south through Asia and, on reaching the Himalayas, ascend Mount Everest. From there, the team will continue south through Australasia before reaching and traversing Antarctica, completing the journey over three years after departure.

The team aims to show how the extreme environments across the world, how humans and nature interact within these environments, and how even the harshest of environments are extremely vulnerable to global climate change. To do this, as well as traversing thousands of kilometres by foot at the Poles and ascending the highest mountain in the world with Mount Everest, and the highest mountain in Latin America with Aconcaguá in Argentina, the team will also cycle over 800km across the Gobi desert and over 3,000km across Australian deserts; trek through the swamps and rain forests of South and Central America; travel along some of the world’s most treacherous roads in Bolivia and Tibet, as well as going through some of the world’s deepest canyons.

Whilst the polar axis circle has been completed by the Tranglobe Expedition team led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes in the early 1980s, the Transglobe team travelled along the Greenwich meridian largely by boat before reaching the key points of the journey. The 360 Extremes Team will be the first to travel the route almost entirely by land. Team members from Brazil and the United States will be the first from their countries to complete the polar circle by surface travel. Furthermore, the team will be the only team to have crossed both the Poles and reached Mount Everest in one sole expedition.

What will make this project even more remarkable is that each of the team members can be seen as average working people, two of whom have no significant climbing experience.

In the run-up to departure, the team will be working and training incredibly hard to transform themselves into the athletes who will be able to endure the extreme conditions that they will face in the course of the expedition. Whilst the team will leave São Paulo in 2014, this training and preparation is now underway, and will need every moment of the next two years in order to build up the team's physical fitness levels as well astheir technical skills for climbing, mountaineering, survival in polar conditions and on sea ice, and skills to navigate and overcome crevasse fields.

All team members are working daily to develop these skills, with their first major training expedition occuring in June 2012, when they will be climbing some of the tallest peaks in the Bolivian Andes this June in a 21 day adventure. They will also be training in polar conditions at the end of the year and an ascent of Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America, is scheduled for June 2013, along with further Arctic training scheduled for the end of 2014.

With the return to São Paulo scheduled for close to April 2017 the whole project will take over five years to complete. The scope of the 360 Extremes Expedition is unique and ambitious: challenging to the extremes and life changing for all involved in the project. See how you can support the expedition in raising funds for charity and follow the progress of the team, in the training and preparation for the journey and in the actual journey itself, at the http://www.360extremes.com website. You can also follow us on Twitter @360Extremes and Facebook at 360 Extremes Expedition.

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Around the world the hard way, up through the Americas and down through Asia; across the Poles and the Himalayas, up the highest mountains and deepest canyons; facing the extremes. Raising funds for charities and producing photo and film documentaries.