He’s now at an age where his sponsors no longer push
him to do wilder and more extreme things. “If anything
they try to rein me back,” he admits. His daughter
Annika informs us that Horn lost 16kg on the Antarctic
crossing, despite consuming over 16,000 calories a day
on the ice cap. “Because he’s 50 now, he loses weight
faster. He can’t retain that muscle mass for so long,” she
says. He’s carrying a shoulder injury, sustained on the
crossing, that causes him to wince when winging stones
into the glacial meltwater below Mount Earnslaw.
“I broke the socket in my shoulder; the bit that
supports the ligaments. The sled jammed nose into the
snow while kite skiing so the kite just picked me up,
turned me round and slammed me into the ice a couple
of times. I couldn’t get to the quick release, so I had
to pull out a small knife and cut the lines to the front
of the canopy,” he says. It’s far from his only close call
on the ice. “I set fire to my tent once. I was changing
a gas bottle in the tent. The temperature outside had
risen suddenly by 20 degrees and I’d left the pilot light
on without noticing. Just a tiny half-flame. As soon as I
opened the new bottle, the vapour spread and ignited
and I lost everything. From that point I was in igloos.”
Then there are run-ins with wildlife. On the winter
trek to the North Pole he had an uncomfortably intimate
spooning experience with a polar bear. “I was asleep in
my tent and the bear climbed onto my sled and started
trying to tear it apart to get to the food,” he says. “It
rolled onto the tent at one point and I was pinned under
its belly. I said to Borge [Ousland, his trekking partner],
‘Get the flare gun. There’s a bear in my sled!’ He just
rolled over and said, ‘It’s not in my sled.’ And that was
it. We didn’t really get on; barely spoke two words a day
on that expedition. He was ice cold. Now we’re the best
of friends.”
Later that evening, we sit by the fire sampling some
of Horn’s polar trekking food. There’s the usual freeze-
dried boil-in-the-bag stodge as well as some fantastic
home-made creations, most of which are steeped in
olive oil. Honey and butter bites, packet soup loaded
with Pringles to form a salty slurry, porridge laden with
olive oil, white chocolate and almonds, it’s all calculated
with a fanatical attention to weight and nutritional
value. “Olive oil has twice the calories per kilo than
chocolate,” he says, “but there’s only so much you can
eat. On the ice I craved the feel of a juicy peach, and
fresh baked produce like a chocolate croissant. You can’t
bring any food that has the potential to damage your
teeth. Cleaning your teeth is tough because you have to
thaw the toothpaste. I pee in my tent. I shit in my tent.
When it’s minus 60°C outside I’m not motivated to get
out of the tent but you have to balance motivation and
discipline. That’s when discipline takes over.”
Like most professional sportspeople, Horn has a good
line in well-rehearsed motivational soundbites. “The will
to win must become bigger than the fear to lose” is one.
“The impossible only exists until we find a way to make
it possible” is another. Then there’s “We have 30,000
days in a lifetime. Live each one to the fullest.” I’m
keen to understand what motivates him; what’s beneath
the bonhomie and the platitudes. Persistent needling
eventually pierces the defences. Jabbing at the bonfireI’M KEEN TO
UNDERSTAND WHAT
MOTIVATES HIM;
WHAT ’S B EN E ATH TH E
BONHOMIE AND THE
PLATITUDES