From whiteouts in the mountains, to oceanic storms, to malfunctioning flying cars (seriously), each one of the adventurers interviewed here has put their lives on the line more than once — and lived to tell the tale.
In broadcasting their stories, we aren’t advising you to wade into similar, death-adjacent depths. But if you’re inclined towards risk, the advice here might make the difference between life and what comes after. Each of these men took charge when life seemed out of their control. Each emerged stronger. (Oh, and even if the scariest thing you’ve ever done in your life is facing down your boss in the boardroom, there are still lessons to be learned.)
To quote adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary: “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” So, here’s how to conquer the world and yourself in the process.
Rehearse, Again and Again
In January 2020, the Maclean brothers — Jamie, Lachlan and Ewan — broke three Guinness World Records, becoming the first three brothers to row any ocean in their 28-foot carbon fiber boat and the youngest and fastest trio to row across the Atlantic Ocean, doing so in just 35 days. It was far from plain sailing.
“At one point, winds were hitting 25 knots and the waves were peaking at five meters,” Lachlan recalls. “It felt like rowing inside a giant washing machine.”
The boat was tipping violently, and everything that wasn’t tied down was being washed into the drink. Lachlan had just finished his final rowing shift of the day when a 15-foot wave knocked him overboard. “I didn’t know which way was up,” he says. “It was just saltwater and silence. I looked up and saw the red glow of my head torch bouncing off the stern.”
Still attached by his safety harness, his brother Ewan was able to haul him back onboard. “That bit of rope clipped to my harness saved my life,” Lachlan says.
The lesson: Don’t wait for the wave to hit before you check your rope. Preparation might be dull, but dull things tend to be the ones that get you through.
Control the Controllables
Johnny Ward has ticked off all the adventure milestones: He’s rowed the Atlantic, climbed Everest, run the Marathon des Sables and the North Pole Marathon, and is currently planning his own ultramarathon through the Sahara. In other words, he’s a machine. Ward recalls a few touch-and-go moments in his career, all of which taught him the same thing. The one that sticks out nearly saw him starve and freeze to death simultaneously.
“I was caught in a full-on whiteout storm on Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America,” Ward says. “We were at high camp, stuck in the tent for a couple of days with brutal winds hammering the sides, temperatures around -40°F, and a very real risk that we’d run out of food or be forced to descend blind in deadly conditions.”
He got through it by staying calm. “I’m a control freak, so I have to remind myself to ‘control the controllables,’’ he says.
The lesson: “The key lesson for me is boring and cliche, but so true when the going gets tough,” Ward says. “We couldn’t change the storm, but we could stay warm, ration supplies, reinforce the tent hourly and keep morale up. And the storm passes, as always.”
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Ross and Hugo Turner, twins, have set an electric paramotor world record in the French Alps, traveled to the Australian pole of inaccessibility and climbed ice caps in Greenland. In South America, cartel activity almost cost them everything.
“We were cycling from northern Chile to the pole of inaccessibility, at the very center point of South America,” Ross says. “We were crossing from the lowlands of Bolivia on the San Matthias road, basically a dirt track.”
Having been warned of cartel activity by the police, the twins decided to stow their bikes and take a bus. “The bus picked up a priest, and then the military blockaded the road and hauled him off,” Ross remembers. “They opened his bag, and there was a brick of cocaine in it.”
The priest was taken away, and the police pointed guns at everyone on board. They then began going through the other passengers’ luggage. With their bikes and bags tied to the top of the bus, Hugo and Ross had no idea if someone might have snuck drugs into their belongings. Surrounded by strangers in a foreign land and with their fate out of their hands, the brothers had no choice but to go with the flow. In the end, they got away without being implicated as drug mules, and their adventures continued.
The lesson: Some things are simply out of our hands. You might have planned to a tee, but you’ll never control the actions of others. Accepting that will make your life easier.
Trust Your Team
Matt Phillips is the head of editorial at travel app Polarsteps and a former Lonely Planet writer. His adventures include camping in a Saharan minefield on his birthday, but his sketchiest moment saw him plummet into the abyss to almost near-certain death.
“I was with my friends in the Arctic and stepped out onto an ice bridge. This promptly collapsed beneath me, ending me falling six meters into a rushing river flowing beneath a glacier,” Phillips recalls.
Miraculously, he made it out. “I remember seeing my friends disappear above as snow and ice filled the air,” he says. “We’d talked earlier, agreeing that anyone who fell into the water was a goner. But I landed partially on a large rock, hearing my friends screaming above. Once I pulled myself fully out of the water, it was about being calm and methodical. How do I get back up to safety? It was at this point my friends’ heads poked over the edge to see me below. ‘He’s ALIVE!’ I slowly climbed up the rock face with their helpful instructions until I was safe with them.”
The lesson: There’s always an extra risk in going first, but a good team can help you out of the trickiest of situations. Remember that, and stay calm.
Work Quickly but Efficiently
Andy Stone holds the Guinness World Record for the most 70.3M triathlons in a year, but in the early days of his adventuring, an accident almost put an end to his winning streak before it began.
“The gnarliest experience I’ve had was during my dive master training in the Philippines,” Stone says. He went down into a cave with a dive group, but unbeknownst to him, his oxygen supply had been contaminated — possibly with carbon monoxide.
“All of a sudden, I started having this burning sensation in my chest.,” Stone says. “It was getting worse and worse and worse. In the end, I had to push my way through other divers, through a dark cave full of white tip sharks.”
Stone kept his cool, shaking the dive master to let him know there was a problem and then, as quickly as was safe to do so, he surfaced and climbed back onto the boat. “Three minutes later, I was asleep,” he says. “Which means that if I’d been in the water any longer, I would have passed out in a cave with nobody looking out for me.”
The lesson: Trusting your gut is essential in high-risk situations. As is the ability to remain calm and do what needs to be done, without rushing and without adding undue strain to an already sketchy scenario.
Wing It
Neil Laughton leads expeditions on Everest, owns multiple Guinness World Records and has cycled across the world’s most mountainous region. He’s also been known to dally with the odd flying car, much to the detriment of his safety. In 2009, Laughton was piloting the world’s first road legal flying car, all 750 kg of it, on its maiden voyage across the Sahara Desert. What could possibly go wrong?
“On the days in question, I launched the car, reaching a height of 100 feet,” Laughton says. “I was heading out over the Atlantic Ocean when I realized there was a major problem.”
Suspended beneath a parachute, the car’s canopy brake lines were tangled and creating too much drag, causing the car to swing violently from side to side at 45 degrees. “She could collapse any second, and we would plummet down to the water where I’d be knocked unconscious and drown,” Laughton remembers. “It was not a pleasant thought.”
Laughton decided to do something crazy. “After 30 desperate seconds, I made a decision to bail out,” he says. “I took my hands off the controls, climbed out of the cockpit and waited for my moment to jump the 100 feet into the sea.”
Miraculously, the redistribution of weight sorted the problem, so Laughton jumped back into the pilot’s seat and fought the controls to make a successful emergency landing. “I climbed out and did a jig of joy,” he says.
The lesson: Being open to improvisation might have some unintended — and lifesaving — consequences.
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