Alex Hibbert is the world record polar traveler to travel further on an unassisted Arctic voyage than anyone in history. In July 2008, he completed his 113-day "long haul" return journey across a new sheet of ice alongside teammate George Bullard. They received no resupply or physical support and ended the last week with almost no food.

give Never. On. Easy to say, especially when you live in a comfortable situation. However, experience usually only arises as soon as this comfortable situation is no longer physically or psychologically available. Weakness or failure can then have immeasurable repercussions, which is why "Never Give Up" is more than just words.

July 2008 - in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet. My very first and serious trip to the Arctic has taken a negative turn. My teammate George and I had already spent over 100 days alone on the ice with no support. Now we both stared at a blanket of snow. We had spent the last hour, with increasing desperation, using one of our tent poles to locate our supply depot that we had deposited there before beginning our journey. Nothing. Not even a hint of it was left.

Reality slowly settled in on us. Having had to make do with very little food for a long time, we now had no supplies for the rest of our journey. We had relied on it completely and had to reach the east coast again after four months of skiing. A decision was required. Do we give up and ask our team if there is a possibility of evacuation by plane or helicopter 150km away from our location, do we keep looking for our depot or do we just move on?

We hadn't come this far (over 2000km on our own and now with a world record under our belt) to give up now! How humiliating it would be to hand over responsibility to an outsider at this point. No! We would now bring our joint adventure to an end together. Every second counted in that moment and timing was now the key to success and survival. We had to cover a set distance each day before our bodies collapsed from a total lack of food.

After a total of 113 days, after scraping the remains of our sled floor and having to cross dozens of hidden crevasses, we finally reached our destination. In the hours in which we waited for our planned pick-up, we really realized what we had accomplished. That the fight was worth it for us.

Meet Alex on social media