Explorer and endurance athlete 33 year old Colin O’Brady has become the first man to cross Antarctica on foot unaided, which was deemed impossible. It took 54 days to walk 1500 kilometres dragging a 170-kg (375 lb) sled for 12-13 hours per day mainly uphill over ridged ice. He covered the final 80 miles (129 kms) in a 32 hour haul without sleep. He finished ahead of British Army Captain Louis Rudd, aged 49, who competed to honour his friend Henry Worsley who lost his life in a similar attempt two years ago, dying from exhaustion.
O’Brady born 16 March 1985 in Olympia, Washington, was severely burned in his early twenties and was told he might never walk normally again. He focused on physical rehabilitation by training for the triathlon and then moved onto the Explorers Grand Slam, climbing the seven highest summits in a record time.
He’s a late Sun Pisces (like Ranulph Fiennes, the Transglobe explorer) with his Sun square Neptune in Capricorn and trine an obsessively conscientious Saturn in Scorpio. Pisces is, oddly enough, often an explorers’ sign, which rather disproves the wimpy Pisces reputation.
What marks O’Brady’s chart out as ultra-determined is Mars in bullish Taurus in a do-or-die opposition to Pluto square a super-confident Jupiter (Moon) in Aquarius.
His 9th Harmonic = what gives him pleasure – has a brutal Yod of Mars Saturn onto Pluto Mercury – so stretching himself beyond the end of his limits obviously appeals. His extreme 16H is also marked.
The physical and mental recovery from this kind of experience will be a longish process and what’s ahead through this spring looks fairly bumpy with tr Uranus hitting on his Mars and Pluto.