Hero adventurer died inspiring others
The overriding personal quality that defines a hero is courage, and this was no better demonstrated than in the achievements of a young British mountaineer whose untimely death might make us question the integrity of some of our other role models.
Rob Gauntlett, from the English county of Sussex, died with his friend James Atkinson in an accident on January 10 while climbing the treacherous Mont Blanc Massif in the French Alps. They were 21.
Rob Gauntlett
Rob was already famous after he and schoolmate James Hooper became the youngest Britons to reach the summit of Mount Everest shortly after their 19th birthdays in 2006. The climb raised funds for Cancer Research UK.
Rob had won many awards for his physical achievements and even at 15 had become the youngest person to cycle from Lands end to John O’ Groats, the length of Great Britain.
He and James were named National Geographic 2008 Adventurers of the Year in a ceremony in Washington DC, following a 22,000-mile journey using only human and natural power from the Magnetic North to South Poles. To highlight the effect of global warming, they used skies and dog-sleighs, and sailed and cycled through Greenland, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina.
After completing the Pole to Pole trip the pair sailed 1,800 nautical miles to Australia. They also sailed to New York to begin a 11,000-mile cycle ride to Punta Arenas, in southern Chile, raising money for Prince Charles’s youth charity, the Prince’s Trust.
The Daily Telegraph reported Rob’s words from the top of Everest: “James and I are really keen on getting the message out to young people to follow your dreams. This has been our dream for three years. Get out there, follow it up and make sure you make it happen.”
It is rare to be able to point to an achievent and declare that it was truly heroic. We must look for some element of self-sacrifice, or assistance to others or to the common good, and this was evident in the Pole to Pole expedition that raised awareness of global warming. Rob was an ambassador for the Blue Climate and Oceans Project, campaigning to protect and promote water environments, and tried to encourage other young people to live their dreams through wise educational choices.
The tragedy brings to mind a line from the sci-fi movie Bladerunner, adapted from Phillip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very brightly. . . “
Tags: adventure, climate change, exploration, global warming, polar, Rob Gauntlett
Categories:
analysis, news
