A warm congratulations to adventurer (and financial analyst) Hylton James whose recent arrival at the South Pole, via a gruelling trek across the world’s largest ice cap, made him the first South African to reach both the North and South Poles in skiing expeditions.
Not to take anything away from the important work they do, but to my mind a banking and business analyst’s job sounds like a fairly desk-bound occupation and certainly not up there on the Most Exciting Career list. Either I’m wrong and financial analysts are all gung-ho adventurers in their spare time, or Hylton James is a unique among his colleagues.
Either way his amazing feats (and also feet, encased in skis) have brought him acclaim and fame around, or at least from the top to the bottom of, the world.
James is South African born and now lives in the UK. He achieved his South Pole experience while participating in the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race with Team Due South.
The Race comprises 769 km of travelling over the ice cap on skis - while pulling sledges weighing up to 70kg. On some days the temperatures the team had to endure were as low as -50 degrees C.
Team Due South completed the race in 22 days.
The race was won by Team Missing Link who arrived at the South Pole at around 19h00 on Wednesday 21st January 2009. They made it in an incredible time of 17 days and 11 hours.
When asked by a journalist from The Times what he'd be up to next, James replied that he'd be taking a few weeks off before deciding on a new adventure.
Or, he could go back to the exciting world of, er, number crunching.
(Image from here .)
