Poles Apart - With Some Pointy Bits In Between

by Vaughan De La Harpe, Sean Disney

Poles Apart shares the adventures of Sean Disney and Vaughan De La Harpe as they travel around the globe to become the first South Africans to achieve the Explorer's Grand Slam. To earn this accolade, a climber must successfully reach the summit of the highest mountain on each of the seven continents - Mount Everest, SE Ridge (Asia), Carstenz Pyramid (Australasia), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Aconcagua (South America), Denali (North America), Elbrus (Europe), Vinson Massif (Antarctica) - and must ski haul to both the North and South Poles. This is a prestigious group that presently counts fewer than 50 people in the world as its members. Entertainingly written by David Bristow in interview style, Poles Apart breaks the mould of conventional adventure accounts and mountaineering offerings. Its combination of irreverence, humour, drama and fact will have you on the edge of your seat sharing the authors' sometimes hair-raising escapades and remarkable accomplishments.

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Uswa Anjum · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last mountain barred with snow...

This book made me laugh out loud (literally), shiver and experience wild adventure. Some will get it and some won’t. Just cherish your wilderness however it may manifest ❤️

[Mike Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a traditional climbing book, in that it tries to capture the essence of a multi-year adventure spanning 9 or 10 peaks and two polar hauls. It reads more like a fireside chat with a couple of climbing/drinking buddies but it does manage to include some of what drives people to embark on these epic challenges as well as numerous adventuring anecdotes (ranging from mundane, epic, humorous, farcical and even tragic). Sean Disney is a very experienced but ultra laid back mountaineer; Vaughan De La Harpe comes across as an ambitious, inquisitive adventurer who is constantly looking for something, and has some very humorous observations about almost everything; and David Bristow pulls their stories into a fairly cohesive book. Given the number of expeditions that it covers, this book has to skim the surface most of the time, so you won't find any coverage in depth of any expedition, but it is a good read if you want to get a feel for what it must have been like to be a fly on the wall (of the tent?) while Sean and Vaughan ticked off each accomplishment.