| Tom Avery | |
|---|---|
Tom Avery |
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| Born | December 17, 1975 Sussex, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Explorer-Author |
| Years active | 1998 - present |
| Known for | The youngest Briton to ski to the South Pole (2002) Led the fastest team in history to reach the North Pole (2005) |
| Website | |
| http://www.tomavery.net | |
Thomas Avery (born December 17, 1975) is a British explorer and author. He gained notoriety for his record-breaking journey to the South Pole in 2002. He has travelled by foot to both the North and South Poles.[1]
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Avery was born to Julian and Quenelda in London, England. Due to his father’s occupation he grew up travelling between Sussex, Brazil and France. When he was seven years old his mother gave him a book about the adventures of Captain Robert Falcon Scott. As he admits in his book “To The End Of The Earth” [2] Tom was captivated by Scott's heroic story and knew he wanted to go to the Antarctica, and ultimately the South Pole.
Tom Avery’s outdoor career began when he was 16 with a series of rock and ice climbs in Wales and Scotland. At university, he organized and led mountaineering expeditions to the Andes, New Zealand, the Alps, Tanzania, Patagonia and Morocco. After graduating in 1998 with a B.Sc. in Geography and Geology, he began a temporary 15-month career as an accountant with Arthur Andersen.
In 2000 he led a British mountaineering expedition to the remote Eastern Zalaay Mountains in Kyrgyzstan.[3] The team scaled a total of nine previously unclimbed and unnamed summits up to 20,000 feet (6,100 m) in height.
Avery has climbed mountains such as Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Pichincha and Cotopaxi in Ecuador, Illimani in Bolivia, Volcan Villarrica in Chile, Taranaki and Ruapehu in New Zealand, Mount Kosciusko in Australia, Mont Blanc du Tacul in the French Alps and Jebel Toubkal in Morocco. He also made attempts on Cho Oyu in Tibet and Aconcagua in Argentina.
Avery has also completed the Patrouille des Glaciers[4] ski mountaineering race from Zermatt to Verbier, leading the first British civilian team ever to complete the course.
In 2002 he became the youngest Briton ever to ski to the South Pole. The Commonwealth South Pole Centenary Expedition was the ninth major expedition that Tom had organized and the culmination of two years planning. Following a training trip in New Zealand, the small party of four flew to Antarctica in early November 2002, beginning their 700-mile (1,100 km) expedition from Hercules Inlet. On December 28, 2002, Tom Avery’s team completed the journey to the South Pole, 45 days and 6 hours later. Tom’s team managed to break the South Pole speed record by using kites to power them across the ice, much like the modern sport of kitesurfing, and covering the last 47 miles (76 km) to the Pole in a marathon final 31 hours.
Based largely on his Antarctic journal, Pole Dance was Avery's first book. Written in a diary form, it details the 2002 South Pole expedition.
In 2005 Tom Avery recreated Robert Peary and Matthew Henson’s 1909 controversial expedition to the North Pole. The goal of the expedition was to solve the mystery of whether Peary had indeed done what he had claimed, and reached the Pole in just 37 days, a far faster time that any expedition had managed since 1909. Avery used the same equipment available to Peary and Henson at the time. Travelling in a similar style to Peary and Henson’s with Inuit dog teams[5] and wooden sledges, Avery set out from Peary's original Base Camp at Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island with his team and covered the 413 nautical miles (765 km) to the Geographic North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours and 11 minutes, some four hours faster than Peary and Henson; although their fastest distance over 5 marches was 90 nautical miles, significantly short of the 135 claimed by Peary. In the process, Avery and his team discovered original relics and tools from the 1909 mission.
Avery’s experience is detailed in the 2009 book To The End Of The Earth.
Tom Avery currently lives in London with his wife, Mary. He raises funds for The Prince's Trust and is an official ambassador of the 2012 London Olympic Games[6] as well as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London and a member of the Explorers Club in New York.[7]
Avery’s other interests include skiing, ocean sailing and golf.[8] His ultimate ambition is to ski in Alaska and sail around the world.
Pole Dance (Orion, 2004)
To The End Of The Earth (St Martin’s Press, 2009)