Audi 2011 Annual Report Download - page 108

On January 18, Johan Ernst Nilson
reached the South Pole.
On day 32 the
adventure
almost came to an abrupt
end. It was a clear morning
in May 2011 on the south-
western edge of the Arctic. Johan Ernst
Nilson had already covered around 1,000
kilometers on his route southward from
the North Pole. A few days remained
to traverse the Arctic ice and he would
reach terra fi rma: Canada. At six o’clock
that morning he and his partner Harald
Kippenes planned the trek for the day, and
then set out, pulling their sleds behind
them. Nilson had an uneasy feeling. With
each movement of his skis the ice creaked
beneath him.
Later the Swedish adventurer com-
mented that he saw disaster coming.
“Suddenly everything collapsed around
me. The ice seemed to dissolve beneath
me. I was gazing into a dark gaping
mouth. The next moment it had swal-
lowed me up.”
Nilson crashed through the ice into the
sea. The Swede was hardly able to keep
his head above water. He fl ayed around
with his arms. “I had to decide there and
then,” he later recounts. He could have
unbuckled his skis in order to swim quickly
to the safety of the ice. Which would
have meant the end of his adventure, as
“without skis I would have had to give up.
I didn’t want that to happen.” So he left
his skis on and swam forward inch by
inch, while his jacket gradually fi lled with
water. But he made it. His companion
pulled him out. It took three days until
Nilson’s clothes had dried – at tempera-
tures of -40°C.
Nilson tells the tale of the day that might
easily have been his last quite calmly.
It’s the end of September and the Swede
is sitting on the beach at Acapulco in
Mexico. The parts of his face that are not
covered by his bristly beard are dark red.
Nilson nevertheless remains sitting in
the blazing sun despite it being 35°C. He
had sworn to himself in the Arctic that he
would never again complain about heat.
It’s about half-time on the Audi
pole2pole expedition, which will take
around one year in total. A trip from one
end of the world to the other in a way
that no one has previously dared. Nilson
started out from the North Pole on
April 4, 2011. A day of historical signifi -
cance, as almost exactly 102 years earlier
Robert Edwin Peary had been the fi rst
man to reach the North Pole. Although
Peary’s destination is Nilson’s starting
point, as his destination is the South Pole.
Which he intends to reach on foot, on
skis, by bike, pulled by a kite, and by
sailing boat. He will be powered only by
his own strength or by the wind. On land
he will be accompanied by an Audi support
vehicle, which will transport part of his
equipment for him.
Johan Ernst Nilson, who originally
studied journalism, has been a profes-
sional adventurer for 18 years now. He
has undertaken expeditions to more
than 100 countries. Nilson has climbed
the world’s highest mountains, crossed
the Atlantic on a jet ski, and fl own by
propeller boat from his home town of
Stockholm to Africa. It is not easy for
an adventurer such as him to fi nd new
challenges. After all, there are hardly
any adventures left that someone has
not already experienced. By contrast, the
Audi pole2pole expedition, which will see
Responsibility _ 105
Arriving in the Emerald City
after 6,000 kilometers: Nilson
reached Seattle on July 21, 2011. On his trip through the ex-
panses of America, Nilson
often went for hours without
meeting a single person.