Meet the Ice Man Who Climbed Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro in His Shorts Only
How long can your body stand the cold? Depends on how cold? Maybe as cold as the peak of the Everest. Anyone can stand that kind of coldness as long as they have the proper clothing and gear to warm them up while walking under the harshest weathers. There’s a man however, who traveled lightly and worn only his shorts while climbing up to 24,000 feet up the Mt. Everest. This man’s name is Wim Hof, and the world knows him as the Ice Man.
Though the Mt. Everest stunt wasn’t his greatest because of missing 5,000 feet of the summit due to a foot injury, Wim Hof already has 21 Guinness World Records under his belt. One of these record-breaking feats includes the time he immersed himself in blocks of ice for one hour, 52 minutes and 42 seconds in Manhattan’s Bryant Park in New York City. He also holds the record for running a full marathon in the Namibian desert without drinking water and hanging on one finger at an altitude of 2,000 meters.
It doesn’t stop there. The Dutchman also holds the record for reaching the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in his shorts in two days. He completed a full marathon above the polar circle in Finland for 5 hours and 25 minutes in temperatures close to −20 °C – in shorts as usual. He has his other ice-cold feats and no one knows where he’ll go next to do another one.
How does he survive his own stunts? Hof claims that he can influence his autonomic nervous system and immune response through concentration and meditation. Though scientific studies had supported this claim, further research is needed to verify Hof’s techniques.
Right now, Hof offers 3-hour workshops to one-week intensive courses to encourage people to discover more about themselves and how can they learn to be the future ice man or ice woman just like him. Do you want to be the next daredevil?
