COMFORT IN THE COLD

When Peter Hillary (above) stepped on to the Arctic Sea ice at the geographic north pole in 2024, he was confronted by a strange beauty. All around him, the ice floes were covered in brilliant pools of turquoise water. But the sight underpinned an unsettling reality. “It was just rotten ice,” he says. “It was
[sufficiently] hard for us to walk on, but we needed knee-high rubber boots […] because we were splashing around in fresh water that lay on the surface of the pole’s sea ice.” For Hillary, son of the late Sir Edmund Hillar —the mountaineering icon who, with Tenzing Norgay, made the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953—the moment sat uncomfortably between wonder and warning.

Thanks to technology, the world is now much smaller, and wild frontiers like these are becoming more accessible.
At the same time, that very accessibility— and human induced global warming— is rapidly changing them.
In 2027, Hillary will again climb aboard Le Commandant Charcot, a state-of-the-art hybrid electric/LNGpowered icebreaker, headed to the geographic north pole. This time he will be joined by more than 200 guests paying upwards of AUD$70,000 a berth for an 18-day cruise, which starts in Iceland, wends its way along the remote east coast of Greenland through pristine ice floes to 90°N, and then sails back home to Norway.
For his part, Hillary will deliver lectures to guests during the voyage. According to Ponant—the French luxury expedition cruise operator owned by Groupe Artémis, the Pinault family’s holding company passengers can also look forward to seeing polar bears, walking out on the sea ice and visiting Inuit communities along the route.

And they will be doing it all in style, with a restaurant designed by Michelin-starred legend Alain Ducasse, several bars, a cigar lounge, an indoor saltwater pool, sauna, snow room inspired by Nordic spa traditions and fitness centre.
This rarified world seems far
removed from the gruelling, dangerous and testing environment Hillary’s father confronted when he made the summit of Mount Everest over 70 years ago. So, what still counts as adventure in Hillary’s eyes?
“Adventure tourism has been going on for around 150 years,” says Hillary over the phone from New Zealand’s
Queenstown, fresh from a helicopter trip over Fiordland National Park. “There were wealthy British people going over to the Alps in Europe and it was the beginning of mountaineering:

“We live in a very exciting time
because a lot of these remote places […] have become more accessible.”

trekking in the Alps, staying in little lodges, that sort of thing,” he explains. “Progressively, there were hardy expeditions going off to all corners of the globe. My father’s and Tenzing’s climb on the British expedition was an example of that, it was pushing the parameters of what was possible.” Hillary has forged his own path in expedition leadership. Since summiting Everest (twice) and, in 1999, establishing a new overland route to the south pole via the Shackleton Glacier—42 years after his father’s own Antarctic journey—he regularly leads expeditions for paying guests. He is also a public speaker, raises funds for Himalayan foundations, partners with a clothing brand and, with sister Sarah, manages their late father’s intellectual property. “We live in a very exciting time
because a lot of these remote places such as the north pole have become

more accessible,” he says. “It enables a wide variety of people to experience them, in a very controlled fashion, but to actually have that experience and connect with that piece of nature.” That connection becomes ever more crucial as screen culture and urbanisation accelerate, while natural environments degrade. Technological innovations such as those represented by the Charcot, built in 2021 and equipped with two on-board research laboratories, are one reason the Arctic has become more
accessible. But there is another, more troubling factor. The environment itself is changing, with scientists predicting ice-free Arctic summers in the not-too distant future.
Hillary has witnessed that change firsthand. In April 1985 he joined a north pole expedition organised by Mike Dunn, who assembled an ‘A-team’

of adventurers, including his father and astronaut Neil Armstrong, along with a handful of paying guests. “Admittedly, we went in April, and it was the springtime, but we landed in these small planes on very hard frozen sea ice,” Hillary recalls. “The temperature was around-40°C-incredibly cold. We went back in July 2025 and the icebreaker was largely following open lanes of seawater, big cracks through the Arctic ice sheet. It was wildly different and, in fact, quite concerning.”
Conditions on that first voyage were basic. For two weeks the
participants slept in bunks, ate simple food and traded stories. “The best part of the expedition was the storytelling,” recalls Hillary, who was then in his early 30s. “My father talking about Everest and the schools and hospitals he was building in the Himalayas, and Neil talking about landing on the moon.”

“My father’s and Tenzing’s climb […] was an example of pushing the parameters of what was possible.”

On that return journey, Hillary travelled to the north pole with Mark Armstrong, Neil’s son, and a documentary crew. While the original voyage had remained largely a secret (at Neil Armstrong’s request), Icelandic filmmakers Orly Orlyson and Rafnar Orri are now bringing the story to life with exclusive original footage in forthcoming
documentary North Pole ‘85. For Peter and Mark, it was also a chance to compare notes on parallel childhoods, such as how to react when people ask what it was like growing up in the shadow of your famous father.
“My response has always been I felt I grew up in the light of Ed Hillary,” he says.
For the record, Hillary says his dad would certainly have approved of—and appreciated— the chance to sip champagne on the Charcot bound for the north pole in 2027 if he were still around.

But what does he hope his fellow voyagers will take away from the adventure? “I hope they leave with a sense of connection and wonder for these amazing places,” Hillary says. “What you can learn from them, what you can learn about yourself […] how privileged we are to be able to go to some of these places.”

ponant.com