The Team

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Henry Cookson

  • AGE: 35
  • BIRTHPLACE: Wimbledon, London
  • FAMILY: Single
  • POLAR READING: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (hot!)
  • EDUCATION: Hawtreys Prep School, Harrow School & University of Newcastle upon Tyne

General Background

Henry has a proud pedigree in adventure and Polar travel – in fact, it’s in his blood. Beginning with six months work experience in Africa after leaving school, he joined a riding safari despite not having been on a horse since his early childhood. Surviving being chased by lions and charged irate Elephants, he then signed up for the Army but decided not to join having left university to pursue a career in the city at Goldman Sachs. Polar travel began after leaving Goldman Sachs aged 27 when Henry entered a 360 mile ski race to the Magnetic North Pole with two friends as Team Hardware.com in the 2005 Scott Dunn Polar Challenge.

Despite having ‘allegedly’ fought off a polar bear with just a frying pan and battling temperatures dipping to minus 45, Team Hardware.com ended up not only winning the 360 mile race in just 11 days, but smashed the existing record by 48 hours (which still stands to this day). This was the point of no return – his destiny was set and after winning the race, Henry began life as a professional guide and adventurer.

He subsequently came up with a plan to reach the exact centre of the Antarctic – the mysteriously named Pole of Inaccessibility – a point that had never been attempted on foot before. The team from the Arctic race reformed and became Team N2i after a fourth member joined the group, veteran polar guide, Paul Landry. After more than a year preparing for the trip, the expedition set off on an incredible 1100 mile Kite Skiing Expedition in November 2006. Forty-nine days later on the 19th January 2007, the team arrived at the remotest point on the planet, the Pole of Inaccessibility (and were greeted by a statue of Lenin!), thus entering the Guinness Book of Records as the First People to Reach the Pole of Inaccessibility by Non-mechanical Means (i.e. on foot). This record was deemed as one of the “Top 100 Records of the Decade”.

Since then, he formed Henry Cookson Adventures and has never looked back. He qualified as a wilderness guide in Alaska and has since been leading trips and expeditions worldwide including Acongagua, Argentina (6962m/22,841ft) – the highest point in the southern hemisphere; the “Mountains of the Moon”, Uganda/Congo; Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro; Greenland Icecap as well as the bizarre volcano ridden landscape of Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression (the lowest point in Africa). Henry Cookson Adventures boasts an ever expanding his portfolio of unique bespoke adventures and holidays all over the world.

Interests

With an insatiable appetite for walking on the wild-side, Henry loves to spend time going on adventures with friends and finding remote parts of the world to explore with just a back pack and camera. Photography is a passion and with a collection of over 100,000 photographs he has captured some remarkable images that he plans to exhibit sometime in the near future. He has an interest and understanding of wildlife and the more remote cultures of our ever shrinking planet. His mantra his simple – he has been most fortunate to have been to parts of this planet that no other human had previously set foot, he wishes this to continue and share it with his friends and clients.

Why have you agreed to be part of Walking with the Wounded?

‘‘The synergy of a major assault on the North Pole whilst highlighting such a worthwhile cause, gives these wounded servicemen a chance to prove that they can achieve what many might assume to be impossible.  I am both honoured and privileged to be part of a ground breaking journey with such remarkable individuals’.