An adventurer famed for taking her desire to roam to daring new frontiers, Cecilie Skog was a natural at conquering the unconquerable. With achievements unparalleled, from the Seven Summits to the three poles, Cecilie took her love of nature and made it the foundation on which she built her desire for exploration into wildernesses unknown. She became one of the most prominent explorers the world has ever known. Yet she flourished because she never set out to attain such lofty labels, rejecting the notion of ‘the best’ in search of the wanderlust that drove her free-spirited nature to the edge of human endurance. Yet her life was not an endless stream of joyous adventure. One tragedy forever changed her outlook on life. This is the story of how one woman reminded the world that the thrill of adventure is not found in the hunt for records, but in the adventure itself…

The Child Immersed in Nature and the Pull of Adventure

August 9^th, 1974. Cecilie Skog was born in Ålesund, Norway. Her passion for nature was always there but her desire to embrace the great outdoors really emerged in her teenage years.

Her innate sense of curiosity was to take her to ever greater heights.

Cecilie dreamt of the mountains and glaciers she wanted to get to know, not for the thrill of achievement but for the thrill of adventure. She lived for the moment. As a teenager, she became ‘completely obsessed’ with mountains and, growing up in Ålesund she had plenty to choose from…

“As a child, these peaks were just scenery for me. But when I started climbing them at around 18-19, they became familiar and intimate. In the beginning, I didn’t feel comfortable and I felt a little bit scared. Then I realised I just had to take small steps towards the summit.”

It was new and exciting for her. Surrounded by all that air, sitting on top of the mountains, she felt an enormous sense of achievement. “The view was amazing and to sit there with friends meant a lot,” she said. “It changed me.”

She was bitten by the mountaineering bug and so she took a climbing course, going on to train as a nurse and a glacier guide. She set her heart on Mont Blanc. And, at 21, she left Norway for the first time with her then-boyfriend to climb the mountain.

“We had no idea what we were doing. We both had such altitude sickness, but I found that my body could handle it much better than this. I don’t know if it’s genetic or just luck, but my body has always acclimatised very well to climbing.”

This was Cecilie in a nutshell. She had no idea what she was doing. Or where her thirst for adventure would take her next. She hadn’t even heard of the Seven Summits or the three poles, nor did she set out to conquer them all.

“The mountains I climbed just got higher and higher.”

She was free-spirited, pushing herself to the edge of human endurance. Her wanderlust flourished inside of her, taking her desire to roam to daring new frontiers. Life was filled with joy and adventure. Seemingly there was no way down from the top.

But tragedy would soon strike, a loss that would leave an indelible mark on her…

The Records Broken and the Tragedy that Changed Everything

Life for Cecilie was all about seeing the world with her friends. There was no decision to become a professional mountaineer. It just happened. “I became a nurse less and less and then, around 2003, I didn’t do any nursing at all.” Those mountains got higher and higher.

Reaching the summit of Mont Blanc was only the start for Cecilie. Next, she journeyed to South America to climb Aconcagua. Mont Blanc is 15,780 feet tall. Aconcagua stands at an eye-watering 22,840 feet tall. By 2005, she had climbed Denali in Alaska, Elbrus in Russia, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Puncak Jaya in Indonesia and Vinson in Antarctica. And even Mount Everest in Nepal.

All 29,030 feet of it.

She reached the summits of all these mountains not in the name of breaking records but for a love of nature. That said, she was the first woman to stand at both poles and on the tallest peaks on every continent, so the records were nice to have…

“[Vinson was very special]. There were only like three people on the whole mountain.”

But Cecilie was not alone up there. In 2003, she met a man named Rolf Bae. They were both accomplished mountaineers and shared a passion for the outdoors. They met on Mount Elbrus and Rolf proposed while skiing with Cecilie to the North Pole. As you do.

Elbrus held a very special place in Cecilie’s heart.

Cecilie and Rolf were madly in love. They both earned their living following their desire to travel to the farthest reaches of our impossible world. They married in 2007, just a year before their ascent of K2. The second-highest mountain on Earth at 28,251 feet tall.

Life felt like a dream, but it wasn’t to last.

The couple planned the trip for a long time. They started a business in Stavanger, Norway, leading other expeditions. Cecilie was starting to think about settling down. She wanted children and considered returning to her career as a nurse, but Rolf was not ready to settle down yet.

Cecilie had no intention of turning her back on the mountains. She wanted children but she also wanted to keep climbing. She imagined taking their children with them up the mountains, but Rolf had other ideas.

Namely, K2.

Cecilie was the first to arrive at K2 in 2008. Rolf arrived sometime later. He brought with him a present for Cecilie. A colourful, plastic inflatable sofa for their tent, where they socialised with other teams by the warmth of a gas heater and watched DVDs.

Cecilie reached the summit on August 1^st, but Rolf was exhausted. He never made the summit. Tired, he turned back, perhaps suffering from altitude sickness. He waited for Cecilie a little farther down the mountain.

When Cecilie reached him, they began their descent together, along with many other mountaineers who were with them as part of the trip. But, halfway down the mountain, Rolf ventured out under a huge ice cliff.

He was swept into the void as the ice collapsed…

He was only a few yards from Cecilie but there was nothing she could do.

Rolf had lost his life.

The Impossible Hurt

Cecilie knew her life was in danger too, and so, without time to think, she was forced to continue her descent. She arrived at the base of the mountain the next morning. She said she heard Rolf’s voice whispering to her, which helped her.

Rolf wasn’t the only person to die. 10 other mountaineers perished on K2 that night. Cecilie was incredibly lucky not to be one of them…

Rolf was his parents’ only child. Cecilie took it upon herself to phone his parents. She was devastated. “It’s okay,” Rolf’s father assured her. “We only have you know. You must get down safely.”

But Cecilie felt lost. How could she go home now? What was there back home except an empty apartment reminding her of the future she had planned with Rolf?

“Rolf was my home and I had to leave him up there on the mountain.”

She couldn’t face leaving her home for the next year. “The beaches at our hometown at that time… helped me. First, I just sat there and tried to hide in the grass, so no memories or thoughts could find me.”

But later, she went to those beaches with friends and relatives. Even with Rolf’s parents, who she moved in with. “It was easier to breathe on the beach.” Slowly, she regained her strength and new dreams flooded her mind.

“Rolf taught me that dreams are precious. So I grabbed my dreams with both hands and asked two girlfriends if they wanted to cross Greenland with me. They both wanted to. It was fantastic. Suddenly I had found people again with whom I could share my dreams. It helped me to come back to life.”

She never climbed K2 again. But she visited in 2009 with Rolf’s father to set up a monument to Rolf. She vowed never to climb any of the Earth’s tallest or most dangerous peaks again.

“I don’t know if I could tell my mum that I am going back. I could not look her in the eye and say that. One of the hardest things on an expedition is knowing people are sitting at home scared and waiting for you to come back.”

Greenland helped. She went on to cross Greenland five times, including once while pregnant. American adventurer and explorer Ryan Waters joined her. “After Greenland, I felt alive and wanted to keep skiing,” Cecilie said. “I asked Ryan to cross Antarctica with me. He said, ‘Where’s Antarctica?’”

In 2010, Cecilie and Ryan finished the first unassisted and unsupported crossing of Antarctica. Their journey took 70 days, covering a distance of 1,120 miles or 1,800 kilometres. Along the route, Cecilie and Ryan’s supplies were not replenished. They took everything they needed with them. And they did it on human muscle power alone. No sledge dogs or snowmobiles there. Cecilie said that she felt very close to Rolf along the journey.

“I simply let my feelings out; I cried almost every day.”

It was the first time she slept without medicine. Having someone with her who understood her and gave her the freedom to be herself left her with a huge smile on her face. These trips began to help her come to terms with Rolf’s death.

“It is very easy to sit here and say we should not have done it. But I am glad that Rolf was able to live the life he did. One thing he taught me: You should not just sneak after your dreams. You should grab them with both hands and hold them really tight and try to live them.”

The Renewal and the Dreams Live

In 2013, Cecilie fell pregnant with her new partner: Aleksander Gamme. She was halfway across Greenland when she found out. “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because my body was doing strange things,” she recalled.

“All the food I’d packed for the two months smelled so bad to me; the five guys I was leading smelled so bad – it was awful. But now my eldest daughter likes to say that she’s hiked across Greenland, so that’s pretty cool.”

Cecilie became engaged to Aleksander and they had another daughter in 2016. And Cecilie is still with us at the age of 48. She works as a professional adventurer, guide and lecturer. She still loves to climb, now with her two daughters, as she always dreamed.

Although she no longer races for the summit.

But a change of perspective has been good for Cecilie. “We might see an ant hill and we’ll watch it for hours. We spent a long time making maps of our route and playing on all fours.” She’s still a big kid, basically…

She’s also appeared on Norway’s version of Strictly Come Dancing, saying that performing in sequins was far harder than skiing solo across Antarctica. “Live TV was honestly so scary. Worse than altitude sickness. I couldn’t breathe!” I strongly agree. Although I’ve done neither. Well, yet.

Cecilie shows us all the merits of retaining a childlike sense of wanderlust, immersing herself in nature, all for the thrill of the adventure…

The Risks of the Adventurer on Top of the World

Cecilie Skog was a natural at conquering the unconquerable. She is an adventurer famed for taking her desire to roam to daring new frontiers. Her achievements are unparalleled. She finished the first solo crossing of Antarctica. The only person to have skied across both poles. And reached both the three poles (including Mount Everest) and climbed all of the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on every continent.

Cecilie took her love of nature and made it the foundation on which she built her desire for exploration into wildernesses unknown. She became one of the most prominent explorers the world has ever known. Yet she flourished because she never set out to attain such lofty labels.

She rejected the notion of ‘the best’ in search of the wanderlust that drove her free-spirited nature to the edge of human endurance. But her life was not endless joyous adventures. Losing Rolf changed Cecilie and her outlook on life.

It made her take a step back and appreciate a slower pace of life, later with her husband, Aleksander, and their two daughters. Her list of achievements is genuinely outstanding, but she reminded the world that the thrill of adventure is not found in the hunt for records, but in the adventure itself…

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