helen thayer

In 1988, at 50 years old, Helen Thayer was the first woman to ski to the Magnetic North Pole, solo. Accompanied by her husky dog, Charlie, she accomplished the brutally challenging trek in 27 days without dog sled, snowmobile, resupply or support. At 57 years old, she became the first woman to walk the 4,000-mile trade route across the Sahara Desert from Morocco to the Nile River. At 63, she walked 1,600 miles across Mongolia’s Gobi Desert - another world’s first. She also was the first non-indigenous woman to kayak 2,200 miles of the Amazon River and spent a year living next to a wolf den in Yukon, above the Arctic Circle, to study their behavior. At 80, she was the first person to walk solo across the entire length of California’s Death Valley desert north to south. In 2009, the National Geographic Society named her “One of the Great Explorers of the 20th Century.” A bestselling author, her books - Polar Dream, 3 Among the Wolves, Walking the Gobi, and her newest Charlie The Hero by my Side - have been translated into nine languages.