Australian adventurer Dan Bull set yet another world record when he took a boat up the highest mountain in Chile.
dan bull breaks the ice on his world-record-setting paddle in the shadow of chile’s ojos de salado, the highest active volcano on the planet. / photo Courtesy Dan Bull
Dan Bull likes to get high. Until January, the 38-year-old held the Guinness record for the youngest person to climb both the Seven Summits (the highest peaks on each continent) as well the Seven Volcanic Summits (the highest volcanoes on each continent), a feat he ticked off in 2017. And last March, the Aussie broke the record for highest kayak trip on the planet when he paddled the 18,723-foot alpine lake just below the summit of 22,615-foot active volcano Ojos de Salado, which is the highest peak in Chile and highest volcano on the planet. To pull off the mile-and-a-half-long paddle, Bull had to haul a custom kayak up the mountaineering route on the peak with climbing gear, a kit that weighed over 110 pounds (he refrained from using supplementary oxygen as per Guinness rules). “As I climbed toward the summit of the highest volcano in the world, I experienced the worst snow seen in two decades. I was trapped inside my tent, high on the mountain, for three days, surviving gale force winds up to 140 kilometers per hour and wind chill down to -45°C,” he says. Bull found the lake frozen over when he reached it, and had to use his ice ax to chip out a lane for the kayak to reach open water. “Water froze instantly as it splashed onto my gear,” he says. “I knew that if I fell in, I’d be dead very quickly.” So what’s the next height for Bull to top? “ I’m considering a shot at the highest swimming world record,” he says. “I’m not a swimmer, so I’d be starting from scratch.” Track his progress at DanielBull.com.
