Meet the man who's climbed the 7 highest mountains and sailed the 7 seas in the world

onnaedo

April 19, 2016 2:41 PM

Frey's 11-year record-breaking journey started after he decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

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While many of us struggle with checking an activity off our bucket list, or even putting one together for that matter, American, Martin Frey has climbed the highest mountains on every continent and sailed all 7 seas of the continents.

Frey's 11-year record-breaking journey started after he decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

According to the 56-year old, he had been on a safari trip and thought it would be a fun challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Four years after scaling Alaska's Mount Denali, he got the idea of tackling the highest summits in every continent.

CNN reports that in the following years, he tackled the "seven summits" one by one - South America's Mount Aconcagua, Asia's Mount Everest, Europe's Mount Elbrus and Oceania's Carstensz Pyramid.

Not satisfied, the Utah native decided to tackle the "seven seas" two months after climbing to the top of Antarctica's Mount Vinson in 2012.

But things got more interesting as Frey decided to sail round the world with his family - wife and 7-year old daughter, Lily. According to Frey:

"We were looking for something that still met my need for adventure but was still a family activity"

On April 17, Frey sailed his final leg on the North Pacific Ocean in the Clipper Round the World race as a crew member on Visit Seattle, making him the first person to have ever climbed the world's seven summits and sailed the seven seas.

The claim is however currently being corroborated by Guinness World Records.

Frey used to work as a senior director for technology company Cisco, then as a senior official in the Utah Governor's Office.

Now he works as a motivational speaker on the topics of success and achievement, and describes himself "not a sailing or mountaineering expert; I'm just an ordinary guy, a guy who happened to choose these challenges in order to reach my own potential"

Speaking on challenges faced along the way, Frey said when he was 17,000 feet up Mount Denali, he encountered a storm that left him stuck in a tent for six days.

But part of what made it easy to keep going was the knowledge that he could always turn back, as per an agreement he had with his wife.

He also added that sea sickness was a challenge he had to deal with.

So what was the biggest lesson taken from the experience? - Not putting limits on one's own potential.

onnaedo