He set daily challenges for himself, such as summiting the nearest snowcapped peak, walking across a vertiginous ridge no wider than a horse’s back, or swimming across frigid mountain streams. The more exhausting the climb, the more miserable the elements, the more Amundsen enjoyed himself. He liked to imagine how he might appear to someone watching his exploits from afar, comparing himself to “a slinking panther” or, in one instance, to Ibsen’s picaresque hero Peer Gynt. He would return to the Belgica cold, wet, tired, sore, muddied, lacerated, and happier than he’d ever been.
