Mike Horn Height, Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More

Bio/Wiki
Profession	Adventurer and Explorer
Famous Role(s)/Famous For	He rose to fame in 2001 after taking a solo trip around the equator.
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)	in centimeters- 176 cm in meters- 1.76 m in feet inches- 5’ 9”
Weight (approx.)	in kilograms- 80 kg in pounds- 176 lbs
Eye Color	Brown
Hair Color	Dark Brown
Personal Life
Date of Birth	16 July 1966
Age (as of 2021)	56 Years
Birthplace	Johannesburg
Zodiac sign	Cancer
Signature
Nationality	South African
Hometown	Johannesburg
College/University	Stellenbosch University in Western Cape, South Africa [1]Mike Horn
Educational Qualification	Human Movement Sciences [2]Mike Horn
Ethnicity/Race	White
Food Habit	Non-Vegetarian
Address	Château d'Œx, Switzerland
Hobbies	Sports
Relationships & More
Sexual Orientation	Straight
Marital Status	Widower
Family
Wife/Spouse	Cathy (May 2, 1963 – February 19, 2015)
Children	Daughter- Annika (1993) and Jessica (1994)
Parents	Father- Former Rugby Player Mother- Blanche Horn (University Professor)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Mike Horn

• At the age of eight, Horn made a determined effort to cycle 300 km to visit his cousin, but his father stopped him before he got too far. “I was curious how many days it would take,” he said.

• Inspired by his father’s success as a rugby player, he showed a similar talent for the sport, but because his country was facing bans from certain events, he realized he couldn’t reach the top then chose adventure instead.

• Horn found a job in his uncle’s food import/export business and took advantage of the winter cold that destroyed South African cabbages. He made a lot of money out of it.

• Fascinated by the stories of Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Jacques Cousteau, he was always passionate about adventure, but it was an accident that pushed him to become an explorer.

• As soon as he arrived in Europe, he learned to ski on his own to earn money as an instructor. He did the same with rafting; then signed up for a marketing campaign and embarked on great adventures abroad.
  

  Mike Horn skiing

• While paragliding around Machu Pichu, he crashed and ended up in hospital for a month. “That’s when I made the most important decision of my life: to become an explorer,” he said.

• Horn completed two years of military service in the Angolan guerrillas with the South African special forces. “It made me realize that life is not a game,” he told Sidetracked. “I knew I had to go there to survive.” Then, ahead of his first major Amazon expedition, he joined Brazilian special forces in Manaus to learn how to survive in the jungle – which he did, despite being bitten by a snake and “stumbling blindly for five days”.

• Horn spent 18 months circumnavigating the equator using only human power – sailing three oceans, cycling, paddling, hiking through Brazil and Ecuador, and hiking through Borneo, Sumatra, and all of Africa. He then spent more than two years traveling 20,000 km around the Arctic Circle using a boat, kayak, kite ski, and his two feet, traveling above the tree line and against winds and mainstreams to make it harder. But one of his adventures also involved tough overland driving – taking a 4×4 car through 10 countries from Switzerland to Pakistan, aiming to reach the summit of K2 on arrival.

• When Horn embarked on his first adventure with another explorer in 2006 – a world-first trek to the North Pole in the dark Arctic winter with Ousland. He saved his expedition partner’s life.
  

  Mike Horn and Ousland during the expedition

• Before this Arctic expedition with Ousland, Horn spent time in a wind tunnel in Germany, practicing pitching a tent in 150 km/h winds. “At the end of the day, I could pitch a tent with my teeth and my feet,” he said.

• He also drank two pints of olive oil every morning to accustom his body to the 12,000 daily calories he needed to keep working in the extreme cold. On the expedition itself, he ate 100g of pure butter a day for quick calories. And to avoid freezing, he drank water to make sure he woke up every two hours. Each time, he urinated in a water bottle and used it as a hot water bottle to warm his sleeping bag from -39°C to 5°C.

• While abseiling after summiting 8,047m Broad Peak in the Himalayas with Swiss mountaineer Köbi Reichen, he ran out of pitons – so he took off his watch and stuck in a crack. It was a big risk, but he put a rope around the watch and used it as an anchor to carry his body weight and help him rappel down. The watch is still there on the mountain.
  

  Kobi Reichen (Swiss Mountaineer)

• Horn speaks seven different languages ​​and has used his fluent French to make a name for himself on TV, appearing in three series of The Island: Alone in the World showing contestants how to survive on a tropical island for a month.
  

  Cover picture of The Island: Seuls au monde

• Since 2016, he has hosted the French version of Running Wild with Bear Grylls and his subsequent version, Cap Horn, taking French stars on adventures in Namibia, Sri Lanka, Botswana, Venezuela, and Nepal.
  

  Mike Horn in his TV show, Cap Horn

• On his lonely crossing of Antarctica in 2017, he used uninterrupted sunlight to trick his body into thinking a day was 30 hours instead of 24 so he could sleep for five hours, eat for five hours and walk for 20 hours. He predicted it would take 110 days to complete the 5,100 km trek, but he did it in 56 days and 22 hours. “Every four days I was winning a day,” he told MR Porter magazine afterward.

• His motivational sessions helped India win the 2011 Cricket World Cup, contributed to South Africa’s upset victory over England in 2012, and turned a shaky German football team into winners of the World Cup in 2014.