2026 Annual Leadership Breakfast

Aaron Linsdau is an American adventurer living in Jackson, Wyoming. He is known for the longest solo expedition from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole, his book Antarctic Tears, his winter trek across the Greenland tundra, and his three winter ski expeditions across Yellowstone National Park.

He led a two-person east–west ski crossing of the Greenland ice cap, a direction completed far less frequently than the standard west–east route, and handled all expedition logistics and planning.

Linsdau has undertaken more than thirty winter and cold-weather expeditions, including five solo attempts on Denali, a winter trek across the Greenland tundra from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut, and international climbs including Mt. Elbrus (Russia) and Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania). Television and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and ExplorersWeb.com have covered his expeditions and work.

He is the author of several books on polar travel, cold-weather survival, and expedition preparation, including Antarctic Tears, which recounts his solo, unsupported journey to the South Pole and back from Hercules Inlet in November 2012. Linsdau traveled alone to the South Pole on skis. He took 70 pounds of butter for energy, but it went rancid due to sun exposure during the final two weeks. Illness delayed him, and his trip to the pole took more than 80 days. The following year, Linsdau directed and appeared in the feature documentary Antarctic Tears – Determination, Adversity, and the Pursuit of a Dream at the Bottom of the World.