Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery

New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He's scaled Mount Everest. He's pioneered big-wall first ascents, including the north-west face of the mile-high Great Trango Tower, and skied monster first descents. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he'd yet to achieve: to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat-- a feat only four hundred or so sailors have ever accomplished--and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.

Only a few hundred vessels have ever transited the Northwest Passage, and substantially fewer have done so in a fiberglass-hulled boat like Polar Sun. But Mark was determined to return to the Arctic, where he cut his teeth as a young climber, and in the process investigate one of the great mysteries of exploration: What really happened to Sir John Franklin and his entire 128-man crew, which disappeared into these ice-strewn waters 175 years ago?

In this pulse-pounding travelogue, Mark Synnott paints a vivid portrait of the Arctic, which is currently warming twice as fast as any other part of our planet. He weaves its history and people into the first-person account of his epic journey through the Northwest Passage, searching for Franklin's tomb along the way-- all while trying to avoid a similar fate.

In Into the Ice, Mark and his crew race against time and treacherous storms in search of answers to the greatest mystery of all time: What is it that drives someone to risk it all in the name of exploration?

Author: Mark Synnott
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 04/15/2025
Pages: 432
Weight: 1.34lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.38w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9780593471524


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2025
Publishers Weekly 02/24/2025
Shelf Awareness 04/26/2025

About the Author
Mark Synnott is a twenty-eight-year member of the North Face Global Athlete Team, an internationally certified mountain guide, and a trainer for the Pararescuemen of the United States Air Force. A regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, he is the author of New York Times bestseller The Impossible Climb and The Third Pole. When not living on Polar Sun, Mark and his family reside in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire.