Mark Synnott
Mark Synnott is an acclaimed climber, adventurer, and bestselling author whose work explores the outer edges of human endurance. A veteran of elite expeditions around the world, he brings lessons from high-risk environments to the stage.
Big Wall Climber
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Bestselling Author
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The North Face Athlete
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Big Wall Climber • Bestselling Author • The North Face Athlete •
More about Mark
Mark Synnott is a New York Times bestselling author, professional climber, and The North Face athlete, widely regarded as one of the most prolific explorers of his generation. His pursuit of unclimbed and unexplored mountains has led him on more than three dozen expeditions across Alaska, Baffin Island, Greenland, Patagonia, Guyana, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Russia, Chad, Borneo, Oman, and Pitcairn Island, among many others.
In Yosemite National Park, Mark has climbed the 3,000-foot granite monolith El Capitan 24 times. In 2019, he summited Mount Everest via the Northeast Ridge, an expedition chronicled in his book The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest. The climb was driven by a decades-old mystery: whether George Mallory and Sandy Irvine reached the summit nearly 30 years before Hillary and Norgay. Outside magazine called it, “The one Everest book you should read this decade.”
With his wife Hampton and youngest son, Mark is currently navigating the seven seas aboard his 47-foot sailboat, Polar Sun.
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Earlier, in 2022, Mark pursued a lifelong dream—to sail the Northwest Passage in this same boat. He completed the passage, a feat achieved by only a few hundred sailors, while investigating another historic mystery: the fate of Sir John Franklin and the crews of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. That journey is chronicled in his forthcoming book, Into the Ice.
Mark’s film and television credits include National Geographic Television, Disney, NBC Sports, ABC, Warren Miller Entertainment, Teton Gravity Research, and Red Bull. An accomplished journalist, he is a regular contributor to National Geographic and the author of The Impossible Climb.
He is an IFMGA-certified mountain guide, longtime search-and-rescue member, first responder, and trainer for U.S. Air Force Pararescue and other Special Forces. When not exploring aboard Polar Sun, he lives with his family on a dead-end dirt road in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Speaking Topics
Sports
Exploration
Adventure
Overcoming Obstacles
Culture
Watch Mark in action
Presentations
The Everest Enigma
Everest has long captivated us as beautiful, terrifying, and irresistible. While Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are credited with its first ascent in 1953, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine may have reached the summit decades earlier. Mark Synnott’s quest to uncover the truth takes you from London’s archives to Everest’s north face, where Sandy’s partial remains recently emerged.
“The best stories go beyond anything we could invent—and unfold in ways we’d never dare to imagine.”
– Mark Synnott