The journey began 17 years ago when Rob Lea summited South America’s highest peak, Aconcagua in 2009. A decade later he completed the first of the Ocean Seven swims. June 30 he finished the challenge by swimming Japan’s Tsugaru Strait.
“This has been a long-term project, and it got me to travel all around the world and try these different events but also see the culture and all kinds of amazing adventures,” Lea said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour" July 6. “So, it's kind of bittersweet to have it done. It's one of those checklists that you look forward to, kind of checking off the next one, and I don't have one to check off, so you know it's exciting to finish it, but I'll miss that checklist.”
A lifelong swimmer and endurance athlete, Lea said the idea took shape while he was recovering from an ankle injury and looking for a new challenge.
“So, literally, sitting on the doctor's table, I decided I was going to swim the English Channel,” he said. “I've been a swimmer my whole life, but I really, I'd done some open water swimming with my triathlon background, but nothing in the open water like the English Channel.”
Researching the feat led him to discover only nine people had completed both the English Channel swim and a Mount Everest climb. He set his sights on accomplishing both within a single calendar year – a feat known as the Peak and Pond Challenge. That same year, drawing on his triathlon background, he also rode his bicycle across the United States.
Lea credited his wife, professional skier and mountaineer Caroline Gleich, with inspiring him to dream bigger. Gleich became the first woman — and only the fourth skier — to ski all 90 lines in the Chuting Gallery, a collection of iconic Wasatch Mountain ski descents.
“I don't think I would have ever come up with that challenge without Caroline's influence,” he said. “She's a huge influence, and she always dreams big.”
He also credited the support of his team throughout the nearly two-decade journey.
Although there is no single official governing body for the Seven Summits, mountaineering experts estimate fewer than 1,000 people have successfully completed the challenge. Lea also believed he is the 46th person to complete the Ocean Seven swims.
The Tsugaru Strait proved to be his toughest logistical challenge. It was the only one of his 14 major climbs and channel crossings that he didn’t complete on his first attempt. He said tides, currents and weather make open-water channel swimming especially unpredictable.
The most dangerous swim, however, was the crossing from Molokai to Oahu in Hawaii. The 14-hour effort left him hospitalized with swimming-induced pulmonary edema, or SIPE.
“At the very end of that swim, I thought I was drowning. I thought my heart was like pounding out of its own chest, and I literally, with even a couple 100 yards to go after a 14 plus hour swim, I didn't know if I was going to make the shoreline,” he said. “I was able to get there, but it put me in the hospital, so that one, I think I would have to say, tested me the most.”
Lea said people often debate whether climbing Mount Everest or swimming the English Channel is more difficult. While the swims can be more immediately dangerous, he said recovering from Everest was ultimately more taxing because of the weeks spent at extreme altitude, in the “death zone.”
“Your body is basically slowly eating itself and slowly dying, so that one you really just need to kind of nourish your body when you get back,” he said. “It definitely took a few weeks to feel normal. On these swims, I generally recover relatively quickly. After Molokai, that one took a good two to three months of recovery because I think I did some damage to my lungs with that SIPE, so it took a little while.”
Lea hasn’t thought of what’s next for him but said he and Caroline will be running the New York marathon Nov. 1.
