MARIUS REHN

Marius grew up without siblings. As the sole family focus, he was the adored sunshine boy who could never put a foot wrong. Perched on that pedestal, he was equally invincible through his early school years. But as the real world closed in, all that faded — to the point he had to do his last year over again later in life to get to where he wanted. It was, in hindsight, exactly the wake-up call he needed, and he headed straight into the military to sharpen up.

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He started as a clearance diver in the Royal Norwegian Navy, then went on to serve as rescue diver — winch man — on Royal Norwegian Air Force search and rescue helicopters. A few years of hauling people out of the sea and off mountainsides, and Marius decided the natural next step was to go for the other seat back in the cabin: he left the helicopter for university and came out the other side a doctor.

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Today he's a consultant anaesthesiologist. He cut his teeth flying with London's Air Ambulance and now flies for the Norwegian Air Ambulance out of Oslo University Hospital. As if that weren't enough to fill a calendar, he's also a professor in prehospital critical care at the University of Oslo, teaching and researching emergency medicine — the sort of person who is, quite literally, trained to stay calm while everyone else is losing their minds.

That same restlessness shows up the moment he's off duty. Marius has racked up more than 70 countries and shows no sign of slowing: the deserts of Oman, the jungles of Malaysia, the full length of Central America, a ski expedition across Baffin Island.

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For years, many of those adventures were shared with the family and his three boys on countless Norwegian micro-adventures. Now that they're old enough to go off adventuring on their own, Marius has simply redirected the itch toward solo ski crossings — with all the mountain plateaus from Finnmark and Skarveheimen taken on.

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Ask him for one story and he'll likely give you this one, told with a shrug and a grin:

"In the extreme cold on Baffin Island, the zipper on my sleeping bag broke — the metal just couldn't handle the temperature. I had to sew myself into the bag to stay warm through the night. Having spotted several polar bears earlier that same day, being cocooned and hardly able to get out swiftly, it was an interesting experience putting all my trust in the dog left outside. In the end I slept fine — though to this day I still ponder if that was down to trust or exhaustion :-)"

That's Marius in a nutshell: engaged, resourceful, and quietly ready to meet the situations that would keep most people awake for a week. His thirst for adventure seems to have no bottom — having almost forced himself onto the company, he's made himself available around the clock for the Ousland Colliard guides. Always on, always hunting for the best and safest way forward. In expedition medicine, being ahead of the problem is everything, a rather unusual scenario compared to normal, everyday medical practice — but with Marius on the team, it starts to look almost effortless.

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