Bell Micro CEO Heads For North Pole Adventure

Bell is part of a team, led by British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams and including Bell's wife, making the trip to draw attention to global warming and the need to preserve the polar ice cap, Bell said.

The trek will be filmed for a documentary that could air on The Discovery Channel and maybe one of the major networks, Bell said. Hempleman-Adams' 16-year-old daughter is also in the group, and would become the youngest person to reach the North Pole.

"I'm not an Al Gore, but I believe we can do some things to make the world not so bad as it is," Bell said.

Bell met Hempleman-Adams, who has climbed the highest peaks in each continent, reached the North and South Poles and set several hot-air ballooning milestones, at a charity event in Windsor Castle in England. Bell and Hempleman-Adams had a mutual friend in Steve Fossett, the world-record-setting balloonist who disappeared and believed to have been killed in a plane crash in September 2007. They talked and the idea of a trip to the North Pole came up.

"My wife was always very interested in going to Antarctica. [Hempleman-Adams] came to me and said, 'You want to go to the North Pole?' I said sure. Then as reality set in, and all the things that have to be done, it's one of the big challenges for my life. Nevertheless, we are going," Bell said.

Next week, Bell and his wife fly to Frankfurt, Germany, and on to Oslo, Norway. From there, they'll take a small plane to Longyearbyen, an isolated village near the Arctic Sea. Longyearbyen was recently in the news as the site of the "Doomsday Vault," an arctic safe to house millions of seeds to be protected against disaster.

"There's more polar bears than people there," Bell said. Next, he boards a small Russian plane to Barneo, a temporary ice base carved out of a floating island each year. "They're trying to carve it out now so a plane can land. It's 50 miles from the North Pole."

The group will sleep there in tents for three nights before heading off to the North Pole. Some of the group will walk and others, including Bell, will go by helicopter. "I got a report [Wednesday] from Hempleman-Adams that it's warmed up to minus-20 degrees. And the sun is up 24 hours a day," Bell said.

At the North Pole, Bell plans to plant nine small flags, representing each country in which Bell Micro does business.

Bell has always had an adventurous streak. He's raced cars for 356 years, including professionally, but this will be his biggest challenge yet, he said.

"I think it's a tremendous opportunity to go with people, friends, but also with great adventurers," Bell said. "We're looking forward to it. At first, we said sure we'll go. Then it's 'Are you out of your mind?' But once we made the full commitment, we're looking forward to it."