Even Olympians aren’t immune from the ravages of Mother Nature.

That at least is the case for British Olympian Alex Gregory, who recently shared an image of his ravaged hands on Twitter.

Gregory, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion, incurred his horrific injuries while taking part in a charity rowing expedition in the Arctic Ocean.

The month-and-a-half-long journey was undertaken to break 12 world records while raising money for a school in the Himalayas, according to the New York Times.

At first, everything went well for the six crew members who took off from northeastern Norway on July 8. The Polar Row, as the expedition was called, achieved its first major goal by reaching the Svalbard archipelago, which sits between Norway and the North Pole. They then turned south toward Iceland.

That’s when things started to go wrong. Constant cloudy skies made their 30-foot boat’s solar panels useless. Eventually, their batteries completely drained and they were left without navigation equipment or power steering.

“Everything is grey. I’ve never been in a place where there is so much grey,” Gregory wrote in a bleak Facebook post on Aug. 17.

“We never seem to be getting very far, nothing changes. Just greyness.”

“I’ve never been so wet and cold for so long. It’s seeping into my bones, there is absolutely no escape from it.”

Cold, wet and without any electronic aids, the expedition threw in the towel and headed for dry land. On Aug. 19 they arrived on the tiny volcanic island of Jan Mayen, where they planned to rest, recover and plan their next move.

Despite receiving aid from the Norwegian armed forces and members of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the island’s only residents, four out of the six Polar Row crew members decided that enough was enough. Their health was not improving and they decided they could not continue on to Iceland.

On Aug. 29, Fiann Paul, captain of the Polar Row, officially announced that the expedition was at an end. Nearly a week later, they finally made it off the island.

“The Polar Row crew and boat is now on mainland Norway!” the group wrote on their Facebook page.

In total, the expedition was stranded on the island for 15 days.

The time did wonders for Gregory’s hands.

Two weeks after getting off the boat and hands looking good. They were so quickly back to normal after drying out. Skin is an amazing thing! pic.twitter.com/QqxAZyKXZb

— Alex Gregory (@AlexGregoryGB) September 3, 2017

Despite having to cut the expedition short, the Polar Row declared their adventure a rousing success. In a Facebook post, they revealed that they achieved 11 world records, traveled 521 nautical miles, and became the first rowers to reach such a northerly latitude that they actually reached the permanent ice shelf.