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Sir Ranulph Fiennes to attempt record winter Antarctica trek Sir Ranulph Fiennes to attempt record winter Antarctica trek
(about 9 hours later)
In the coldest place on earth at the coldest time of year, where the temperature can fall to -90C, it should have been obvious that the veteran explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes would find the challenge of a six-month trek more than 2,000 miles across Antarctica in the depths of the polar winter irresistible. The appalling challenge of a six-month 2,000-mile walk across the south pole, in the perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter when temperatures can plummet to -90C, proved, perhaps inevitably, irresistible to the veteran explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
The crossing has never been done in the icy darkness of winter. Fiennes explained that because there are very few world records left to break, they tend to be very difficult. Fiennes' hero, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, wrote "great God, this is an awful place" when he finally reached the south pole a century ago, before freezing and starving to death with his team on the return journey. Apsley Cherry-Garrard called his own trek "the worst journey in the world". Ernest Shackleton abandoned another expedition as the weather closed in to save the lives of his crew.
"This will be my greatest challenge to date," Fiennes said, of the expedition – already dubbed "the coldest journey". "We will stretch the limits of human endurance. Britain and the Commonwealth has a strong heritage of exploration, from Captain Cook 300 years ago to the present day. As such it is fitting that a Commonwealth team should be the first to fulfil this last great polar expedition." Those journeys were made in summer. Nobody before has attempted, still less achieved, crossing the pole in winter. In a prepared statement, Fiennes said: "This will be my greatest challenge to date. We will stretch the limits of human endurance.
He will leave for Antarctica on 6 December, and hopes to begin the trek proper on 21 March (the equinox), heading off on skis across the ice shelf that killed his hero, Captain Scott, and his team a century ago. "Britain and the Commonwealth has a strong heritage of exploration, from Captain Cook 300 years ago to the present day. As such, it is fitting that a Commonwealth team should be the first to fulfil this last great polar expedition."
As with Scott and his great rival Roald Amundsen, who beat him to the South Pole, it is the rumour of a Norwegian team preparing to tackle the same challenge that has spurred Fiennes on to an expedition he has been brooding about for some time – one which he himself dismissed as impossible 25 years ago. Another Norwegian recently achieved the winter crossing of the Arctic. However, in person, at the launch at the Royal Society of The Coldest Journey, Fiennes could not really explain why anyone should contemplate such a venture, still less a man aged 68 who has survived cancer, major heart surgery, and the loss of most of the frozen finger tips on one hand – which he cut off himself with a saw bought specially for the purpose. "It's what I do," he said, looking slightly puzzled at the question.
Fiennes, who is 68 and has survived cancer, major heart surgery and the loss of most of the frozen finger tips on one hand, which he cut off himself with a saw bought for the purpose, has officially been dubbed the greatest explorer alive by Guinness World Records. Fiennes – officially the world's greatest living explorer, according to the Guinness Book of Records – was the first, with Dr Mike Stroud, to cross the Antarctic continent unsupported; the first to cross both polar ice caps; the oldest to climb Everest, finally conquering it in 2009 aged 65 on his third attempt, after suffering a major heart attack on his first; and the first to traverse the globe from pole to pole, with the late Charles Burton. He described this trip as one of the last great challenges, "now that everyone's grandmother goes up Everest at the weekend".
He has been in training in the Swedish Arctic in a balmy -40c, but admits the challenges of temperatures plunging so far below zero may require new solutions to be invented. He admitted his wife, Louise, and six-year-old daughter are not thrilled. "But I've never done anything else, it's how I earn my living. And you're much more likely, statistically, to die on the roads here than on the polar ice."
It was a spell of exceptionally cold summer weather, which made travel impossible for days on end, that finished Scott, and many other polar explorers. A separate group of Scott's men who found themselves stranded when the late summer temperature plunged unexpectedly early and sea ice blocked their escape, barely survived a winter holed up in an ice cave. He shrugged off suggestions he might be too old for such jaunts: "If you're still lucky enough to be able to walk around, you might as well go for it." As with Scott and his great rival Roald Amundsen, who beat him to the South Pole, it was rumours of a Norwegian team preparing for the same challenge that goaded Fiennes into an expedition which he himself dismissed as impossible 25 years ago. Another Norwegian recently achieved the winter crossing of the Arctic.
Sir Earnest Shackleton, also hit by unexpectedly vile summer weather, abandoned another attempt rather than risk the lives of all his men. After training in the Swedish Arctic in a relatively balmy -40C, his team will sail from London on 6 December on a South African research ship, the SA Agulhas – leased at a bargain price from the South African Maritime Safety Authority.
For the same reason, rescue will be almost impossible if the team gets into serious trouble. The ice trek proper will begin on 21 March, the equinox that marks the official start of the polar winter, from the Russia base of Novolazareskaya. Fiennes and his five team members must then climb more than 3,048 metres on to the inland plateau, trek for several hundred miles with all the supplies and equipment they need, descend another 3,000 metres, and finally cross almost another 2,000 miles to reach the Ross Sea.
Fiennes and his five team members will have to climb 3,048m onto the inland plateau, trek for several hundred miles with all the supplies and equipment they need, descend another 3,000m, and finally cross almost another 2,000 miles to reach the Ross Sea. If they reach Captain Scott's old base at McMurdo Sound, via the South Pole, by the spring equinox six months later, they will still have to wait for months until the sea ice retreats enough for their ship to collect them.
The expedition will sail on a South African ice-strengthened research ship, the SA Agulhas – loaned by the South African Maritime Safety Authority – undertaking a variety of scientific research tasks during the journey. The ice trek proper will begin from the Russian base of Novolazarevskaya, and cross via the South Pole to Captain Scott's old base at McMurdo Sound. The saddest man on the ice will be Stroud, who for decades was Fiennes' joint expedition leader and medical officer. He dreamed up this adventure but finally concluded a fortnight ago that he could not join it – mainly because more than a year away from his work at Southampton University would pummel his pension entitlement.
Fiennes and his companions will travel on skis, but will be followed by two modified tractors, towing two sledge-mounted living quarters, supplies, equipment, and 155,000 litres of special fuel adapted against freezing. Scott also experimented with a specially modified tracked vehicle, only to have team members almost lose their lives trying to rescue it from an ice crevasse, before finally abandoning it in the snow. He will sail with them and then wave them off. He is currently desolately interviewing for his own replacement. It takes a special temperament to fit into a "very small, very isolated group in very extreme conditions", he said – so isolated that space travel researchers will be monitoring their progress, in a project dubbed "White Mars".
Fiennes's 20-tonne vehicles will carry radar to identify crevasses, and cloud and satellite technologies that will broadcast news of the expedition's progress. The expedition will also raise money for the blindness charity Seeing Is Believing. His replacement must cope alone with any medical emergency – not just trivialities such as coughing blood from lungs damaged by the icy air, experienced by both Stroud and Fiennes on their last Antarctic expedition, when each was hauling 220kg of supplies. In the event of what he terms "a howling disaster" the team will carry a dead body with them – in cold storage, as he pointed out cheerfully.
Fiennes was the first to cross the Antarctic continent unsupported, with Dr Mike Stroud, the first to cross both polar ice caps, the oldest to climb Everest, finally conquering it in 2009 aged 65 on his third attempt, after suffering a major heart attack on his first, and the first to traverse the globe from pole to pole with the late Charles Burton. This time Fiennes and Stroud's replacement will lead the way on skis, towing relatively light ground-penetrating radar equipment. The radar should give the two following tractors 30 to 40 metres warning of ice crevasses, which could swallow them whole in a few seconds. The tractors are heavily modified standard machines, stripped down and rebuilt, every piece of plastic replaced with more resistant silicone, and adapted to run on aviation fuel, each towing about 70 tonnes in equipment and the living pods. The team will include an engineer and a mechanic able to make running repairs, but in the event of calamity will have to camp out until summer, the earliest a rescue mission could reach them.
Stroud estimates each team member will need around 6,000 calories a day from freeze-dried supplies, although he and Fiennes consumed up to 11,000 calories each on their last Antarctic expedition.
Fiennes just hopes there are good flapjacks, the highlight of each of his last days on the ice – until he noticed that Stroud was giving him a much smaller one. He demanded to be allowed to choose his own, but after a week realised that his still looked smaller.
"As you get hungry, it has a bad effect on your personality," he explained - the only glimpse he offered into the internal workings of the mind of an extraordinary man.