The Coldest Journey

[Paul Ward]

There haven't been many long winter journey's made in Antarctica because it's ridiculously cold and dark too. The most famous is Cherry-Garrads "Worst Journey in the World" as a part of Captain Scott's South Pole Expedition in July 1911.

Now the 68 year old Sir Ranulph Fiennes has set off to be the first man to cross Antarctica in the winter.

The ship sailed this week on the 6th of December 2012, they will set off properly on the spring equinox, the 21st of March 2013 on a journey that is expected to take 6 months to reach the Ross Sea via the South Pole.

While the journey will be on foot (or rather on skis), there will be a tractor dragging two 20 foot accomodation pods behind them where they will sleep, eat and recover until the day job comes around again and it's off out to walk across the ice in the dark at temperatures that will certainly be -50C, probably -70C and possibly even colder than this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/de...ctic-adventure

http://www.nce.co.uk/news/fiennes-ta...635808.article