In the presence of greatness
It struck me this evening that, looking back over the last five years, I've been lucky enought to have met most of the people I've looked up to as heroes and role models. I was trying to work out as I typed the title to this post whether I'd met them through doing what I do, or whether I'd sought them out in order to do what I do. The answer lies somewhere between the two.
The most recent encounter was with Robert Swan, this time last week. I've looked up to Robert for years – he was the first person to walk to both Poles, and he has gone on to launch massive projects in the fields of conservation and education. His website says this of his first expedition:
Without recourse to depots, dogs or outside assistance of any kind, Swan, Mear and Wood arrived at the South Pole on 11 January 1986. Testing the limits of physical and mental endurance, Robert Swan's 883-mile journey, 'In the Footsteps of Scott,' stands as the longest unassisted walk ever made.
I was about to take issue with this, when I realised that 'unassisted' meant slightly more to Robert 20 years ago than it does to adventurers nowadays. He and his team sailed down the year before, built a hut and wintered in Antarctica, in much the same way as Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen did early last century. There were no satellite phones in 1985, and Roberts team eschewed even HF radio (meaning they had no chance of assistance or evacuation if anything went wrong). In contrast, I blogged live, via satellite phone, from my solo North Pole expedition last year, and Simon Murray's wife was able to drop in via helicopter as he and Pen Hadow skied to the South Pole last year.
Tony and I are off to meet the renowned glaciologist Dr. Charles Swithinbank at his home in Cambridge tomorrow. While I doubt I'll ever be able to compete with more than 100 publications, 53 years of polar research and a mountain range named after him, I can at least aspire to looking as cool as he does when I'm a bit older…
— Filed under Inspiration