Ben Saunders

Encounters at the End of the World

Two wonderful clips from Werner Herzog's forthcoming film about the people living and working in Antarctica (via the Morning News):

— Filed under Miscellany

Plans (and the broken ski binding)

A return to the Arctic Ocean is on the cards for March this year; a second chance for me to pull off the North Pole speed record that I tried to set last spring. It's a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless, and I have a vast amount to pull off in the next month in order to make this expedition happen, not least conjuring a significant chunk of the expedition's budget from thin air (at a time when cash isn't easy to come by, and I'm still repaying debts from the last expedition).

But in grappling with the big things, it's easy to forget that it was the smallest of things that derailed my plans last year: a slim steel plate in one of my ski bindings that broke in two. For the best part of a year I've been trying to figure out how to prevent it happening again. Salomon weren't all that helpful, and perhaps understandably; this was the first time they'd heard of anyone breaking one of these bindings -they're designed for backcountry skiing, not dragging a sled through the smashed-up surface of a frozen ocean- and they'd be daft to guarantee them for the abuse I put them through. For a while I considered swallowing my pride, mollifying my stubborn streak and switching to an older boot and binding, but I'm happy to report that I now have some fearsomely vast intellects focusing on preventing it happening again. Penso call themselves 'a product development consultancy that thinks differently'. Andy and I now call them 'legends'. We visited earlier this month to discuss the binding conundrum, half-expecting a bloke in a flat cap to knock us up a new one by hand from an offcut kicking around the workshop floor.

Instead we witnessed, grinning at each other in disbelief, a team of experts (including at least one Professor) spending hours on the problem, producing complex stress-testing computer simulations and wheeling in composites experts that helped make everything from supercars to Olympic track bikes. I've always been a geek when it comes to my equipment, so you can imagine my glee when this email attachment turned up yesterday.

I'll keep you posted as it all comes together. Right now, it seems like the binding isn't the only thing that's being stress-tested, but I have a sneaky feeling I can make this expedition happen. More soon.

— Filed under North Pole 2009

Rob Gauntlett

I was stunned to hear on the news a few minutes ago that the 21-years-old British adventurer Rob Gauntlett has been killed in an avalanche in the Alps. Rob was the youngest Briton to climb Everest (at 19), and he and James Hooper pulled off a huge expedition between the Magnetic Poles that finished a year ago. There's more on the BBC News.

I met Rob at a charity event in London late last year and was struck by how personable and self-effacing he was. His passing has come as a huge shock.

— Filed under Other expeditions