Exploration
What the South Pole is really like...
Polar explorer Ben Saunders skied to the South Pole and back.
Polar explorer Ben Saunders has done what few of us will ever do - see the South Pole. Along with his expedition partner, Tarka L'Herpiniere, Ben skied 1,800 miles over 108 days; journeying from the edge of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole and back. He was following in the footsteps of Captain Scott who attempted the same route in 1912. In 2014 they became the first people to complete the expedition that Scott and his team died attempting.
Forget notions of cute penguins and beautiful scenery. The reality of trekking across seemingly infinite tundra is far less glamorous. Apart from the cold (hypothermia is a daily concern), the lack of scenery, the tiny shared tent, and the rubbish (the pole has its own landfill site), you have to pee in a bottle. Still, at least they had access to the world’s most expensive takeaway. See what we mean as Ben gives us the lowdown on what life’s really like in one of the world’s harshest climates...
Polar selfie
© Ben Saunders
Why are you so interested in the polar regions? As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut and this is about as close I could get without doing a PhD and a 15 year training programme! It’s the extremity of the environment and the severity of the challenge.
Tarka and Ben pulling their sledges
© Andy Ward
Was there anything that surprised you about the challenge? I was naively expecting a bit more in the way of scenery. So much of it is flat, white, featureless nothing. When we see bits of Antarctica in the media we usually see the coast, icebergs, penguins, seals, or killer whales. The only living things (apart from humans) come out of the sea.
Before we got to the pole we skied past ovens, office furniture and cardboard boxes.
There’s also a big scientific base at the South Pole and there are a couple of new big buildings there. The old base is now being dismantled and broken up to be flown out and recycled at some point. But when we were there there was acres and acres of junk at the South Pole - which was a bit of a shock. Before we got to the pole we skied past ovens, office furniture, cardboard boxes and oil drums!
Oil drums and office furniture in the distance
© Ben Saunders
How tough was it? We covered around 69 marathons back to back dragging heavy sledges - we were pulling 200kg each of food and gear. It was super tough physically and mentally. Dealing with those days when it was totally featureless was hard looking back. We did long days and probably averaged ten or 11 hours a day of skiing. We were outside on our feet for 12 or 13 hours most days as we also had to put the tent up and down.
Putting up the tent
© Andy Ward
We put ourselves through hell.
How much did you eat? We were eating 6,000 calories a day, burning more like 9,000, so the deficit was about 3,000 calories a day. We were essentially running a marathon everyday for 108 days without eating anything. We both lost a lot of weight. We both knew it was going to happen so we put on a load before we left. I lost 22 kilos in the space of the expedition. We put ourselves through hell.
“We put ourselves through hell”
© Ben Saunders
What kept your spirits up? We had music which was sort of like a secret weapon. I had to have repetitive music, electronic dance music, rap, or upbeat rock music. Something that wasn’t too complicated to listen to. There’s a drum and bass record label called Hospital Records and they have really good podcasts. I had most of their back catalogue! Hilarious cheesy ‘Eye of the Tiger’ stuff is always good.
What was the weather like? We had a lot of bad weather which meant poor visibility which was hard - especially when you get low cloud, mist and fog. In a white out you can’t see the horizon and can’t tell which way is up or down. There’s nothing to focus on when you’re navigating which is challenging.
White out
© Ben Saunders
Is it scary? No, it’s just confusing. You’re reliant totally on the instruments, on the compass, the GPS. You start to doubt them sometimes and then get a niggling feeling that you’re going too far to the east or west! You just feel like you’re going in a circle. You can’t see where the snow is, or where your skis are, you’re just travelling through this fog. We both found in the worst white outs we would be lying in the tent at night feeling quite seasick, probably from having very few visual reference points during the day.
Tent buddies
© Ben Saunders
You and Tarka just had each other for 108 days. How was that? Luckily we’ve been friends for more than ten years and we got on remarkably well. It’s an interesting bond going through this. It was such a mind blowing experience and so difficult to do it justice with words. The knowledge that someone else knows what it was like is quite a special thing. To say that it was “cold”, or “hard work”, or that we felt “isolated” - those words don’t do it justice.
To say that it was “cold”, or “hard work”, or that we felt “isolated” - those words don’t do it justice.
There was a weird paradox because on one hand we were in this enormous expanse of nothingness for months at a time, and yet we were living in this cramped space in a little tunnel tent that was so small it would be illegal to keep prisoners in it. You’re spending a lot of time cooped up in this really high pressure sort of bubble where you can’t escape from the other person. Once you’re in the tent at night that’s it. You pee into a bottle! It’s just too cold to get out of the sleeping bag!
You pee into a bottle! It’s just too cold to get out of the sleeping bag.
Ben and Tarka at the South Pole
© Ben Saunders
How did you cope? We did a trip to Greenland which we’d used as a dress rehearsal the summer before. We used the same gear, same tent, same clothing, same everything to practise the routine and see how we got on. We even did some work with a psychologist. Our only real concern was that we were both used to leading things and both used to making decisions. We had a strategy where we would be totally frank, open and honest with each other. We also shared an understanding that we were both there trying to achieve a goal and if one of us was pissed off that lessens the chance of achievement.
Made it!
© Ben Saunders
Surely you must have had some disagreements? The only thing we often disagreed about was speed and pace. Tarka is really tall and lanky and I’m short and stocky. When we had really heavy sledges at the start I was slightly stronger than he was and had to wait for him to catch up. As soon as the sledges started getting lighter as we ate the food, and skiing technique mattered more than brute force, he was much faster than I was. Tarka is a super strong skier (he’s on the GB team for ski mountaineering). So we could never quite agree on the ideal pace. But we never fell out about it.
What were the biggest dangers? Mostly just cold, exposure, frostbite and hypothermia. We had a close shave on the way back to the coast, we were just running very low on food. Both of us had brushes with hypothermia, we were right on the limit.
One of the world’s harshest climates
© Ben Saunders
Did you have a backup plan? Yes, and we had to use it! We had to call for a resupply flight so we had more food and fuel flown out to us. We basically left ten depots of food on the outward journey. We buried the food and made a note of the GPS coordinates. We left the last depot quite a long way from the South Pole thinking we were going to be fast, that the sledges would be lighter, and we should, in theory, have a tail wind behind us so we would be super speedy. None of that happened. We were exhausted, the weather was terrible, the surface was terrible - sticky snow and high friction so we started running out of food before we got to the depot.
We called for more food - the world’s most expensive takeaway.
We decided to half our rations to string out what we had and we did four to five days on half rations but got more and more knackered. Then Tarka got seriously hypothermic and we had about 34 miles to go before the first depot and half a day of food left. I thought this is too much risk so we stopped and put the tent up, Tarka recovered and we called for more food - the world’s most expensive takeaway. I dread to think how much that cost. It was all rolled into our giant bill for logistics.
Not a cheap way to go camping
© Andy Ward
How much did the trip cost? The flights alone, including the resupply flight, cost nearly $1million. I raised all that money from scratch - in some ways that was just as hard as the skiing. I started trying to raise money in the recession and the last thing people wanted to spend money on were things like this. It taught me a lot about sheer persistence and not giving up. There were ten expeditions building up to it over ten years so each one was a stepping stone. I spent in that period more than £3million - so it wasn’t a cheap way of going camping.
What was it like finally coming home ? It was quite tough in some ways because we were totally exhausted. I was a bit of a hermit for the first few weeks and I just wanted to sleep. But other things were amazing, even just walking around without gloves on. We swore to ourselves that we’d never be able to take that for granted, to walk around with bare hands.
What keeps you busy now that you’re not planning an expedition? I’ve started a magazine, Avaunt, so that’s been a fun sideline. I’m doing a lot of speaking, I’m writing a book, so lot’s of different projects.
Success is the journey
© Andy Ward
Has your view of the world changed since you’ve been back? For ten years before this trip I had this huge goal. I was so focussed, determined and driven, so much so I sacrificed along the way to make this happen. At the end of it all there is a very definite finish line. There is a crack in the ice on the shore of Ross Island which is where Scott’s hut still is, so that would have been the same finish line for Captain Scott. We finally got to this point after ten years of work and 108 days of hellish slog, and stepped across the line - and nothing happened. I don’t know what I was expecting but the biggest lesson is that we often set ourselves up thinking that success, happiness, or fulfilment are some finish lines in the future that if we work hard enough for, sacrifice enough, and persevere enough, that we might get there one day.
Success is not what happens at the end of the journey.
It’s one of the biggest cliches going that it’s the journey not the destination that counts. If there was one thing that this expedition proved to me is that this is totally true. Success is not what happens at the end of the journey it’s how we play the game. It’s changed the way I approach life, I’m not saying I don’t set goals anymore but I am just saying I have stopped to smell the roses a bit more. Looking back it was the whole of the last decade that was the fun bit. It wasn’t crossing the line at the end of it. Without descending into too much cliche, I’m a bit more mindful and finding things every day to be grateful for.
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Phillippa Stewart is our Adventure Editor. Follow her on Twitter @PStewart_