Antarctic adventurers battle for pole position in race

Stephen Goodwin reports on rival attempts to make the first solo and unaided crossing of the continent

Roger Mear will be hoping to redress the balance of history during the coming Antarctic summer when, if all goes to plan, he and a Norwegian adventurer vie to make the first coast-to-coast crossing, alone and unsupported.

History hangs heavily over exploration in the world's loneliest and coldest places. Ernest Shackleton, in 1914, called the 1,657-mile crossing of Antarctica "the last great land journey on Earth".

But his ship, the Endurance, was crushed by pack ice soon after arriving in the Weddell Sea and the great challenge of a crossing unaided by dogs, mechanical transport or supply drops by air stands to this day.

Average temperatures during the Antarctic "summer" will be around -15C to -20C. On a warm day, the mercury could reach -5C, but at times during the 100-day trek it could drop to -40C.

There is also the solitude to bear in mind. For three months, just about all either of the men will hear is the swish of their skis and the singing of the wind over the ice and snow in a landscape the size of Europe.

Both Mear, a 45-year old mountain guide, and Borge Ousland, from Oslo, take their inspiration from Shackleton but are acutely conscious of the parallel with the Scott-Amundsen race to claim the South Pole. "It is a race in the sense that once somebody has answered the question, `Can it be done?', it is not available to anybody else," said Mear. "But the excitement is about answering that bigger question, not about racing somebody else.

"Perhaps it is about time the British redressed the balance though," he adds. Not only did Amundsen beat Scott, but five years ago Ousland and his compatriot Erling Kagge became the first to ski unsupported to the North Pole.

Ousland, a 33-year former deep-sea diver, is uncomfortable with the description of the journey as a race; indeed while he will be able to transmit his position and emergency messages, the Norwegian says he will not be able to receive updates on Mear's progress.

"I do it because I want to break physical and mental borders, seek new truth, do what has never been done before," Ousland says.

Both men appear to share more of Amundsen's approach than Scott's, believing it is better to work with nature rather than struggle against it. Amundsen reached the Pole on 14 December 1911, Scott arrived a month later. Bitterly disappointed, he and his team perished on the return journey.

In 1986, Mear, with companions Robert Swan and Gareth Wood, laid the ground rules for unsupported polar travel when they hauled sledges the 883 miles to the South Pole. As planned, they were flown out - but they were fit and had food and fuel to spare, hardening Mear's confidence for a coast-to-coast crossing.

The door was finally unlocked by Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud in the winter of 1992-93. The pair hauled their sledges 1,384 miles from the Weddell Sea, across the Pole and on to the Ross Ice Shelf before being airlifted off, suffering from severe frostbite and weight loss.

They were still well short of their original objective - Scott Base, another 346 miles across the ice - but Fiennes rather obscured this with the accurate claim that they had crossed the Antarctic continent. "They made the really big step," Mear acknowledges, praising the pair's achievement.

Setting out early in November, both Mear and Ousland will follow essentially the same route as Fiennes and Stroud but, being alone, may have to deviate to avoid crevasses - deep fissures in the glaciers which could swallow the skier and his sledge.

"Crevasses are the major worry for somebody travelling by themselves," Mear said. He has trimmed vital pounds off the weight he will start out with - reducing it to 450lb compared to the 485lb hauled by both Fiennes and Stroud. "Ran's jacket weighed about 3lb whereas as mine is just over 1lb - so that's the weight of a whole day's food saved." Other refinements include a black tent instead of a basic orange, absorbing radiation and saving vital calories for the occupant.