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Chapter 20.
last update: Jan 24, 2008 06:55 PM
The modern adventurers.
The geographic South Pole was discovered, so scientists opened up the rest of the Antarctic continent. But the era of the adventurers hadn’t finished yet: Antarctica kept being an irresistible attraction for them. A summary of the most important expeditions:
Fuchs
In 1914 Ernest Shackleton wanted to cross the Antarctic continent. However, because of circumstances (see chapter 18) his plan failed. It was only until 1958 before someone succeeded the challenge: Vivian Fuchs. On his initiative, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa organised the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The expedition also had a scientific goal: examining the thickness of the icecap and the nature of the rock under it. Vivian Fuchs started from the Weddell Sea with his team. During the expedition he used motor vehicles, and was also supplied by planes. Meanwhile a second team, commanded by Edmund Hillary, made the journey from the opposite direction. Hillary started from the Ross Sea and had to lay food and fuel depots up to the geographic South Pole. On 3 January 1958 he reached 90° South. Once he was there he had to wait for Fuchs for sixteen days. On 1 March 1958 Vivian Fuchs was the first man in history to have crossed the entire continent. In 99 days he had covered 3472 kilometres.
The second crossing of the continent happened in 1981. This time the adventurers did it unassisted. With snow scooters, Ranulph Fiennes, Charles Burton and Oliver Shepard covered the distance between the South African Sanae station and the Scott base at the Ross Sea in 67 days.
The adventurers took more and more risks. The French doctor Jean-Louis Etienne made the longest journey ever in Antarctica with the American Will Steger, the Brit Geoff Somers, the Russian Victor Boyarsky, the Chinese glaciologist Qin Dahe and the Japanese dog handler Keizo Funatstu in 1989-1990. They definitely needed a dog handler, because the six adventurers made no use of motorised vehicles, but travelled by good old polar traditions with dog and sledge. They were rather supplied from sky. The journey of 6400 kilometres (from the Larsen Ice Shelf, via the geographic South Pole and the Vostok station, to the Russian Mirny station) lasted for 213 days.
In the same period Reinhold Messner and the German Arved Fuchs crossed the continent from the Ronne Ice Shelf to the Ross Sea. They were the first to cross Antarctica by foot (or better, by skis). The two men made use of sails and covered the 2400 kilometres in 92 days.
In 1992 Ranulph Fiennes and Michael Stroud left the Filchner Ice Shelf to cross the continent by foot and unassisted. The adventure failed at 500 kilometres from their destination.
The Norwegian Erlin Kagge was more successful. In January 1993 he became the first to reach the geographic South Pole alone, on skis and completely independent. Furthermore, he did it in a record time: for the 1400 kilometres he needed only 50 days. Another Norwegian, Børge Ousland tried in 1995 to cross the continent alone, on foot and unassisted (from Berkner Island to the Ross Sea). But, because of frostbite, his effort failed. One year later he had more luck. He covered 2845 kilometres in 64 days.
On 4 November 1997 the Belgians Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer left the former King Baudouin station to make the longest unassisted crossing of Antarctica. Hardly 29 days underway one of the two sledges broke, and they had to be assisted anyway. On 10 February 1998 the two Belgians reached McMurdo. With the help of sails they covered 3924 kilometres in 99 days. With this achievement they commemorated the birthday of the Belgica expedition of Adrien de Gerlache (see Chapter 7).
