Discovery and man’s defiance to
tame and explore all corners of the earth has brought hundreds of stories of
heroism, treachery and death. In London, the National Geographic Society
brought together many climbers, who have scaled the world’s second highest
mountain, Mount Qogir, better known to most of the public as K2. Lying in the
Western belt of the Himalayas in Pakistan, it is seen as the world’s toughest
climb and known as a graveyard for some of the great climbers of the world.
Since it was first ascended in 1954 by the Italian pair of Achille Compagnoni
and Lino Lacedelli only 302 people have reached its summit, compared to over
2700 who have reached the top of Everest. Known as Savage Mountain, the
staggering statistic is that one in four people who have attempted to climb it
have perished along the way; in fact it has never been climbed during the
winter. Yet, like many challenges, we will expect this obstacle to have been
completed. 100 years ago next month, it will be the centenary of the first party
to reach the South Pole, the coldest and the most inhospitable place on the
planet. Famously, the party lead by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen beat the
British team fronted by Captain Robert Falcon Scott by 34 days. History will recognise
that it was Amundsen who reached the pole first, but the world will always
remember the testament and suffering that led to Scott and his team perishing
on their return journey.
I have written before about the
immense and daunting challenge that climbers make when tackling the Eiger and I
wonder whether it is correct to make the same observation about reaching the
South Pole. Before Amundsen and Scott, scientists were still unsure to whether
it was a continent or a piece of ice. Its geography was just as trivial;
Captain James Cook had made some basic map outlines on his travels to Australia
and New Zealand, but no one knew what lay inland. The British explorer Ernest
Shakleton had been closest to reach the pole in his 1909 expedition; his team
were 108 miles short of the pole and were the first to climb the highest peak
on the continent, Mount Erebus. The technology at the time was relatively
rudimentary and the purpose of many of the expeditions was scientific. Journeys
would take years to plan and finance, and the men would spend months in
preparation in New Zealand.
In Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition
in 1911, the team spent months taking readings on the ecology and biodiversity,
plus further months in placing food and fuel depots nearer the pole for the
eventual journey. It was only when they learned that the Norwegians, led by
Amundsen, were planning to reach the pole before them did the Brits become
concerned. Scott, who had joined the Royal Navy as a 15-year-old, ignored his
party’s worries and believed his planning based on Shackleton’s earlier
expedition was the best. As history now writes, it was the Norwegian’s
ruthlessness to kill dogs along the way that got them to the pole first; Scott
was unwilling to forsake the lives of his ponies and five men travelled the
final stretch man hauling their sleighs. On the way back to base camp Scott,
Bower, Evans, Oates and Wilson all began to deteriorate, particularly Evans.
Disheartened by not reaching the pole first, it is unimaginable to describe the
strain placed on all their bodies as they made that long, burdened return. Compared
to the photos the team had taken of glaciers and penguins, the morose and
crippling defeat is painted on their faces in this photo. As Scott wrote:
"The worst
has happened"; "All the day dreams must go"; "Great God!
This is an awful place"
All that remains of the men and their sufferings
is the eloquent account of Scott’s diary. The vivid realism and crippling
acceptance of the end is piercing to any reader. In his final entry he wrote:
“Last
entry. For God's sake look after our people".
As a man of Empire and Edwardian values,
the words and sufferings of Scott and his men were seen as patriotic and were
used in the Great War to rouse the troops. Yet many revisionists
depict Scott as arrogant and believe his stoicism ultimately cost the lives of
himself and his four companions. However, as our understanding of the Arctic
environment has improved; scientists believe that a four man push to the pole
would have saved them all. The fifth man simply used up too many of the
rations. History would be different if Scott and his team could have walked the
11 miles further to the One Ton Depot. The decision to carry on with the debilitated
Evans, who was first to die, may have taken have had an effect. As Oates had
infamously left the tent, it is believed that Scott, after all he had seen and
endured, was the final man to die.
As stirring and emotional the accounts of Scott and later
Cherry-Garrard are it is unlikely that such disasters could happen again. The
revolution in satellite communications has meant that explorers can pinpoint their
latitude to their nearest degree. In Scott and Amundsen’s day it was simply a
team of British and Norwegians in Antarctica. Today, thousands of scientists
inhabit the pole; in fact many who have man-hauled are surprised by the small
village at 90 degrees south. Planes fly in and out every day, and the journeys
which took months to undertake, now take days. The land that was once mystic
and desolate now has tourists and a legacy of rubbish streamed on its shore. Completely
different for the challengers of the centenary race.
It is important to remember the scientific breakthroughs that
people like Scott made and the information it gave for future cross continent expeditions
for people like Sir Ranuph Fiennes and Dr Mike Stroud. Scott was not simply a
man that lived a life that ended in glorious failure, but one that showed the
ability of human endurance and mental strength. When Amundsen learnt of his
death he said:
“In a career as an explorer which spanned more than 25 years
he achieved more than most people do in a whole lifetime.”
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