Expedition Info

The expedition begins in early November with a cargo flight from southern Chile to Hercules Inlet, a tented camp in Antarctica.

A further flight takes John to the Antarctic coast and his route then follows a broadly straight line south to the South Pole, deviating for known crevasse fields and steep terrain. The straight line distance to the Pole and back is 1382 miles, or 2217 km.

In order to maximise travelling time John will be working and living to a 28-hour day. 14 hours a day, punctuated by brief food and water stops every 2 hours or so, will be spent on foot. With 8 hours sleep, this allows 3 hours at the beginning and end of each day for making and breaking camp, cooking, eating, melting water, repairs, communications, etc.

With 24 hour daylight, John’s body-clock should quickly adjust to the longer day.

On the outward journey, John will depot food and fuel every 90 miles, to be collected on the return. Exact navigation is clearly vital to find the depots again, which are likely to have been covered by snow meanwhile.

The early part of the journey is likely to have good ice conditions. The central part of the route to the Pole is dominated by rough ice, or sastrugi, where one tries to navigate around the larger obstacles, although this is impossible when white-out conditions prevail. Higher up on the polar plateau where the snow takes on a sand-like consistency, pulling becomes harder and temperatures fall further.

Crevasses are an ever-present risk, especially when visibility is poor. Whilst John will carry some self-rescue equipment a fall is most likely to result in disaster.

Expeditions to the South Pole commonly travel for 9 hours a day, and eat around 5,000 calories a day to refuel the body. Despite this, travellers expect to lose up to 20 kg of weight in the one-way journey. Usually this is compensated for by putting on extra body-fat prior to departure.

John must take a different approach. Being relatively light, putting on several stone in advance is merely a recipe for ill-health and torpor, and a brake upon his ability to maximise his fitness beforehand.

John will eat at least 8,000 calories a day, and will start at his ‘fighting weight’ with no extra fat reserves. Whilst this should be sufficient energy, he will struggle not only to pull this weight but to actually eat the required volume of food in a day.

On reaching the Pole, John will stop long enough for a few photos and turn back towards the coast. He will need to be careful not to accept any food, drink or equipment from any one at the base which may jeopardise the unsupported nature of the expedition.

John will be in daily contact with the logistics base at Patriot Hills, from where any rescue, if needed, would be launched. Whilst air cover is theoretically available, much of the route lies over 100 miles from any realistic landing place. If he has not reached the coast by the time of the last flight to leave the continent, he will need to be airlifted out.

Temperatures will vary between -10 C and -40 C. However, how cold this feels will depend upon the wind. In fact -40 C in the sun with no wind can be relatively comfortable, but -10 C in a strong wind can be debilitating and quickly lead to frostbite for the unwary.

For information on the distances, times, targets, weights, etc. that John will be working to click here to view the ’77 days’ page.