The reality of being an Antarctic explorer – endless solitude and 7,000 calories a day
In a lifetime of skiing all over the world, I’ve rarely been that cold – and certainly not in southwest England. It was a mild afternoon in Devon in what was already predicted to be one of the warmest global Octobers on record.
To say that I was freezing is rather more than an understatement. The temperature, with fan-assisted wind chill, had just dropped to -27oC and, with gloved fingers, I was clumsily trying to put together the 10 assorted components of a collapsible Primus stove. Confused and cursing, it took me nearly two minutes before I could potentially reach for the lighter, fill my pan with snow and get a brew on.
In less than half this time, polar explorer Sam Cox, my companion in the so-called environmental stability chamber at Plymouth’s Marjon University, assembled his stove with a smile.
This, said extreme body temperature specialist Dr Joe Layden, was hardly surprising. Sam is a former Royal Marine with twice my reasonable level of fitness and – importantly – he’s less than half my age.
It’s just as well that he’s got youth and 92kg of mostly muscle on his side. This November Sam will set out alone on a record-breaking attempt to travel 2,000km across Antarctica to the South Pole and beyond – smashing the current record by 500km. As he skis across the ice, he will be towing a pulk – a polar sled – carrying all his 160kg of supplies. That’s equivalent to the combined weight of two men.
He plans to ski for 11 or 12 hours each day covering 25km for 75 days, manoeuvring his heavy sled over or around lumps of wind-blown ice up to a metre in height. To complete this Sisyphean feat, he’ll need to consume more than 7,000 calories each day (about the equivalent of a dozen Big Macs).
In the university laboratory, Dr Layden and his team of students carried out a series of exhaustive tests to measure my physical and mental ability against Sam’s.
As I quickly learned, it was no contest. The combined effect of cold and effort in the simulated conditions of Antarctica are extreme. Within minutes, my body protested vehemently against the cold as my brain struggled to cope with mental tests that I could carry out with relative ease in the warmth of the lab.
Drawing straight lines between a sequence of numbers and letters on a page, at room temperature, is straightforward, and completed with little effort or concentration. But try doing it again in the cold chamber when you’re starting to shiver and it’s much more difficult. The mind wanders, asking questions like “why am I doing this?” instead of providing a solution for what your fingers are trying to achieve.
In my job as a ski writer, I’ve experienced bitter cold in over 550 ski resorts. Getting fit each autumn to go downhill skiing for another season I can manage with ease. However, getting fit to ski for two-and-a-half months across Antarctica in temperatures of -20 to -30oC is clearly in another league altogether.
“How old actually are you?” asks a 20-something undergraduate as she straps on a heart monitor and a face mask to measure my breathing, explaining that she needs this information for the waiver form.
A lead-weighted harness and an uphill angle on the treadmill simulate the extra effort required to pull the sled. Just getting onto the treadmill in all this clobber made me aware of my declining years. I doubt she’d allow her grandfather to do this. Well, in answer to your question, let’s just say that I’ve lived in the UK in the reign of three different monarchs.
“How did I do overall?” I asked Dr Layden.
“Not the best, I’m afraid,” he replied. “Once we put the extra weight on the treadmill that was physically quite challenging for you in comparison with Sam. For him, there wasn’t much of a change. His increase in carbohydrate expenditure was about 10 per cent, whereas yours was around 40 per cent.
“When we talk about ‘hitting the wall’ in a marathon, that’s the time when an athlete reaches carbohydrate depletion, usually after around 90 minutes. Unfortunately, you are hitting the wall quite quickly.
“I don’t think we can say you are past it,” he added kindly, “but we can say that you’re not there at the moment.”
I have to confess, I wasn’t disappointed. Christmas extreme skiing in Antarctica was never on my bucket list. Sam, too, clearly feels the same: “Your company would have been nice, but then I wouldn’t be breaking any records.”
He’s taking just one real luxury with him – a Christmas pudding. On December 25, as I tuck into mine before a roaring log fire after a day’s skiing in the Alps, I’ll raise a glass to brave Sam and wish him all the luck in the world. Contrary to popular belief, old age clearly does have its advantages.
What does it take to be an Antarctic explorer?
Ben Fogle’s three-part documentary Endurance: Race to the Pole concludes on October 16 on Channel 5. It recreates Scott and Amundsen’s duel in the early 1900s to be the first to reach the South Pole.
“These days we know a lot more now about clothing, equipment and diet,” says Dr Joe Layden, “but physiologically not much has changed.”
Burning the right energy
It seems that fitness for the prolonged efforts of a polar expedition is all about burning fat rather than carbohydrates. “As your level of fitness improves you increase your ability to burn fat. You become more efficient in moving oxygen around the body and you conserve your carbohydrate availability,” says Dr Layden.
Ageing debate
As to who is most suited there’s no set rule on age, sex and ability. The current world record holder for crossing Antarctica alone is a woman. Early this year British army medical officer Captain Preet Chandi covered 1,485km. Sam Cox hopes to beat this record by around 500km.
“Young people have high levels of aerobic fitness but they don’t necessarily have the stamina and mental resilience,” says Dr Layden. “It’s a fine balance before you physically start to decline with age. Someone like Sam in his mid-30s has the physical fitness for the task, combined with experience and mental agility from his time in the military.”
Lasting the distance
“The secret to success is endurance, not speed,” says Dr Layden. However, this has to be balanced against supplies. Sam Cox plans on skiing 25km a day. He points out: “If Scott had done another 11 steps each day, he would have made it back without running out of food.
Ali Macdonald of Salisbury-based Resilient Nutrition has put together Sam’s food supply – all 100kg of it. He says: “It’s a balance between energy density, nutrition completeness and palatability because it doesn’t have to be a misery.”
The atmosphere in Antarctica is dry – it’s a frozen desert – and you’ll need plenty of hot drinks. Sam will fill his flask with boiling water each morning, adding a cup of snow to cool it down at each refreshment stop.
He’ll leave nothing behind in Antarctica except memories, footprints… and human waste. This, he assures me, is environmentally permissible.
Anticipating the unknown
“The only factors you can’t train for are weather conditions and the mental challenges of being alone for so long,” says Dr Layden. When Norwegian Roald Amundsen successfully reached the pole in 1911, five weeks ahead of Scott, he had 18 companions and 52 dogs to keep him company.
Testing yourself
If you fancy yourself as an Antarctic explorer, you can test your fitness levels on programmes at Plymouth’s Marjon Sport and Health Centre (marjon.ac.uk). But as Sam points out, one of the biggest challenges of all, particularly in the current financial situation, is finding sufficient sponsorship.
Follow Sam’s progress on frozendagger.co.uk.