No Such Thing as Failure

by David Hempleman-Adams

  Adrenalin was coursing through me and I wasn’t finished yet. I threw on my parka and marched out of my tent, a little closer to the animal, reloaded and emptied another five rounds into his inert body. My heart was beating like an alarm clock and I was hyperventilating, but I suddenly realized how cold it was and that I had to get back inside my tent to avoid frostbite. I needed to contact base, and I was also worried that there might be other bears around. Although they tend to be solitary creatures, there are certainly areas where they are more likely to congregate. I had no choice but to try and get on the radio, as if you kill a bear in the High Arctic it is something you are obliged to report and, providing a pretty damn good reason for what you have done, arrange for the carcass to be collected. The storm was preventing me getting through on my radio, so I had no alternative but to press the emergency button on my Argos transmitter.

  Over the next hour I regained my composure. I knew I couldn’t have avoided shooting the bear, it was him or me, but equally I was aware that if I hadn’t been there in the first place, in his territory, it wouldn’t have happened. I realized I wasn’t to blame but I still felt guilty. As my equilibrium returned, I downgraded the message on my Argos to ‘Pick-up requested ASAP’. Within an hour a Twin Otter arrived and set down on the ice nearby. When he saw the proximity of the bear to my tent the pilot laughed and agreed I’d had a pretty close shave. I took him and his co-pilot around and pointed out the claw marks, they snapped some photographs and then filled out a statement for the Canadian wildlife authorities. After that we had to strain and lift 500lbs of deceased bear into the high loading bay of the plane, the animal attempting to exact a last posthumous revenge by carrying out a final post-mortem bowel movement.

  I wasn’t to know it at the time, but my encounter with the polar bear almost instantly became world news. I’d very deliberately kept quiet about where I was going, as I didn’t want any advance publicity to put added pressure on me in fearing another failure, but I couldn’t prevent the news getting back home. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but the bear would just become part of the quota that the Inuit are allowed to kill, with the carcass delivered to a village near Resolute. I made my way to the Polaris Mine and camped down in the bay, then the next morning headed off towards Bathurst Island. I knew that my route across that would lead me through what is commonly known as ‘Polar Bear Pass’, so named because it is an area that supposedly boasts more polar bears than anywhere else in the world. A couple of days later I saw another one about half a mile away, which was plenty close enough for me. Since I knew that bears tended to attack from out of the wind so as to avoid their prey scenting them, I deliberately pitched my tent entrance away from the wind, and left food on top of my sledge parked 20 yards downwind from the tent door. If a bear came sniffing around, hopefully it would at least be drawn to that first.

  A week later I felt happy with my progress, and I was coping with the weather and the solitude. I had a routine I was comfortable with and, most importantly, I’d regained my confidence after my brush with death. I was making my way alongside the coast of Bathurst Island and found I was encountering increasing amounts of sticky brown ice, which I suspected might mean I would soon come to open water, so I made a detour towards the actual shore. I was about three hundred yards from it when suddenly my right leg and ski plunged through the ice and into the freezing ocean beneath, sending me lurching over and ice-cold water shooting up my leg. Shouting out in panic I managed to get some purchase to upright myself and pull my leg free, and then scramble to some firmer ice nearby, but all I could think of was getting to solid ground. I sprinted over the ice as fast as any man could dragging a sledge, hurled myself flat-out on the icy shore and promptly threw up.

  I’d completely lost it now. If things had been only very slightly different, the surrounding ice less firm, I’d never have managed to pull my leg free, and if my sledge had slipped through the ice it would have dragged me down following it. Physically I was ok, but mentally I felt finished. I knew I’d come close to dying and I think even an experienced Inuit hunter could have made the same mistake, despite their uncanny ability to judge the state of ice. A thin covering of snow had helped deceive me. Apparently far more Inuit hunters are dying today due to global warming resulting in changes in the ice they are not used to. I erected my tent in a state of shock and radioed to base. I didn’t care if it was another failed expedition, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Steve, my radio man, was calm on the other end, and told me to get some hot sweet tea down me and he would call back in half an hour, but when he did I felt no differently. I wanted a plane, and Steve agreed he would call back soon when he had some idea how long that might take. I was getting angry by the time I heard from him again, and wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer, but then John came on the line.

  He obviously knew the only way he could boost my resolve was to make me even more angry, so he set about me with a typical Yorkshire tirade: ‘If you think I’ve come all this way just to go home because some sissy doesn’t like water, you can forget that. You just get walking again in the morning.’ I really don’t think I’d expected this, the sudden change from sympathy and concern, but it did the trick. I told him to get lost and that I was keeping going, but it was probably a good job I turned off the radio as if I’d heard them laughing on the other end the whole effect would have been lost entirely. It got me back on track however, determined to show them that I could do it. Am I really so easy to read?

  As the trip went on my sledge became lighter as I made my way through its supplies, but I was also getting weaker from the constant physical effort and the cold. To make matters worse I developed bleeding piles that made the effort of walking painful, and I resorted to stuffing a sanitary towel between my buttocks. I suppose having had the forethought to bring some with me says a lot about the sort of planning that goes into such a journey. I knew I didn’t have too far to go, and when I reached pack ice that I must be near the edge of the Magnetic North Pole, its exact position having been given to me by the British Geological Survey. Now I could only navigate using a sun compass, as the normal magnetic one was rendered entirely useless since it just pointed down at my feet, but on a day in my fourth week I was in white-out conditions again and could see no trace of the sun at all. I couldn’t afford a day without making any distance however, so had to work out some other method of finding my way.

  I was very pleased with myself at having come up with the idea of using the light meter on my camera to find the brightest spot in the sky, which must presumably be the sun. This was what adventuring was all about, using your ingenuity to solve a seemingly intractable problem, and I set off in what I felt had to be the right direction. After four hours’ going I came across some ski tracks, and I stared at them wondering how they could be there. No one had told me anyone else was in the area and I was totally mystified, but as the day was coming to an end I set up my tent and radioed base. I couldn’t believe it when they said my position had barely changed from that of the night before, it just wasn’t possible as I must have covered a good 10 miles. When my position was reconfirmed, and I was assured I was the only person out here, the truth slowly started to dawn on me. My navigation had totally let me down, the tracks were my own, and I’d come a full circle making no progress whatsoever. Although I was only 20 miles from the Pole I felt utterly dejected at the waste of time, but agreed I obviously had to stay in my tent until the weather cleared and I could see the sun to guide me again.

  The next morning there it was, peeping out from behind the clouds, and I set off as fast as possible, hoping to make up for the day before’s wasted time and knowing that I was only two days from my goal. I was no longer in great shape, but my sledge only weighed some 40lbs now which compensated a little. The day after I knew should be my last, and part of me was tempted just to ditch everything and make the last 12 miles an easy stroll, but I remembered how the previous year a storm had held-up my evacuation by ten days and som
ething similar wasn’t out of the question now. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.

  After four hours I radioed base to find out how much further I had to go, and a couple of hours later I did so again, to be told I’d only travelled a couple of miles and then barely one more. This made absolutely no sense, as I knew I was moving at about 3 miles an hour over pretty flat ground. I was beginning to get tired, but each time I called back I was urged on that I just had a few more miles to go. I was apparently still a couple of miles short when they said they were about to leave in the Twin Otter to meet me, so I had better get moving, and from then on I kept my Argos switched on so that they would find me. I was excited about going home, but now utterly exhausted and past caring exactly where I was, so I placed the beacon and flares on top of my sledge and pitched my tent. Within minutes it seemed the plane was there, tipping its wings to indicate it had seen me, and landing on a flat bed of ice nearby. The first question I faced was why I’d walked 10 miles further than I needed to, at which point the truth dawned on me that they’d had me walk straight through the epicentre of the Magnetic North Pole and out the other side, just to make absolutely sure I’d been there. I was angry for about a couple of seconds, and then it was hugs and laughter.

  I was going home after thirty-two days on my own, tired and hungry. After an hour drinking the champagne they’d brought we were off, and on reaching Resolute I phoned Claire at once to tell her I’d made it and was on my way back. This time we were upgraded to first class on the way home, a reminder of how differently the rest of the world treats the maybe only tiny distinction that divides success from failure. I also received much positive coverage in the UK press, possibly just a result of a British success seeming such a rare event at the time. I felt I’d earned it however and I’d learned a lot more from my second trip, to the Magnetic North Pole, than I had on that first one aiming at the Geographical Pole. I’d changed lots of things: my skis, the tent, sleeping bags. I’d encountered very different ice conditions, but it was still very hard both physically and mentally. I now felt I had the right to begin calling myself a Polar explorer.

  Eleven years have passed, and my life has changed in so many ways. For a start Claire and I are married, and I also have three daughters to support, Alicia the oldest, Camilla, and Amelia the youngest, who was born on 1 June 1995, just a couple of weeks after I completed the Seven Summits. Since I am not a professional adventurer, earning a living has obviously always been a necessary part of life for me, and perhaps provides one reason why I initially concentrated on climbing which meant shorter periods away from home, apart from a major expedition such as to Everest. I suppose having these responsibilities does make you feel grown-up in a different sort of way, more aware of how others depend upon you, but I certainly hadn’t lost my thirst for adventure. With our father having died a couple of years previously my brother and I had just sold the family firm, for which we had all worked, to a large American corporation, and I had set up another company called Global Resins. Both these things had forced me to concentrate on work, but I now had definite plans about what I wanted to do next.

  I was going to have a crack at the South Pole, and if I succeeded as I intended I would become the first Briton to walk there solo and unsupported. My thoughts had been heading south for a couple of years, spurred on by what I considered a great expedition by Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud to become the first people to cross Antarctica. I’d originally intended to attempt this myself with Roger Mear as a partner, whom I knew from Everest. He had a lot of polar experience having worked for the British Antarctic Survey, although my only previous visit to the continent had been when we climbed Mount Vinson the year before. We did have our differences however, about planning generally and how to do things, and clearly I wasn’t the only one who was having doubts about whether we would be the best people to work together on a long trip. I don’t really think either of us quite felt we could rely totally upon the other, so although our plans were fairly well-developed it didn’t come as a total surprise when in January 1995 Roger told me he’d changed his mind and now planned to make the Antarctic crossing solo. My mind was made up then and there over what I was going to do: I intended to get to the Pole myself.

  Having been once bitten I decided to keep my planning pretty secret however. I had to take Annie Kershaw of Adventure Network into my confidence, as she flies people in and out of Antarctica from Punta Arenas, the last major town in Chile, and without her help I would never be starting out or get back afterwards. Because they have often seemed to be so much more successful than us Brits I also decided I’d turn to a number of Norwegians for advice, one of whom was Borge Ousland who has since become one of my closest friends. He is certainly among the world’s most accomplished polar explorers and was just about to attempt an Antarctic crossing himself in direct competition with Roger. He still found time to provide me with a huge amount of help in terms of weights and equipment suppliers, but perhaps his most useful suggestion was that I train for dragging a sledge by pulling tyres along a beach, something I have done ever since.

  Thanks to the Norwegians I had all the equipment I needed ready by June 1995, when I was still flushed by my Seven Summits success and the birth of a new child. But I also sought advice from Sir Vivian Fuchs who had crossed the continent in the 1950s using a tractor train on the Commonwealth Expedition, and a climatologist called Dr Charles Swithinbank. With the latter I pored over maps and he told me what he personally considered to be the best routes, although he was adamant that any choices must be purely my own as he was still smarting following the criticism he had received from Reinhold Messner after he got into trouble. In my view, any choice ultimately has to be your own, and things can always go wrong, so you never have anyone to blame but yourself. It was a very hectic time for me, as I was also discussing plans for a couple of other future group expeditions, and had the £150,000 budget for the trip to raise. I managed to achieve this mostly through networking, with nearly fifty sponsors in total, although a couple of large chunks made it easier. It may sound a lot of money, but a major part of the sum simply covers the cost of flying in and out of Antarctica.

  I was due to leave on 20 October and spent the last couple of weeks training with my tyres and generally getting into shape in France and Germany. Then I had to say goodbye to my family. In some ways I felt most guilty about knowing I would be away over Christmas, and even if Amelia was too young to care about that Alicia and Camilla were already getting excited, with the latter really contemplating the first Christmas she would know much about. Claire and I were both pretty tearful when we said goodbye. I would be back in January, I swore. Apart from leaving my family behind, my major concern was not just my physical but my mental condition after all the work I’d put in over the last few months, both planning for my trips and in terms of the everyday work of business, including the stress of concluding the biggest deal of my life in selling the family business, Robnorganic Systems. Various friends warned me to pull out, but I just didn’t feel I could do that.

  Roger should have left Punta Arenas a couple of weeks before I arrived there, but had been delayed by horrendous weather. If he was surprised to see me he managed to hide it, but although we’d long since buried the hatchet I still felt motivated to beat him and was furious that Annie was flying him out a week before she would take me. She was fully booked however with a bunch of adventurers already there, including the immensely experienced Russian Fyodor Konyukhor, looking a bit like Jesus Christ with long hair and a beard, who had already made it to the North Pole solo but unsupported. He would now be making the same trip on a similar route to me. I was also thrilled to find Borge Ousland, after all the help he’d given me. We spent time bonding before our respective departures, but I almost didn’t manage to leave at all.

  I’d picked up my Argos tracking system from Swindon on the way to Heathrow for my flight to Santiago in Chile, due to delays in the Scottish company I’d been talking to sourcing it for me. Wh
en I opened the box it turned out to be one designed for a fishing boat, much heavier than the one I needed. I feared I was screwed until I managed to get one delivered to me in Punta Arenas at the last moment by a rival American supplier, due to much help from my cousin Nick Hempleman who ended up being my gopher there, running multiple checks on my equipment. The Argos was so essential because Annie Kershaw had called me into her office to warn me that, without a signal from me within twenty-four hours of setting out, they would come and pick me up, no ifs or buts. Despite my arguments that it could be due to something trivial like a flat battery or sun spots she was adamant that at £65,000 a time they would only be making one rescue journey.

  Finally on 6 November Fyodor and myself were flown out, along with Geoff Somers who would be my radio man at base camp and sole point of contact during the trip, an experienced polar explorer himself and someone I trusted. By going together Fyodor and I halved our costs, and we’d agreed that I would set out half a day ahead of him so no one could accuse us of not going solo. We landed at Patriot Hills, the only blue ice runway on the continent strong and flat enough to take a Hercules aircraft. From there we set off the next day on snowmobiles to Hercules inlet, which would be our point of departure and where we would spend our last night together before we set off alone. I was pretty freaked when I compared my equipment with Fyodor’s, mine up-to-date and his seemingly army surplus, which felt twice the weight when I tried to lift it. I suddenly felt very weak compared to this ox of a man.

  I didn’t sleep much that night, worried about the sixty days ahead of me. There would be strong headwinds and endless sastrugi, the Russian word for snow dunes that the wind can blow into mounds up to 20 feet high, a surface like a massively furrowed field that I would find all the way to the Pole. Although I would not have to face the open water and rubble of the North Pole in its spring, here in the Antarctic summer there would be opening crevasses down which a man could easily disappear. In the twenty-four hour sunlight I was up at 5.00 a.m., and after breakfast I said goodbye to Geoff and Fyodor, wrapped the harness of my sledge around my shoulders and set off on what I knew would be the most arduous trip of my life. I was on my own now, and I had to admit that I was frightened. I was standing on pack ice, 50 yards off shore, and ahead of me lay nearly 700 miles of the most barren terrain on earth.