Life on the sledge as icemen aim for tribute to Scott

Despite the technological progress, challenges remain and later this year a team will begin an attempt to break the world record for the longest unsupported crossing of the frozen continent.

Mike Dann, of Longwood, Huddersfield, and three others will aim to travel over 3,000 miles in three months.

They will be battling whatever the inhospitable environment throws at them, each pulling 250kg pulks, or sledges, and if something goes wrong they will have no back-up.

They are due to depart at the beginning of November, in a team called PolarIce, in the centenary year of Scott's departure for Antarctica on his ill-fated final expedition.

"From being a kid as a boy scout and as a venture scout I loved going camping and being in the outdoors and I loved all the books about Scott and Shackleton," Mr Dann said.

"Hopefully this is a fitting tribute to one of Britain's most celebrated pioneers; Scott's ill-fated expedition to Antarctica is legendary.

"It would be amazing to think that a new PolarIce world record could be similarly reflected on for the next 100 years to come."

In Scott's day they slept in sleeping bags made from reindeer fur and poor nutrition led to scurvy. But this trip will be very different with the team using kite skiing, harnessing the wind and allow them to build up speed and travel quicker.

If they succeed their route means they will also become the first team in history to travel to both the South Pole and the Pole of Inaccessibility without mechanical assistance.

It will be early summer in November, with temperatures usually struggling to get above minus 20C in the warmer months and wind chill can make the conditions feel much colder. The team will also have to cope with endless hours of daylight.

"The hardest thing is the psychological aspect of it, being out in that sort of environment for three months is psychologically very hard work because everything is white, its 24 hours of sunlight so your body's rhythm is very weird," Mr Dann said.

Mr Dann, 31, who runs a construction company, will be joined by Tim Tottenham, Paddy Scott and Simon Edmundson, who are all from different parts of the country.

In 2006 three of the team's members won the Sony Polar Challenge – a 320-mile sprint to the North Pole.

Planning will be key as any forgotten kit could jeopardise the trip's success.

Clothing, scientific equipment, tents, sufficient food, fuel and other equipment for the whole three months need to be carried by the team.

The first part of the trip sees each of the four-man PolarIce team having to climb approximately 1,500m onto the Antarctic plateau, man-hauling around 250kg in kit and supplies – the equivalent of around three times their own body weight.

They recently travelled to Manchester, to an indoor real snow centre, to test items of kit and experience the effort needed to haul a fully-laden pulk uphill.

Mr Dann said: "We will be climbing almost the equivalent of a vertical mile, so it was crucial to establish that we could feasibly take on this part of the challenge and assess the sorts of loads that we will be able to haul."

He said they could ski comfortably with the weight on the flat, but found it difficult uphill.

"We've learned, crucially at this early stage, that we will have to use crampons to aid the climbing on anything but the shallowest gradients," he added.

They recently went to Norway to undergo kite ski training and between now and setting off for the challenge they will undergo extensive training to improve their fitness and endurance levels ahead of the challenge.

The team is working with the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, to take scientific measurements and will also be carrying out important repairs to a weather station on their trip.

More information can be found at www.polarice10.com

Tragic explorer of frozen wastes

Robert Falcon Scott was a British naval officer and antarctic explorer.

His first expedition took place between 1901-4. An exploration trip on the antarctic continent itself, with the party turning back in December 1902 having reached further south than anyone before them.

Captain Scott again departed for Antarctica in 1910.

Scott and his four companions pulled their sledges by reached the South Pole on January 18, 1912, only to find that Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, had arrived about a month before them.

All five members died on the return journey, the last three overwhelmed by the weather.