Pen Hadow

Polar Expeditions

Pen Hadow is the first – and still only – person in history to have trekked solo and without resupply from Canada to the North Geographic Pole. He is also the first – and only – Briton to have trekked to both the North and South Geographic Poles without resupply – feats which he achieved within a 12-month period.

Tetley South Pole Mission in Support of the Royal Geographical Society (2 Dec 2003 – 28 Jan 2004)

Completed the Tetley South Pole Mission, a 680-mile (1,200km) trek to the South Geographic Pole, making Pen the first (and only) Briton to trek, without resupply, to both the North and South Poles. On 2 December 2003 Pen and British businessman Simon Murray set off to test the viability of a new route (a variation to the classic ‘Hercules Inlet’ route which lies 50 miles to the west), from sea level up to the South Geographic Pole at 9,301ft, hauling sledges initially weighing 28 stone (180kg) including filming equipment, in temperatures which reduced from -10 ° C at the outset to -40°C at the Pole.

On 28 January 2004, at 63 years old, Simon became the oldest person by a decade to have trekked from the continental edge of Antarctica to the South Pole. The 58-day ice odyssey raised over £280,000 to help restore and digitally catalogue the most important items within the Royal Geographical Society’s internationally significant polar heritage collection. Selected items from the collection are now accessible to the public via the internet or can be visited at the Society’s new public-access facilities at its headquarters in London.

The Omega Foundation Arctic Ocean Research Expedition (17 March-19 May 2003)

Pen became the first (and still only) person to trek the 478 miles (770km) from the north coast of Canada, across the moving, melting, crumpled sea ice surface of the Arctic Ocean, to the North Geographic Pole, solo , and without resupply.

He began what explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes has described as ‘one of the last great endurance challenges on Earth’ at midday on 17 March, and reached his goal, the North Geographic Pole at 09.54 GMT on Monday, 19 May. Others have likened the feat to climbing Everest – solo and without oxygen.

Along the way he saw no living thing, save a couple of ringed seals, a seal carcass left by a polar bear, and a small bird – a snow bunting.

The expedition was funded by an American educational trust – The Omega Foundation. This is a private charitable foundation dedicated to promoting scientific research, education, and environmental protection, primarily in the world’s high altitude and high latitude regions.

At the start of the expedition, Pen was hauling a sledge weighing 19 1/2 stone (125kg), filled with all his supplies and equipment, on average for 11 hours a day over chaotic jumbles of ice 1-4 metres high. Sometimes, in the opening 20 days, the most he could achieve was just one mile (2km) in a day.

Three-quarters of the way to the Pole, he lost a ski when he broke through thin ice and fell up to his neck into the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean, and he was then forced to trek the final 150miles on foot.

Pen accomplished his feat in just 64 days – more quickly than some of the few teams that preceded him, who were able to share the weight of some of their equipment between their sledges, and had further heavy resupplies of food, fuel, replacement equipment and medical provisions flown in as required. He arrived at the Pole one day ahead of his published 65-day projected finish date. Sir Ranulph Fiennes commented, “The man has a constitution of iron”.

The only solo journey, without resupply, to the North Geographic Pole previously had been from the Russian coast, on the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean, going with the flow of ice and wind, made by Norwegian explorer Borge Ousland (1994).

Previously, only solo journeys by the Canadian route had been achieved with resupplies.  The first, by the legendary Japanese explorer Naomi Uemura (1978), involved a dog-team to pull the sledge, and seven re-supplies were provided.  The second, by France ‘s best-known explorer, Dr Jean-Louis Etienne (1986), was a sledge-hauling expedition requiring five re-supplies. The third successful solo expedition was undertaken in 2001 by another Japanese explorer Hyoichi Kono, who managed to reduce the assistance down to one resupply. 

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