Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Amundsen and Scott Expeditions’ Routes to the Pole (©MAPS.com)

Is there a website for that?

There is a website for everything these days, including for expeditions to the South Pole. Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions is the one operator for serious private Antarctic undertakings:  http://www.adventure-network.com/our-history .  They also support scientific expeditions.  The little stroll that David and I joined will ski the last degree, from somewhere north of 89 degrees South, all the way to the pole.  One degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles, or 69 statute miles.  In all, with detours around any crevasses or sastrugi (frozen “snow dunes” that get up to six feet high), we will ski something less than 100 miles.  Not quite as heroic as dragging a sled all the way from the coast (at least 900 miles), as the Amundsen and Scott expeditions did 100 years ago (http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/22/geography-in-the-news-the-races-to-the-pole/), but still much more than an armchair accomplishment. 

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