Alone and on Foot in Antarctica
25:00 Share

Travel is great, but planning for travel can be time-consuming and difficult. That's where OneTravel comes in. With OneTravel, you'll find everything you need to book the perfect trip. Flights, hotels, cars, transportation, it's all right there. With OneTravel, you can book online, via app, or even pick up the phone and talk to a travel advisor ready to help you make your selections. Visit OneTravel.com slash music or call 855-437-2154. Plan it. Book it. Live it. OneTravel.

My Keurig brewer from Walmart always comes in super clutch. I got it so I can keep grinding on my paper. You know I'm hitting that deadline. I also got it so I can stay up late to do some exam cramming. And of course, you know I'll be ready to stroll into my morning class sipping in style. I guess you could say it's a literal lifesaver. Cheers to that. Shop your coffee fuel needs at Walmart. Listener supported. WNYC Studios.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Next week on the program, I'm going to be talking with my colleague and friend David Gran, one of the great nonfiction writers working today. He's got two books out that are high on the bestseller list this summer. So before that interview, I wanted to share again a story that David brought to the Radio Hour a few years ago. It's about the explorer Henry Worsley, the subject of David's book, The White Darkness. ♪

3.9, four nautical miles over three and a half hours travel was pleasing. I'm in great spirits. It's so wonderful to be back on the snow, heading south. Good night. Worsley set out in 2015 to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided. He was on skis, pulling his food and his equipment behind him. Well, polar journeys are all about how fit and strong your mind and will are.

Here's David Grant. Henry had been to the South Pole twice before, but this would be his first solo expedition. And it was also longer than his other expeditions and more dangerous than any other expedition he had ever attempted.

Henry was a meticulous planner, ruthlessly whittling down all his equipment to the bare essentials. Most important was his satellite phone, which would allow him to stay in contact with ALE, Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, a company that helped get polar explorers on and off the continent. Okay, stats for today, personal 660.

Each night, after a long trek, he would call ALE, give them his medical condition and his coordinates. If he was ever in trouble, he could call for what he referred to as the most expensive taxi ride in the world, which would be a rescue plane to pull him out. He also called a friend in London so he could record an audio diary of his day, which could then be posted on his website.

and it updated listeners about what he was going through, what he was eating, what he was feeling. Good evening everybody. Sun shone for most of the day whilst wave after wave of low cloud cast intriguing bands of shadow and light that raced across the surface creating strips of light all running parallel to each other. It was cold. He was incredibly good looking.

And at that point, most of my friends were in the art world, in books or theater or film, and we all thought that someone in the Special Forces was very, very glamorous. Henry met his wife Joanne at a party in London in 1989. He had recently completed his selection course for the Special Air Service, or SAS, a legendary elite commando unit.

And actually, I like adventurous people. I think it's great talking to people who are adventurous. So the SAS has extreme endurance tests, which you have to pass in order to qualify. Several people have died even trying to take that course. Henry was among the very few who passed it.

And in many ways, he and Joanna were opposites. She hates the cold. She couldn't think of any more dreadful place in the world than Antarctica. Yet for all their differences, they shared a similar sensibility. He really was a true romantic. He loved poetry. He loved art. He did tapestry. He stitched the most wonderful tapestry of two sledges going across the snow.

He loved the history of all these old explorers and he glamorized their lives at his head. Henry worshipped Ernest Shackleton, who in many ways was a failure as an explorer. On his first expedition that he commanded himself,

He set out to reach the South Pole with three other men. They got within 97 nautical miles of the pole, but he feared that if he kept going, his men who were already fading would not make it back. Those 14 men who were my comrades, who, regardless of self... And so he made a decision that always astonished Henry Worsley. He decided to turn back. And it has been through them that we have achieved

And on his other most famous expedition, Shackleton had wanted to walk across Antarctica. He thought it was the last great prize to be achieved. But before he even reached Antarctica, his ship, the Endurance, got frozen in the ice. And Shackleton found him and all his men marooned on an ice floe more than 800 miles from the closest island with any contact with civilization.

What made it so amazing was he was able to guide all the men in his immediate party and get them back all home alive. I can only say, speaking here now, that they have been loyal to the very core throughout the time we've gone through. I was very interested as a child. Photographs of the endurance story absolutely captivated me.

He started reading more of the diaries and the accounts that they wrote about those expeditions. Henry found out that one of his ancestors, Frank Worsley, had been the captain of the Endurance ship on the Endurance expedition.

But yes, this all started at a very early age. He began to burn with this very peculiar ambition which very few share, which was to kind of suffer these miseries and become a polar explorer. And the motto that he lived by was Shackleton's family motto, which was, by endurance we conquer. I should have heard warning bells when he came back from a trip to South Georgia just after I first met him.

and was incredibly excited because he had managed to sleep beside Shackleton's grave. And it wasn't until when he was about 40 that he started really talking about wanting to do an expedition and follow in Shackleton's footsteps.

So by the time Henry was talking about doing his first expedition, he had two children, Max and Alicia. Initially, when he decided he wanted to do something that, you know, how many people say suddenly, wait a second, I want to go walk to the South Pole. You know, his kids were a little bit bewildered. But Joanna was very supportive. I thought it was a wonderful idea. I really did.

Both of us were huge believers in trying to fulfil dreams. A lot of the time, marriage stops you from fulfilling your own individual dreams because you feel you have to get permission from the other person. And I felt that through my 20s, I had fulfilled a lot of my dreams. I'd had a lot of fun.

And he went into the army when he was 18, and I felt that it was his turn, really. So for his third trip, he wanted to walk across Antarctica to fulfill the goal that his hero, Shakhtin, was not able to achieve. But he wanted to do it alone. Well, I think the best thing is the day is mine. Success or failure of this journey is completely up to me.

At the moment, I'm up at 7.30, on the trail at 9 a.m. Each day was similar. I mean, Henry would get up early in the morning, pack up his sled. This usually took about an hour. His harness would be connected to the sled, and he would begin to haul it, not unlike a mule.

And he would walk with his skis, burning as much as 8,000 calories in a day?

He would do this Herculean task and challenge day after day. There was something almost primal about it. I just can't wait.

His singular purpose became to just make his mileage. He had to achieve so many miles a day if he was to ultimately accomplish his goal. 9.4 nautical miles today. Good evening, everybody. So, in sum, a tough day. The 9.7 nautical miles were a hard one. I traveled a bit longer today, just over 11 nautical miles at this early stage. Good evening, everybody. Day 21.

10.3 nautical miles was a disappointment, but it's simply that 14 nautical miles is all I can do at the moment in a 12-hour day. He would trek for 14, 15, sometimes 16 hours across an alien landscape that's covered with a sheet of ice, its paco crevasses. A white house with just enough visibility to see the horizon greeted me this morning. It was a very tough day with many pauses or intake of breath.

leaning forward on my ski sticks, head dropped, thumbing everything. At 7:00 p.m., I checked my mileage covered during the day, and it was 11.7. At 8:00 p.m., I checked again. It was 12.9. Not enough. So I continued until the GPS displayed 13 nautical miles. Today was a test. Perhaps tomorrow will be another. Good night.

And at the end of the day, when he was burrowed in his sleeping bag, he would record a dispatch, an audio diary, updating his growing number of listeners, including many students. Henry always called these students young explorers. Right, a few young explorer questions. Good questions tonight. I'm Stuart Wilson. I wanted to know if I had the opportunity to ask Shackleton one question, what would it be?

I talked to him a lot while he was out there on a satellite phone.

He found it much harder than other expeditions. That breaking ice is very hard work. And at least if you're with other people, you can take turns to be at the front. Whereas if you're the lead skier for a thousand miles, it's a great deal harder. He found it cripplingly hard. Well, good evening, everybody. Location, 90 degrees south.

When he got to the South Pole, there's a research station there. But if he was to fulfill his ambition of doing this trip alone and unsupported, he couldn't drop off supplies, he couldn't get a hotmail. And the only thing he really allowed himself was he thought he'd give himself at least a day of rest in his tent. Well, not much to report today. I've spent most of it asleep. And I detected my body heading for hibernation. I thought it best to get back into the routine and head off.

He felt the constant strain of making his mileage so that he could reach the end point of the expedition before the end of the month of January, because in February begins the winter season in Antarctica, where the temperature drops even further. It can reach minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Even ALE shuts down then, and at that point there would be no exit. I left at about 8 p.m. this evening, and only covered five miles.

And he hoped that the northern journey, this last phase of his expedition, would be a little bit easier, at least he hoped in the first phase, that after he reached something called the Titan Dome, which is this massive ice formation 10,000 feet high, he would at least begin to descend and have the help of gravity pushing him to the finish. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

Travel is great, but planning for travel can be time-consuming and difficult. That's where OneTravel comes in. With OneTravel, you'll find everything you need to book the perfect trip. Flights, hotels, cars, transportation, it's all right there. With OneTravel, you can book online, via app, or even pick up the phone and talk to a travel advisor ready to help you make your selections. Visit OneTravel.com slash music or call 855-437-2154. Plan it. Book it. Live it. OneTravel.

My Wrangler jeans from Walmart are legit my favorite go-to pants. They got that slim cut that's always fresh for going out. Hey, what's up? They're durable enough, even for my shift, and stretchy enough for when I want to kick back and chill with a movie. So basically, they can do it all, paying on my budget. I mean, come on. You really can't beat all that. Shop your Wrangler pants at Walmart.

I'm Maria Konnikova. And I'm Nate Silver. And our new podcast, Risky Business, is a show about making better decisions. We're both journalists whom we light as poker players, and that's the lens we're going to use to approach this entire show. We're going to be discussing everything from high-stakes poker to personal questions. Like whether I should call a plumber or fix my shower myself. And of course, we'll be talking about the election, too. Listen to Risky Business wherever you get your podcasts.

I listened to his blogs every day and they were pretty good. They were pretty upbeat. But I was just very concerned. It was a thousand miles on his own. He was older. He was 55 when he set out instead of 40. She could hear him growing more tired and she wondered what she should do. He worried constantly, constantly that he was being...

I was in a terrible position as to whether to say, Henry, stop, just listen for a minute. You are not going to make the end. You cannot make the end. Or say, you'll do it, darling. It was a really difficult one. I chose to say, I'm sure you'll be fine. Well, I had a very interrupted night's sleep last night. A bad stomach.

By now, his entire body was in agony. His back throbbed. All his muscles ached. His feet were bruised. His toes were discolored. He was suffering from the early signs of frostbite, especially in his thumb, which he struggled to move. He had lost more than 40 pounds. He was so tired that he couldn't even walk.

that one day during a snack break, he fell asleep while sitting on his sled in the middle of a whiteout. I decided to stop and rest up. Parts risky. Well, I need the miles, but you have to listen to your body sometimes. I've slept all day and feel much better. So the plan now is to move off tonight, walk through until tomorrow, and bag 18 miles or so. Time to get back on the trail. He kept a diary, a personal diary. This one he didn't broadcast.

One evening he wrote, legs are stick thin and arms puny. Andy, I'm Andrew, it's Henry. Just to let you know, I'm moving into the next few hours at the moment, so my briefs will come, but they may be much shorter. It's now nine o'clock and I'm being off another couple of hours. It was just really not right. There was something really not right about it then.

His voice, his despair. He cried quite a lot. He never cried. He kept thinking he would reach the top of the Titan Dome and begin to descend. He just couldn't seem to reach the top. And so each day he would push longer and longer. Okay, details, day 66, 17 Jan. Time trouble, 16 hours. Well, good evening, everybody. It's a very late broadcast. It's now one o'clock in the morning.

In order to keep track, I must now do 16 nautical miles per day. This makes for a very long 16-hour day. If that's what I have to do, then do it, I will. As of today, this evening, I've got 142 nautical miles on the finish line.

The next day, day 67, his journal entry is short and his writing is increasingly difficult to read. He wrote, On day 68, he didn't record a message for his listeners. It's all become quite an ordeal at the moment, so I'm not doing any young explorers. No narratives. Could you just explain that?

The next day, on day 69, he scribbled in his diary, awful. Had to stop after five hours, totally exhausted, feeling terrible, very deplorable. Rested rest of day and into following morning. Just want it all to end in a good way. He was unable to move, really.

At that stage, and he had lost control of his bowels and his bladder. We had been on the phone nonstop for two days. Me, very hysterical, begging him to pull out and him just asking me to be patient. Henry, throughout his life, especially whenever he was in danger, and he was in more danger now than he'd ever been in his life, he would always ask himself, what would Shaxs do? What would Shackleton do?

And he had always thought, by endurance we conquer was the message of Shackleton, that you could always prevail through force of mind. But the thing that set Shackleton apart from so many other explorers who went to their polar grave is that he acknowledged his human limitations and the limitations of his men, and he turned back. That was the thing about Shackleton. Henry was 900 miles into his 1,000-mile journey,

when he rang ALE and called for the most expensive taxi ride in the world. Then he composed a final public message. Greetings, everybody. It's Friday the 22nd of January, Day 70. And my hero, Ernest Shackleton, drove 97 miles from the South Pole. He said he'd shot his bolt.

Well, today, I have to inform you of some sadness that I, too, have shot my vault. My journey is at an end. I have run out of time, physical endurance, and the simple cheer and ability to slide one ski in front of the other. Well, I've spent 70 days all alone in a place I love.

Ellie arrived later that day, and Henry walked to the plane on his own volition. He was flown to western Antarctica, to Ellie Base Camp, and there he called Joanna.

It was such a relief for me, I can't tell you. He was with doctors and he said to me, "I'm fine, I'm going to stay here for a few days and just build up my strength. I'm having a cup of tea and a biscuit and I'm going to be fine."

But his condition continued to deteriorate, and he was flown overnight to a hospital in southern Chile, where they discovered he had peritonitis, which is an infection in the abdomen lining. When Joanna heard he had been taken to a hospital, she hurried to get on a plane. Shortly after she landed in Chile, she received an update that Henry's liver had failed. Shortly after that, she heard that his kidney had failed.

And before she could get to the hospital, she learned that Henry had died. The news of Henry's death was greeted in England with an outpouring of emotion. And he was healed as an inspiration and as a hero, a polar hero, much like the heroes that he had revered growing up. Hundreds of people went to Henry's funeral, including the top military brass, as well as Prince William.

In December of 2017, nearly two years after Henry died, Joanna, Max, and Alicia set off for the island of South Georgia, which was where Shackleton was buried and which Henry himself had visited many years ago. Joanna wore the same coat that Henry had worn on his last expedition, and they carried with them Henry's ashes. It was a very special day. It's an extraordinary little bay,

It has the most magical little Norwegian church, and we had a wonderful service there, and we all poured whiskey onto Shackleton's grave. They then began to climb up an icy mountain slope, and where the earth was flat, they knelt down and buried Henry's ashes. David Grant's book about Henry Worsley is called The White Darkness. I'll talk with Grant about The Wager, about Killers of the Flower Moon, and all his work on our next episode.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund. My Wrangler jeans from Walmart are legit my favorite go-to pants. They got that slim cut that's always fresh for going out. Hey, what's up? They're durable enough, even for my shift, and stretchy enough for when I want to kick back and chill with a movie.

So basically, they can do it all. Hand on my budget. I mean, come on. You really can't beat all that. Shop your Wrangler pants at Walmart.