Briton Eyes Last Great Polar Exploration

British explorer Sir Ranulph Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes hopes to walk into history this year by trekking from Siberia to the North Pole without mechanical or animal support.

“This is the last great polar challenge from an explorer’s point of view,” Fiennes, 46, said in an interview.

Fiennes, who in 1982 led the first successful expedition to circumnavigate the world by polar route, said he had obtained Soviet clearance to launch his expedition in March from Cape Arktikisky, the most northern point in Siberia.

The adventurer, who failed to reach the North Pole unaided from the Canadian side in three attempts, will be the first Westerner since the Russian Revolution to set out from Siberia.

“The Soviets had refused us permission on four previous occasions but things were completely different this time,” he said. “The whole matter has been farmed out to the private sector, presumably to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Fiennes said the issue was handled by a private travel agency set up by Soviet citizens, who had to obtain permission for the expedition from the KGB security police because it will be passing close to Arctic military installations.

The $62,000 venture, organized by Soviet explorer D’mitriy Shparo, is under the patronage of Britain’s Prince Charles and is intended to raise funds for research into multiple sclerosis.

The Siberian route is 900 nautical miles from the North Pole, actually 100 miles more distant than the Canadian route, but Fiennes said he expects the ice pack to be a little less daunting than what he encountered in his previous unsuccessful attempts from North America.

“It certainly can’t be more difficult than on the Canadian side,” said Fiennes, who will be traveling with Mike Stroud, a doctor and teammate on previous polar expeditions.

The difficulties will include dragging 360 pounds of food--a 45-day supply--and equipment on a sled in temperatures as low as minus 58 degrees.

They each expect to burn as much as 4,500 calories per day and are now busy fattening themselves up, largely on a diet of spaghetti and potatoes, to compensate for weight loss.

“The most grueling test of endurance will be towing those sleds,” said Fiennes. “Your torso is practically parallel with the ground and if you slacken the pace for one-thousandth of a second, the sled comes to a dead halt.”

He likened the effort to dragging two big men across sand dunes. “That is similar to an exercise we used to do in the army,” he said.

“I wanted to give up doing this sort of thing about two years ago--but I cannot,” said Fiennes. “The challenge keeps gnawing away at me and I wouldn’t like to read in 1991 that some Scandinavian or American expedition had done it.”

Fiennes began his adventurous career almost 20 years ago when he left the British Army after serving in the elite Special Air Service. He also served with the Sultan of Oman’s armed forces in the Arabian desert.

His exploits include a voyage up the White Nile in a Hovercraft, negotiating more than 4,000 miles of Canadian and Alaskan rivers and leading the first expedition to both poles, albeit with mechanical and animal support.

Whatever the outcome of his latest adventure, Fiennes said, it will be the last of his polar treks.

But will it be the last of his expeditions?

“No, indeed. I am planning an archeological expedition to Oman and the Empty Quarter,” he said, referring to a largely uninhabited sector in southern Saudia Arabia.

Fiennes said that for that project he was working with infrared maps taken by the U.S. space shuttle which turned up traces of the lost Peche River, mentioned in the Book of Genesis.

“The sultan of Oman has given me permission to carry out archeological digs for Wabar, but we are waiting for the green light from the Saudis to search for the Peche on their side,” he said. “Once we get that, we are ready to go.”

But first, it’s off the the North Pole.