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00:04On the 11th of November, 2008, three men set off to attempt one of the most challenging journeys on the
00:12planet.
00:13An 800-mile trek to the South Pole through some of the most hostile terrain on Earth.
00:22Their starting point is this wooden hut.
00:26Built in 1908 by the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton, it housed the most groundbreaking expedition of its day.
00:35The first serious attempt to reach the South Pole.
00:39It opened up the interior of the Antarctic continent in a breathtaking way.
00:45He was a rebel, a maverick figure. He was desperate to show the world what he was capable of.
00:50In January 1909, just 97 miles from the Pole, Shackleton was forced to turn back.
00:59A century later, three descendants of Shackleton and his team have unfinished family business.
01:06To follow his route and complete it to the Pole.
01:11They will have to endure freezing temperatures.
01:14One small bit of skin left out and you're in trouble.
01:17Tackle mighty mountain ranges and gaping crevasses.
01:21I'm not sure there's worse to come.
01:23And drag everything they need to survive each step of the way.
01:28OK, that'll do, that'll do. It's genuinely painful.
01:33The expedition will take them over two months.
01:36More people have walked on the moon than have completed this journey.
01:43On a summer's afternoon in Suffolk, a group of ordinary men are training for an extraordinary event.
01:51They intend to walk 800 miles to the South Pole.
01:57We are united by idiocy, frankly.
02:01We are all a bit strange, I think in a pretty English way.
02:06This expedition is a very British expedition.
02:09It's slightly eccentric.
02:11You know, I don't know any other people that would get together a limited gene pool of descendants of a
02:18team 100 years later
02:20to recreate an expedition as a group of complete amateurs, put it all together, train and get on and do
02:29it.
02:29But in my mind, that's one of the appealing and romantic aspects of the expedition.
02:37At the dawn of the last century, that same British spirit ruled the world.
02:46Britons had charted every continent but one, the Antarctic.
02:51The last great geographical prize was the South Pole.
02:57For a small group of explorers, this became their proclaimed goal.
03:03It was an unexplored world, untouched by human hand.
03:08And here were these guys who were attempting to confront that new world with tweed jackets and a stout pair
03:17of brogues.
03:18They are on the edge.
03:20They want to go beyond what most people would ever contemplate.
03:24It's part of why they get into it in the first place.
03:27They're mad, but they're mad in a good way.
03:30Ernest Shackleton was a towering figure amongst those polar pioneers.
03:35On his 1908 Nimrod expedition, Shackleton set out to become the first person to reach the South Pole.
03:41One hundred years later, three descendants of his team want to follow in their footsteps.
03:49Will Gow is Shackleton's great nephew.
03:52He works as a securities manager in London.
03:57Jameson Adams was Shackleton's second in command.
04:02Adam's great grandson is Henry Adams, a lawyer and father of Phoebe.
04:08The leader and third member of the team is Lieutenant Colonel Henry Worsley.
04:15A relative of Shackleton's captain, Frank Worsley, he is a lifelong admirer of Ernest Shackleton.
04:26Shackleton's buried in the Whalers Cemetery in Gritvick and Harbour on South Georgia.
04:31I had the opportunity to go and visit the grave and I chose to spend the night there,
04:37unroll my sleeping bag and just lay down beside his grave.
04:41It sounds odd but, you know, just sort of adds that extra bit to one sort of admiration for that
04:46individual.
04:48Henry Worsley's hero and inspiration, Ernest Shackleton, was born in Ireland in 1874.
04:56His father started life as a farmer but retrained as a doctor before moving with his family to South London.
05:03Described at school as intelligent but an unwilling pupil, Shackleton joined the Merchant Navy at 16.
05:09He was an ambitious individual. He wanted to make a mark.
05:14And the world even then, at the start of the 20th century, was becoming a smaller place.
05:20And the Poles, North and South, were amongst the very last places that were unexplored, that were terra incognita.
05:28And so he was drawn into that as an arena where he felt that he could achieve something,
05:34something unique, do something for the first time.
05:41Shackleton was determined to find fame and fortune, and being first to the South Pole would secure him a place
05:48in history.
05:50His initial taste of polar travel was in 1902, as third mate under Captain Scott on the Discovery Expedition.
05:58He was well liked and warmly received by all members of the crew, and I think at that point felt
06:06the beginnings of a natural knack for leadership.
06:10And he thrilled to all the responsibilities from working on shipboard to the great land journey with Scott and Wilson.
06:18Edward Wilson was an expedition doctor who accompanied Scott and Shackleton southwards.
06:24They used sled dogs, which all died.
06:28Scott and Shackleton fell out, and the three men returned more dead than alive.
06:33But Shackleton was not deterred.
06:37Five years later, he returned as commander of the Nimrod expedition, determined to be the first man to the Pole.
06:45The task facing him was a huge undertaking.
06:49An 800-mile walk through the most inhospitable terrain on Earth.
06:55Crossing first the featureless plain of the Ross Ice Shell, then climbing the deadly crevassed slopes of the Beardmore Glacier,
07:03and finally battling across the high-altitude Antarctic plateau.
07:09Even today, this is a formidable journey.
07:13An ultimate test of both physical and mental endurance.
07:33To prepare for the extreme polar conditions, the 2008 expedition have gone to the ice sheets and mountains of Greenland.
07:46To succeed in reaching the South Pole, they will need to pull their food and equipment on sleds weighing as
07:52much as 130 kilograms.
07:56They expect the journey to take up to 70 days.
08:06These few weeks' training is back-breaking work, as the teams struggle to get into shape for the challenge ahead.
08:15This will definitely be the toughest thing I've ever attempted.
08:19It's 40 marathons back-to-back.
08:21And you start thinking like that and think, hmm, 40 marathons pulling 100 kilos behind me in brutally cold conditions
08:29in the middle of nowhere.
08:30Suddenly it becomes rather an arduous task.
08:33But it's not just endurance that is tested in terrain like this.
08:39There is also constant danger from crevasses, the treacherous holes that form when a glacier moves over an obstruction on
08:47the ground below.
08:49It's a bit dodgy ahead.
08:53Crevasses are a major threat on the glaciers of Antarctica.
09:06A vital aspect of the team's training is knowing just how to get out of one if you happen to
09:11fall in.
09:13Henry?
09:14Yeah?
09:15How are you? Are you okay?
09:16Yeah, I'm all right.
09:17You crack on.
09:23Hold on!
09:25Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
09:30My greatest fear, I suppose, in the sort of physical side, is if there is, you know, we have a
09:35severe injury at any stage,
09:36but it's perhaps most likely to be in sort of in the middle phase on the glacier.
09:41And, therefore, the fear of being able to sort of get rescue in, which we'll be able to do.
09:46It slightly depends where the accident happens.
09:49After three years of training and preparation, the team set off to fly over 8,000 miles to the southern
09:56tip of Chile and the city of Punta Arenas.
10:02Here, they sought their equipment and the 380 kilograms of food they will need to stay alive.
10:09This is basically our snacks during the day.
10:11So, we've got nuts, two chocolate bars, a protein bar and a flapjack.
10:17And there will be a salami that will go into another bag.
10:21Adequate nutrition is the key to polar success.
10:25On the ice, each member of the team will burn approximately 8,000 calories a day.
10:31An average person sitting at a desk burns around one-third of that amount.
10:37This will be one week's worth of food. So, this is November the 10th, the 16th.
10:42It'll have, at the moment, it has seven days' worth of breakfasts, main meals and puddings, ghee butter and olive
10:51oil.
10:51And to that, we will add seven day packs.
10:54Between them, the three men have over 400 high-calorie main meals and breakfasts, nearly 500 chocolate bars and 90
11:03kilos of salami.
11:05It all needs to be sorted, packed and weighed, but it's critical to the team's chances of success.
11:15While in Punta Arenas, the team also receive a final safety briefing about the most prevalent danger they will face.
11:23Frostbite.
11:25So, the issue that you guys will face, if you get one of these, if you get a frostbite, please,
11:31we'll have a conversation.
11:33And we'll be, hopefully, very upfront and level with you, and it will be down to you to say,
11:37you're going to carry on and accept the risk, or do you want to bail? And that's something for you
11:42to decide.
11:43But it's not just extremities that are vulnerable.
11:46When a freezing wind blasts through insufficient clothing, it can lead to a condition known as polar thigh.
11:52The normal pattern we see are these punched-out holes.
11:55And I think you really have to ask yourself, are you going to carry on with legs like that?
12:01Are you going to prevent the other folks from doing their job?
12:06With all their gear sorted and stowed, the team sets off again on a four-and-a-half-hour flight
12:12south from Chile.
12:14Their destination, the Blue Ice Runway and Expedition Base Camp at Patriot Hills.
12:23Here, they transfer to the twin otter that will take them across 1,100 miles of Antarctica to McMurdo Sound,
12:30the first time that an expedition has made this flight.
12:37I think when we actually got to the Antarctic, there was huge anxiety about the size of the undertaking of
12:44this project.
12:45And none of us knew quite what to expect.
12:47And I think there was that sort of fear and uncertainty of what we're getting into.
13:00In 1907, Wilgau's great-uncle, Ernest Shackleton, was also beginning the challenge of a lifetime.
13:07In July of that year, his ship, Nimrod, sailed first to New Zealand, then continued south through the Pack Ice
13:14to McMurdo Sound.
13:17At the end of January 1908, the expedition landed on the shore at Cape Royds.
13:24Here, Shackleton and his men built the hut that would be their home for the next 13 months.
13:33Shackleton planned to use ponies to haul his supplies to the pole and lay food depots for his return journey.
13:40But before they could set out for the pole in October and November, the Antarctic spring, they would have to
13:46spend a winter in the hut,
13:49sitting out the Antarctic night while the sun stayed below the horizon for months on end.
13:55Weeks and months in a black Antarctic winter with nothing to listen to but the wind is going to take
14:03an enervating toll on all of your senses.
14:05But these were men who were accustomed to spending long periods of time not being entertained.
14:12They didn't expect things to happen quickly.
14:16You know, this is a world of letter writing rather than emails and texts and of diary keeping.
14:25I know, going to spend 10,000 days are nowcard right
14:39Mom's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum's mum.
14:46Oh, my God.
14:53The sense of history!
14:54here is just quite extraordinary seeing the old boots and the old socks just
15:03still sitting here hundred years later
15:15just imagine six months in darkness imagine but this has got such a cozy warm
15:22feel to it imagine a stove on full blast and yeah it's just there's a warmth about this hut that's
15:29just this is one of the sleeping bags that they would have taken with them on the journey reindeer
15:44skin and they froze up terribly they were covered in ice and were basically just large
15:52blocks of ice rather than the sources of warmth
16:02what do you think Chaplin would think about what you guys are doing I think he'd be delighted he'd
16:07be delighted because we're giving it a go we are all thinking fame and fortune though which is
16:12exactly what he was seeking so bring on fame and fortune on the successful expedition I think
16:19he'd be chuffed to his compass he was getting going as well expose it to somewhere it's been before in
16:28a
16:28unique gesture Henry Worsley has been loaned Shackleton's original expedition compass to see
16:35see if it can reach the pole a century after it was last here
16:52they were at the edge of the unknown they were looking into what had been a void on human maps
17:00since the beginning of map making and they marched into that void without any expectation of what they
17:08would find and kept going the magnitude of the undertaking was recognized by Shackleton in his
17:15diary in which he dutifully recorded the events of the expedition a glorious day for our start
17:24brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky a fair wind from the north we had breakfast at 7 a.m
17:33at 10 a.m we started to strive to plant the Queen's flag on the last spot of the world
17:41you just sort of felt the buzz really you could feel them sort of preparing the kit the sledges there
17:45getting ready for the off all the ponies mangers and harnesses lying around yeah probably brought it home
17:52you look around in this massive landscape and men from England just deciding right let's set sail for
17:59the pole or as close as we can get and then walk my skis have been um painted by my
18:05children they've got
18:07nice cute messages on them to keep me going when the bit of inspiration is required the moment of truth
18:18it's just how difficult is it going to be to move this pulp with a 70 days worth of supplies
18:29in it
18:44to reach the south pole the team will have to walk 800 miles through some of the most inhospitable
18:50terrain on earth each man must pull a load that is double their own body weight and contains food and
18:59fuel for 70 days they will have to average almost 12 miles a day every day for over two months
19:11for the first three days the team are traveling on the frozen sea ice of McMurdo Sound the huge sleds
19:19glide easily and they make good progress they even have time to check out the local wildlife
19:35but McMurdo Sound is where the time watch crew leave them with a minicam for the journey ahead and a
19:41plan to
19:42meet up again on the Antarctic Plateau on day three they set off from McMurdo Sound for the first major
19:52challenge of the journey a 350 mile trek across the Ross ice shelf a featureless plane of ice the size
20:01of
20:02France which floats upon a freezing ocean just entering the ice shelf now in the distance you can see White
20:09Island and far distance here the nature of the snow surface changes a feature noticed by Shackleton 100 years ago
20:25picked up the other sledges at the barrier Junction but we were not long underway and we found that the
20:31surface was terribly soft the ponies at times sinking in up to their bellies Shackleton had thought that the
20:42ponies were ideal for this environment because they had been brought up in Manchuria in those conditions
20:49however it couldn't have been further from the truth for one thing they were unshod and without shoes they slipped
20:57and slid when they were on frozen or icy surfaces quite often when they encountered snow drifts they
21:03were just wallowing in up to their stomachs in snow and their coats became thoroughly wetted and they
21:10became chilled and shivering this year there happens to be less fresh snow than Shackleton experienced but
21:20even a couple of inches is enough to slow down the descendants of the 1908 team just pulling is
21:26extremely hard then that we're all bit knackered this is day three so suddenly the romance of the
21:33expedition is somewhat lost now we're into the hard yards to make it to the pole for the next step
21:38of
21:38the civil future so it's gonna be pretty tough day after a snack break will presses on for the next
21:46leg
21:48the enormity of the task in front of them is beginning to hit home to make matters worse
21:54will gow is starting to feel unwell looking a bit wary will you've had a bit of a rough day
22:00with the
22:00stomach haven't you no it's not too bad it's yeah it's a couple of times but now fine really just
22:07uh
22:08yeah just getting on with it agreeing to lose its appeal it's getting quite done already we've got 300
22:13miles of blackness to go just getting into the psychologically getting accustomed to it
22:25at the end of the day it's time to pitch the tent the team's only shelter for the next two
22:30months
22:32inside henry adams reveals that he also has a problem
22:36poor henry's trying to sort out a blister here a very large blister which i must say he's been very
22:41uncomplaining about throughout the day huge blister on his heel which must have hurt like hell
22:49the plan is to cut off all the dead skin
22:53i can see gow shaking shaking the eye beam
23:00great anticipation
23:05okay that'll do that'll do that's looking much better did you enjoy doing that well
23:12i can see it hurt him
23:15it has a soothing painful quality about it as if it's it's healing it's that'll do a lot of good
23:24genuinely painful i'll put a bit more on
23:32despite the setbacks there's no respite from walking next morning the team is back on the trail
23:42they've been on the ice shelf for a week now and already they're dropping below their essential daily
23:47mileage if they are unable to pick up the pace they will run out of food before they get to
23:53the pole
23:56a century before shackleton had the same problem held up by bad weather on his journey across the ice
24:04shelf he was forced to reduce rations blowing a blizzard with thick drift from south by west
24:13it's very hard to be held up like this we only had a couple of biscuits each for lunch
24:18for i can see we must retrench at every setback we're going to have enough food to carry us through
24:26we started with 91 days we can make it spin out to 110 days
24:32if we have not done the job in that time it is god's will
24:40shackleton needed enough food to reach the pole and to leave food depots for the return journey
24:46100 years ago there was no real hope of rescue for explorers in trouble
24:52they knew they were alone and when things got bad they had to rely on one another to get them
24:58all out
24:58of it or they weren't going to get out at all and they were going to die mysterious deaths that
25:03their
25:03loved ones back at home would never hear the telling of for the descendants of shackleton's team
25:10it's a one-way trek if they make it to the pole they will be airlifted out after two weeks
25:17on the
25:17ross ice shelf they've made up ground they have now covered 150 miles out of 800 but the weather is
25:26on the turn
25:28of them trapped by a blizzard they can't help noticing the similarities between their experience
25:34and shackleton's and they turn to his diaries for inspiration we read the heart of the antarctic every
25:42night and pick out bits of his diary that are absolutely spot on to where we've got to on the
25:53journey really great very sort of meaningful really brings it all to life particularly the description
25:58of the views he can see and trouble he's having with his ponies and and even the weather he had
26:05slightly worse weather than we're having but the ice shelf is a is a vast area to cover um it's
26:13resistant
26:13to us all the way but i'm sure there's worse to come a headwind of 40 miles an hour creates
26:22a wind
26:22chill of minus 52 degrees centigrade travel is impossible but enforced tent time gives the team
26:31an opportunity for some much needed personal hygiene lovely ritual this is my chapkin my union chapkin
26:42what's the chapkin henry the chapkin is a gentleman's funnel chap's napkin this is the first time i've
26:51taken this off in 10 days unfortunately they're made of merino wool so they don't they don't smell too much
26:59and they don't feel nasty synthetically against the skin which is great
27:06but henry looks so fresh and young how do you do this
27:15it took shackleton and his team just over a month to cross the ross ice shelf
27:22they were almost halfway to the pole and further south than man had been before
27:28but it was grueling work that took a heavy toll on the ponies
27:36started at 8am today kwan has been growing weaker each hour and we practically pulled the sledge
27:44poor old kwan was quite finished when we came to camp at 6 pm
27:49so he was shot we have now only one pony left
27:56the ponies were suffering enormously through the entire journey it became trying for the men
28:03to take care of the ponies who were cold and shivering and wet with sweat and wet with melted
28:09snow they had to wrap them in blankets to try to keep them from getting chilled and eventually
28:15most of them had to be put down without his ponies shackleton had a major problem
28:26to make further progress the men would have to drag their 450 kilo sledge themselves
28:34and the geography of the antarctic was also against him
28:38barring his progress was a mountain range curving to the east
28:43the height of the alps and over 2000 miles long the transantarctic range is one of the longest mountain
28:51ranges on earth to get to the pole shackleton had to find a way through the barrier ahead
29:01after a month of traveling the 2008 expedition have also crossed the ross ice shelf they still have over
29:08400 miles to go to reach the pole and they have enough food for just 39 days they cannot let
29:16their daily mileage slip
29:18and like shackleton they too are at the foot of the transantarctic mountains
29:25they are looking for a small peak first described by shackleton and named as mount hope
29:34reach the base of the mountain in order to gain a view of the surrounding country
29:39clambered up this rock face and then ascended a gentle snow slope to another rocky bit
29:45but not so difficult to climb
29:49so just imagine shackleton now walking up this route he's already had his first sight and there out before him
30:05is the mighty beardmore
30:10what a sight that must have been no wonder he's called this mount hope
30:18i can't stop thinking about the stage which shackleton and and the others had got to at this
30:23at this point and it's it's very hard because of the very understated edwardian way of writing his diary that
30:30you know he's he doesn't feel as though he's in dire straits but you know he is he doesn't he
30:37has no real
30:38means of moving all his kit and equipment so to get to this stage to find a way through this
30:44mountain
30:44range he's been forced off the ice shelf by the line of crevasses and turbulence created by the beardmore
30:50hitting the the ice barrier he's headed up onto this high ground to try and spy out some new land
30:58across the um transantarctic mountains and he gets to this point and he describes it beautifully
31:04there unfolding from before my eyes was this great highway linking the north to the south so he'd found
31:11it i mean no wonder he called it mount hope i mean this must have given him such a lift
31:15despite the the
31:17situation they were in
31:20he decided that he was going to strike up this glacier because it was heading due south and he
31:29decided this would show him the way to the pole in retrospect it is an amazing act of courage but
31:36really of judgment a lesser man would have not taken the chance
31:43started at 8 a.m and immediately began dodging crevasses
31:48wild and i were leading for thank heaven my eyes are well and fit again
31:54we slowly toiled up a long crevasse slope and by lunchtime
31:59we had covered six miles 150 yards of an uphill drag with about 250 pounds per man to haul
32:11the world with no possible communication with the outside world these men had to be totally
32:16self-reliant this was the edwardian equivalent of a moonshot the apollo 13 of its day
32:27but even now the beardmore glacier is an enormous challenge
32:34wider than the english channel more than 120 miles long and rising over 7 000 feet to its junction with
32:42the antarctic plateau it is one of the biggest glaciers in the world the surface is riven with thousands
32:49of deadly crevasses there is also mile upon mile of iron hard blue ice stripped of snow and polished by
32:58the wind
33:02the only way to tackle a surface like this is with metal spikes called crampons which are strapped to
33:08the bottom of a boot
33:12in the interests of saving weight the modern team have opted for lightweight aluminium ones
33:18rather than the more robust steel type well we've been getting about an hour and um one of henry's crampons
33:26is gone
33:30snap just there so now i'm on my two heel points
33:36it's time to make a bodge repair of sorts the crampons initially lost their heels heel teeth
33:44and then eventually it just came apart here you can see where it snapped off
33:51the team is struggling but they can't afford to lose time or they'll run out of food before they reach
33:57the pole
34:02100 years ago shackleton faced the same problem but without crampons
34:08he was covering the exact same terrain without any sort of spikes for traction
34:16falls bruises cut chins crevasses
34:20razor-edged ice and a heavy upward pull have made up the sum of the day's trials
34:27but there has been a measure of compensation in the wonderful scenery
34:31and the covering of a distance of 11 miles 860 yards towards our goal
34:40there's something i find heartbreaking about the fact that those men headed south so hopelessly
34:49ill-equipped they expected they were going to suffer and that they really went down their arm with
34:55little more than a stiff upper lip and a firm jaw that's how they did what they did
35:01what are you making here this is a mark four crampon
35:15we've got the remains of a spine of a crampon the remains of a heel section and together those points
35:25and that point might just give a little bit more grip to us every night at the moment after the
35:33ice
35:33has chewed up everything we put under our feet during the day it's time to make a new crampon so
35:39it's par for the course that's the way we're going
35:45up the beard more still further to go we're only about a third of the way up
35:51it's a frozen hell if hell was cold this would be it
35:56but if you just look around here it's chaos it's absolute chaos
36:00lots of crevasses around i mean not not massive man-eating crevasses but
36:05certainly leg-eating ones and leg snapping ones we've all been into them there's no way you could
36:11get any help in here you'd have to walk out to get help for a plane to land somewhere when
36:16we are
36:17probably four days away from getting out of this glacier this really is by endurance we conquer
36:29and what he must have been thinking i mean the annoying thing is in this understated way in the
36:33diaries you know you only sort of scratch the surface what must he have been thinking as he was going
36:37up here you know how long is this going to go on for and i think around we're reading the
36:43diaries
36:44around about 11th 12th 13th of december you know every day he's got dear god when will this when will
36:50the plateau come how much more of this have we got to endure but it would take shackleton another
36:56couple of weeks to get established on the polar plateau his food supplies were running low it was
37:04a time for desperate measures christmas day we had a splendid dinner we are full tonight and this is
37:14the last time we will be for many a long day we're going to make each week's food last 10
37:21days it is
37:22the only thing to do how shackleton and his team managed to get through on the diet that they did
37:30is
37:30beyond me it's incredible edwardian explorers lived on pemmican dried meat set in fat and biscuits
37:40these were mixed into a mash called hoosh it was low in carbohydrates and severely deficient in vitamins
37:48especially vitamin c scurvy has been the bane of explorers lives for centuries and it's only been
37:57relatively recently that we know that it's caused by deficiency in vitamin c's and polar history is
38:02littered with these expeditions that have in fact lost many men because of the the ravages of scurvy
38:08that have in fact it's been a very difficult time to get through the ravages of scurvy
38:13guarding the final 300 miles to the pole is the antarctic plateau
38:20with an average height of almost two miles above sea level
38:24it is the coldest driest place on earth
38:29winter temperatures drop as low as minus 80 degrees centigrade with wind chill reducing it further
38:36and the plateau is battered by fearsome gales
38:42after two weeks on the beardmore glacier the 2008 team are faced with a new challenge
38:49up on the plateau there is 30 percent less oxygen than at sea level which leads to altitude sickness
38:56exhaustion nausea and a loss of appetite
39:03after every hour of pulling the team must stop for a snack
39:08getting enough calories in the thin air is vital to combat frostbite and hypothermia
39:15every single break time you sit there for five ten minutes you've got to eat your food because if you
39:20don't you've got no energy if you've got no energy you get cold very quickly then you get frostbite
39:24maybe even hypothermia if you're in real difficulties you become a mixture of an animal and a machine
39:31your body is purely functional and you need to look after it so that you suffer as little as possible
39:39but however much he eats henry worsley is struggling to cope in the new environment
39:45these five last i think i think it's about five days since we've left the beardmore um
39:50a real struggle i'm not sure what it is it's a combination of
39:54the altitude the snow conditions still still slightly heavy pulp um but i just haven't got any energy
40:04as the weather continues to deteriorate the team members are nearing the limit of their endurance
40:13well this is definitely our harshest day yet in antarctica it's a gale force wind
40:20but we're cracking on i don't think we'll do more than 10 nautical miles today but every bit counts
40:27and funnily enough we're perfectly warm when we're going as long as everything is tucked away but
40:31one small bit of skin left out and you're in trouble as high winds bring the temperature below
40:37minus 40 degrees centigrade will gow lets his guard down and pays a heavy price i have a face mask
40:45that goes across like that underneath the goggles and what happened is all the the wind got underneath
40:51burnt the side of my face here the cheek and then all the ice from the breathing uh froze against
40:59the face mask and that frost was resting on my nose and the whole thing began to it was basically
41:06freezing the skin like henry worsley will gow is shocked by the ferocity of conditions on the plateau
41:16my biggest fear before we set up was that we would probably have four foot of powder snow
41:24uh across the ross ice shelf there was always the fear of the beard more but i hadn't quite appreciated
41:32just how harsh the conditions up here are shackleton and his team were also struggling as they neared the pole
41:42terribly hard work today we are weakening from want of food and the high altitude
41:48i cannot think of failure yet i must look at the matter sensibly and consider the lives of those who
41:55are with me man can only do his best and we have arrayed against us the strongest forces of nature
42:05their bodies were under assault on all fronts it was becoming drier and colder they were moving into the
42:13interior ice cap and going higher and higher the further south that they went and so they were
42:18feeling the effects of altitude they were becoming dehydrated and they were starting to feel the effects
42:24of hypothermia battling southwards with dwindling food supplies the pole was beginning to slip from
42:33shackleton's grasp not only were the food supplies on hand severely stretched but the depots all the way back
42:42to the coast um were insufficient as well and he realized even if they turned back at that moment
42:50they would be driving on a knife edge of survival to save the lives of his men shackleton abandoned his
42:58attempt on the pole with just 97 miles to go his dream was over our last day outwards
43:09we have shot our bolt the tail is latitude 88 degrees 23 minutes south longitude 162 degrees east
43:20we hoisted the union jack and took possession of the plateau in the name of his majesty
43:27homeward bound whatever regrets may be we have done our best
43:36shackleton showed the greatest of all courage which is the courage of knowing when to turn of daring to turn
43:44back he had a very finely tuned sense of self-preservation he wrote to his wife emily and said to
43:54paraphrase it
43:55i thought you'd prefer to have a live ass than a dead lion you know which speaks volumes yes i
44:03could have
44:04dragged myself and the other guys all the way but i think we would have ended up dead and
44:09that wasn't the kind of triumph i was after on the 9th of january 2009 exactly 100 years later to
44:24the day
44:25the descendants of the shackleton team reach 88 degrees 23 minutes south
44:31the point at which shackleton turned back the decision to turn back must be one of the greatest
44:39decisions taken in the whole annals of exploration particularly polar exploration he came so close
44:46he pioneered this route 850 odd miles you know every day he was seeing new sites 97 miles to go
44:55and he
44:55turns around um with such a glorious prizes staring in the face and it's it's just a it's a great
45:04tribute
45:05to the man in terms of his his love of his men you know no one was going to die
45:09and no one was going
45:10to be seriously injured under his command but shackleton's troubles were far from over
45:17he and his men now had a walk of almost 700 miles in front of them to reach the coast
45:23and safety
45:25with only a few poultry supply dumps to keep themselves alive on the way from the beginning
45:33they were stalked by hunger
45:37we decided to cut down the rations by another biscuit
45:43as we have only six days left on short ration
45:49so we feel very hungry
45:57when the men were on half rations they were consuming about 2 000 calories a day
46:03when their bodies were actually expending somewhere in excess of 6 000 calories a day
46:09their fat stores were depleted and the body was starting to burn muscle as well and that
46:14included the heart muscle so they were coming to the point of seriously endangering themselves
46:24the 2008 team have now gone further south than shackleton they have less than 60 miles to the pole
46:32but they only have six days food left and if they're trapped in a storm like they were on the
46:38ross ice
46:38shelf they could be defeated in the final hour they have to keep moving however tough the conditions
46:46and it's here on the plateau they're rejoined by the time watch crew about minus 30 at the moment
46:53with uh about a five to ten knot wind pretty miserable got no visibility at all
47:01we're heading it well we could just see the horizon so uh hopefully it'll blow over and lift a bit
47:07but
47:07it's a very pretty miserable traveling conditions today
47:15okay
47:27here we are it's about uh four or five o'clock in the afternoon
47:32uh we've been fighting through a whiteout and now we are just trying to make as much headway as possible
47:45after another day battling ferocious winds and deadly cold just putting up the tent brings on the danger
47:52of frostbite hands cold this is the coldest time of day we've traveled for seven hours
48:02we're very hungry and without food the blood goes straight into the core and the hands really
48:10suffer especially when you're in contact with snow so yeah minus 30 and a bit of wind this is cold
48:18with temperatures dropping there's no time to waste the team fire up the stove and tuck into yet
48:24another boil-in-the-bag meal
48:29they've been eating freeze-dried meals for over two months while it might be boring at least the team
48:35knows they are getting the nutrition their body needs
48:40well we need as many calories we can get and we need to drink a lot as we go along
48:45this is an energy
48:47drink it's dynamite it does us really well
48:53and we drink two liters of it every day
49:00but when shackleton and his men were struggling back they were at one point literally starving
49:07we did 26 miles fine weather the food is all finished but one meal no biscuit only cocoa tea
49:15salt and pepper left must reach depot tomorrow
49:21at this point shackleton was on the verge of collapse and marshall as a doctor perceived that
49:28and and saw the group and the leadership crumbling and so he stepped into the quick
49:32and started passing out patent medicine called forced march which were actually a preparation of
49:38cocaine and so the men fueled themselves on this artificial energy until they were able to reach the next depot
49:48two days written up as one they have been the hardest and most trying we have ever spent in our
49:54lives
49:55tonight the 27th we have had our first solid food since the morning of the 26th
50:02only an all-merciful providence has guided our steps to tonight's safety at our depot
50:27the team are now just two days away from the pole
50:32henry worsley has been plotting their progress as they go
50:35and every day he reports their position with a satellite phone
50:40eight nine three six south east one seven seven zero eight
50:54day 65 and the weather is fine the team make good progress but their bodies are paying the price
51:03they have lost two stone each over the past couple of months
51:08now the end can't come quickly enough for them
51:16well i get kind of my left hands sort of getting to shut down now two or three fingers on
51:21it that
51:24go very quickly
51:27the weather closes in again as the team set up camp for what they hope will be the last time
51:32henry worsley
51:34phones in their new position position south eight nine five five east one seven two two six
51:47day 66 and the weather stays fine for this team the struggle is nearly over
51:55but in 1909 things were going from bad to worse for shackleton's team january and february were a constant
52:04battle between life and death with food supplies dwindling they were reduced to eating the carcasses
52:12of the ponies slaughtered on the outward journey
52:16and they were eating butchered pony meat which had turned bad as they had been sitting on the ice
52:22shelf and they were all as a consequence severely sick wild was extremely sick and couldn't hold any
52:29food down
52:30cannot write more all down with acute dysentery terrible day no march possible outlook serious
52:40fine weather
52:42yet even on death's door shackleton's ability as a leader shone through
52:49they had one biscuit each for food and on this day
52:53um shackleton turned to wild and gave him his own bit only biscuit to eat and wild wrote in his
52:59diary
53:00by god i will never forget this he got his men into a situation where it was touch and go
53:07so it was at the forefront of his mind how thin was the thread that their lives were hanging on
53:13and that
53:14thin thread was in his grasp nobody else was holding it
53:22for the descendants the end is finally in sight the south pole station
53:30well it's very exciting got two miles for it to sink in really
53:35it's um it's the end of two last two miles of a 900 mile journey
53:41the united states have had a continually manned station at the south pole since 1956
53:49during the antarctic summer the base is home to over 200 staff working on a bewildering variety of
53:56scientific projects
53:59we're used to seeing nothing on the horizon and this is all rather overwhelming it's the hand of man
54:06and we're just not used to that for 60 days zero
54:16antarctica is still just as cold just as far away just as inhospitable as it was in shackleton's day
54:23and many expeditions even today that set off to try to reach the south pole
54:28end in failure so for the boys to make it till the end is the most phenomenal feat
54:36after 66 days on the ice the modern team complete their unfinished family business
54:43they are at the geographic south pole
54:46take the road to the south pole
54:48they have made the first ever complete journey from shackleton's hut to the south pole
54:53unassisted and unsupported
55:07shackleton and his men finally reached the nimrod and safety on the first of march 1909
55:16they had been on the ice for 120 days
55:19almost twice as long as the modern team they hadn't reached the pole but shackleton's spirit
55:27had brought them back alive shackleton is very often mythologized as being a born leader and i think
55:34that actually rather gives him short shrift he did have natural gifts but on the other hand these skills
55:41were also hard won you can see that on the nimrod this is his testing ground and people today resonate
55:48with that sense of personal leadership and very personal loyalty that he cultivated with his men
55:57and the sense that they could face any kind of adversity
56:01on his return to england shackleton was knighted by king edward the seventh and became the toast of the town
56:08in december 1911 roald amundsen and his team became the first men to reach the south pole
56:15they were followed just over a month later by captain scott and his men who all perished on their return
56:22journey
56:25two years after scott died shackleton set off in the ship endurance his mission this time to cross the antarctic
56:33continent
56:36but endurance was crushed in pack ice
56:40shackleton again led his men on an epic retreat
56:44sharing every hardship he miraculously guided them all back to safety
56:51ernest shackleton never managed to reach the south pole
56:55but he was one of the greatest polar explorers of all time and his incredible leadership and courage
57:01continues to inspire explorers today well here's the other part of the significance of this journey
57:08she carried the original compass shackleton took with him to the point 97 miles from here
57:14and we carried it for the rest of the journey and there she is
57:26he is and always will be a giant not just of polar expedition but of endeavor
57:35he is and only because he was committed to the lives of his men that is luminous that's a light
57:46he is and only because his and only his only one state that will burn forever