When Your Life Depends on It

by Brad Borkan

  Take one well known goal, sought by some today, for example. Time and again there are books, articles or movies about climbers on Everest who are so goal driven that they choose certain death to achieve their goal. This happened the very week we were editing this chapter3 (June 2016) when three climbers continued towards the Everest summit despite being told that time had run out. None of them survived.

  Shackleton’s decision in 1909 was so remarkable because it reveals one of the most valuable lessons we can learn from the heroic age—when do we say, “It is time to turn back,” and how do we convert abandoning a goal into an a positive outcome? Shackleton’s brilliance was in seeking a memorable alternative achievement—going the distance to get within 100 geographical miles of the pole. Within that magical number—100—better, indeed, than they turned around at 103 geographical miles.

  * * *

  Sometimes in life, decisions are not clear; other times, as shown in the next chapter, they are abundantly clear, and one must take a monumental gamble.

  3 Article in the Guardian newspaper, June 6, 2016, http://gu.com/p/4kcnm/sbl “Subhash Paul, Paresh Nath and Goutam Ghosh continued towards summit despite advice time had run out,” says Sherpa.

  Chapter 11

  All Or Nothing: When Do You Take The Big Risk?

  Sometimes you just have to plunge ahead.

  What makes these stories of Antarctic exploration unforgettable? For many people it is that the early explorers, Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, Mawson and their companions took such massive risks. Once the big decision was made, there was no turning back; it was all or nothing. They ventured out into the unknown with only the supplies they had the forethought to bring, with no hope of rescue should their plans fall into disaster. Frequently, it was a case of “do or die trying,” often with the expedition leader at the front, with his own survival as much at risk as anyone else’s.

  Building upon the experiences of those who had gone before, they learned to anticipate many of the hazards. But not all of them. For all of the painstaking study and careful preparation seen in Chapter 4, each of the expeditions had to learn the painful lessons of discovery and exploration—extremes of cold and winds never before encountered, blizzards and whiteouts, marauding sea ice and yawning crevasses, and the encroaching weakness of vitamin deficiency.

  Over time, these became less hazardous. The price of being first to see the uncharted shore or reach the long-sought goal was to be paid in discomfort and gruelling work, but not in lives. Once the Pole had been won, new and ever more dangerous goals seemed to loom over the horizon. Mawson stretched his teams across fifteen hundred miles over an unapproachable coastline; Shackleton envisioned a crossing of the continent.

  Each new gamble was unique, the dangers were clear, the risks ever-present, and the outcome always uncertain. And on occasion deadly. Of the 165 men who set out to explore the Antarctic, eleven did not return. Listed on the page opposite, they were victims of the ravages of extended exposure, accident, and, for two of them, a failure to heed the clear patterns of the sea ice.

  A higher fatality rate than that for ordinary occupations back at home perhaps, but this sort of adventuring attracts those with a desire for experiences that are out of the ordinary, for whom the added risk only adds spice to their everyday life. Considering the magnitude and variety of all the risks that all these explorers took, it is remarkable that so few died.

  Each expedition relied on multiple, different, high-risk activities, all of which had to succeed as planned. Scott’s Discovery Expedition in 1901-1904 involved much more than just penetrating the sea ice to find a good harbour on Antarctica in which to set up a scientific hut. This was to be an undertaking rife with unknown hazards. The preparations and planning were as complete as they could be given the men had precious little polar experience to bring to bear. Once their ship was frozen in for the winter, they would have no way out, and no one on whom to depend for relief but themselves.

  In addition to the first manned balloon ascent and aerial photography in Antarctica, Scott’s Discovery teams accomplished one of the first penetrations to the far south, and also went westward onto the Antarctic plateau, all with equipment that was entirely new to the men. Early forays into the adjacent territory showed how shockingly cold and dangerous the Antarctic could be for novices. One man, George Vince, lost his life coming home from what should have been a routine outing. Other teams came perilously close to death, barely surviving falls into crevasses and bouts with scurvy. Their experiences, dearly paid, marked the hard-won beginning of a learning curve on which the second season’s successes were built. Not without risk, of course, extending ever farther afield in the assured self-confidence of those who have faced the hardest conditions and prevailed.

  Their adventures sparked the accolades of an admiring world, and a desire for more discoveries in this new and exciting continent. The unknown territory could be made known. The South Pole was now within reach. With only just a little more work, the facing of just a few more dangers, it could be won. Through some combination of trust, faith, luck, gut instinct and ingenuity, the vast majority of the men managed to survive. In all the higher risk scenarios described specifically in this chapter, not only did survive—there was not even one occurrence of a serious injury or broken limb.4

  The temptation grew to go just a little farther. Driven by ambition, the leaders of these expeditions decided, each for his own reasons, to take on a little more risk. Sometimes, it was much more than just a little. In the spirit of “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” the men under their command agreed to go along.

  4 One of the most remarkable things about the heroic age of Antarctic exploration was how very tough and resilient these men were. There were frequent cases of frostbite, snow blindness, and scurvy from which the men reliably recovered. Of the few permanent injuries, Aeneas Mackintosh’s loss of an eye while unloading the Nimrod, and Perce Blackborow’s amputation of several toes while on Elephant Island, were the most severe.

  Drawing the line

  To an observer looking at the events over a hundred years after they occurred, one of the most terrifying risks that any heroic age Antarctic explorer actually took did not happen in Antarctica. It happened in New Zealand in 1910.

  Before leaving England, Scott had purposefully changed the registration of the Terra Nova, to the Royal Yacht Squadron. This gambit enabled the ship to be exempt from the British maritime regulation dictating that a Plimsoll line (the mark on the ship’s hull indicating the safe draft level) had to be painted on its side. At the time of the Terra Nova’s sailing, this line had long been required by British maritime law, but would not become an international standard until twenty years in the future.

  The ship was heavily loaded at Cardiff and the line would certainly have been below the water level. Although there was considerable risk in sailing the ship in this condition, the journey to New Zealand would pass through calmer seas. While the Terra Nova was docked in New Zealand late in 1910, the ship went through final preparations for the voyage to Antarctica. Many extra supplies, including more men and their gear, were added to the ship for the journey south. Also included were tons more coal, more scientific equipment, all the dogs and ponies, three motor sledges and their spare parts, and tons more food and other supplies. The decks of the ship were laden with cargo, coal in sacks, oil in tins, and three huge containers holding the motor sledges.

  Everyone boarding the Terra Nova knew she was perilously low in the water, but they all took the risk to sail from New Zealand to Antarctica across some of the most treacherous and stormy seas in the world. Would you have dared say, “This is not for me?”

  Two days out of port, the Terra Nova hit a storm. The gale lasted for thirty-six intense hours, during which the ship began to fill with water. The pumps, clogged by balls of oil and coal, refused to draw. It looked to everyone aboard that she was going to sink. As she settled lower in the water, the men working in shifts kept her barely afloa
t by bailing until the pumps could be restored. The Terra Nova survived thanks to the hard work of these men. Had she gone down, the expedition would never have been heard from again. Two of the dogs were washed overboard, and two of the ponies died in their stalls, but in the end the storm passed on, and the ship resumed her passage to Antarctica.

  It is truly remarkable that they survived on such a heavily-laden ship in such a fierce storm. It is even more remarkable that Scott and his men went on the ship in the first place—that they did not consider making the necessary trade-offs between the scientific pursuits of the expedition (men and scientific instruments), the polar ambitions (motor sledges, dogs and ponies) and all the other food and supplies they thought were needed for success on all counts. They risked it all in pursuit of their ambitions, and they survived thanks to their tenacity and hard work throughout the entire storm.

  Were they brave or foolhardy, or a bit of both? Certainly they were tested.

  Barrier Ice or land: which would you choose?

  Scott was not the only big risk taker. All the expedition leaders took massive, “throw the dice,” risks in achieving their goals. Exactly one-and-a-half months after the Terra Nova hit the storm at sea, Amundsen docked the Fram in the Bay of Whales. His intention was to build his base, Framheim, on the Barrier Ice near this bay. This location had the advantage of being sixty miles (96 km) closer to the South Pole than McMurdo Sound where Scott was building his Cape Evans Hut.

  There was one big difference. Scott was building his Cape Evans Hut on solid land; Amundsen’s Framheim would be built on the floating ice of the Barrier, which even then was known to break away into icebergs or disintegrate into smaller pieces.

  The region where Framheim was built has an interesting history linked to Scott and Shackleton. It was here in 1902 that Scott and his men had launched a hydrogen-filled army reconnaissance balloon to make the first aerial ascent in Antarctica, at an inlet into the Barrier they named Balloon Bight. Scott made the first ascent and Shackleton the second, but then the wind increased making Reginald Skelton’s ascent dangerous. Skelton was chief engineer and the Discovery Expedition photographer.

  Shackleton’s ship, the Nimrod, returned to the area in 1908, but could not find Balloon Bight. The Barrier Ice around this bay had broken away, leaving in its place a completely different inlet they named the Bay of Whales for the hundreds of whales in the area. This was all the proof Shackleton needed: no matter how permanent the Barrier Ice might look, it was unstable.

  Amundsen had a different view. He had studied the scant history of the area and had decided that parts of the Bay of Whales ice shelf were stable enough to build on because they were grounded. Since his sole ambition was to be first to the Pole, he decided that the advantage of being sixty miles (96 km) closer was worth the risk. Amundsen’s approach entailed an additional sizeable challenge—due to their starting position from the Bay of Whales, he and his team would have to pioneer an entirely new route to the South Pole; they would not be going over ground that Scott and Shackleton had covered on previous expeditions.

  Amundsen took a major risk in setting up his base on the ice. Had the Barrier Ice broken in the coming year, his hut, Framheim and everyone there would have been lost to the sea. The entire tale of the discovery of the South Pole would be different, and Amundsen would be remembered as a daring risk taker and an unlucky decision maker. Of course, had the Terra Nova actually sunk, as it came so dreadfully near to doing, the same might have been thought of Scott.

  One can debate who took the bigger risk. Each leader had his own skills, made his own decisions, and decided which risks were acceptable. In some aspects of polar travel, though, Amundsen planned better and therefore took fewer risks. For example, his depots were closer together than Scott’s and better sign-posted, but there is no denying that setting Framheim on the ice was an enormous risk that in the end paid off handsomely.

  Given the shorter mileage to the pole, and fewer days travelling on the colder and windier polar plateau at ten thousand feet (3,000 m) above sea level, their overall journey was less physically debilitating. More of their trek was spent in the slightly milder environment of the sea-level Barrier. Framheim and all of Amundsen’s men survived the “Barrier Ice” gamble, and Amundsen achieved his goal of being first to the pole.

  Two hundred miles and six weeks away from base camp

  Imagine you are due to fly somewhere today. Will you check your flight status online? If so, why? To make sure your flight is on time? To make sure weather conditions or mechanical failures are not going to result in a cancelled flight? Like many people, we rely on this information for reassurance.

  Now imagine it is over one hundred years ago, when there was no communication or information to be had. You were totally dependent upon a returning ship for your safety, but you had no way of knowing if it actually could reach you. It might arrive, but there was a very real possibility it might not. It was expected that if, for whatever reason, the ship could not return, you and your men would have to fend for yourselves. Would you have volunteered for that?

  Six men did, as part of Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition. They were a small team planning to explore a new area of Antarctica hundreds of miles from base. Their original plan, in 1911, was to explore a region called King Edward VII Land, located to the east, near the Bay of Whales. Finding Amundsen already encamped there, they accepted his offer of Antarctic hospitality and enjoyed a cordial visit, but declined his invitation to also be based there, opting instead to explore a different location. They chose Victoria Land, lying west of the Ross Sea.

  The small team became known as the Northern Party. They successfully wintered over near Cape Adare, but due to the geography of the location were unable to carry out much exploration. When the Terra Nova successfully returned as planned to pick them up in early January 1912 (the Antarctic summer), the Northern Party decided to be dropped off farther south on the coast, near Evans Cove, to investigate this previously unexplored region of the Antarctic. This new location was closer, but still two hundred miles (320 km) north of Scott’s main base at Cape Evans.

  The new plan was simple enough. The six-man Northern Party—Campbell, Priestley, Levick, Abbott, Browning, and Dickason—would conduct scientific and geological analysis in the area of Evans Cove, and the Terra Nova would pick them up in a pre-assigned location six weeks later. As with all the early expeditions, they had no way of contacting the ship, and the ship had no way of contacting them. The risks to ships in Antarctica were many—they could catch fire, sink in a storm, hit an iceberg, or get crushed in the ice pack. Imagine how isolating it would be, waiting for a ship to pick you up, all the time wondering if one of these calamities had happened.

  Landing six men in Evans Cove with only six weeks of supplies and a clear expectation that they would be picked up six weeks later was a calculated risk, but a large one all the same. At Evans Cove, the exploration aims were better met. However, when the six weeks were up, the ship could not retrieve them. The sea had frozen over and the ship could not get anywhere near them. The Terra Nova, herself in danger of being frozen in for the winter, had to continue north and leave the men to fend for themselves. One can only imagine what the Northern Party team members felt, waiting ashore with their very limited equipment, clothing and food, ultimately realizing the ship would not be able to pick them up.

  With winter coming on, they set up camp at a place they named Inexpressible Island. Their tents were not sufficient protection from the brutal Antarctic winter, so they dug a cave into the ice to make their home. Small though it was, twelve feet by nine feet, they maintained the naval custom of “partitioning” to make a “wardroom” for the three officers, and a “mess deck” for the men. The ice cave was so cramped, the two groups could always hear each other’s voices, but in the unwritten tradition of the sea, they chose to ignore the words. They survived the winter in this dark, ultimately squalid hovel in the ice, to emerge months later prepared to save thems
elves.

  For them, the next big risk arrived once spring came. They could either wait for rescue, or make a treacherous coastal traverse to Cape Evans. Though weakened by lack of food and sunlight, and suffering from frostbite and intestinal ailments, they took matters into their own hands and decided to hike. Thankfully they all survived. Later in the year, the Terra Nova was able to make it back to both Cape Adare and Evans Cove to retrieve the geological specimens they had left behind.

  Next time you are checking your flight status online or looking at the departure boards at the airport, spend a minute thinking what it must have been like being part of Scott’s Northern Party. Would you have been willing to be dropped off at a point on the Antarctic coast with only six weeks’ worth of supplies, with the understanding that the ship would return to collect you (hopefully) in six weeks, and knowing there was no way of contacting you if something happened?

  Fifteen hundred miles and one year away from base camp

  Fortunately for Scott’s Northern Party, they were only two hundred miles (320 km) from base and were able to trek back to Cape Evans even in their weakened state. If you thought that was risky, imagine setting up camp fifteen hundred miles (2,400 km) away from base.

  At roughly the same time as the Northern Party’s travails, Mawson’s Australian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) was underway. His aim was to explore a two-thousand-mile strip of Antarctic coast. A common ambition of all the expeditions was to explore new territory, in many cases claiming the new land for their country. Mawson’s plan was to set up a base at Cape Denison, with a secondary party of eight men, led by Frank Wild, to be dropped off fifteen hundred miles farther east on an ice shelf adjoining Queen Mary Land. (A third party was left at another location.) The intention was that Wild and his men would explore the coast, and one year later the Aurora would return to pick them up.