Solo Explorer Reaches
Geomagnetic North Pole

The Guardian
Posted April 9, 2003

By Tania Branigan

The explorer David Hempleman-Adams announced to the world - and his wife - yesterday that he had become the first person to walk solo and unsupported to the geomagnetic North Pole. The 47-year-old undertook the 300-mile trek to mark his 20 years of "hauling sledges", but told his family he was skiing in the Arctic. They only learned of his real aim when he phoned them yesterday to announce his arrival.

"My wife said, 'Well, at least you are safe and sound'. But I think I'm for the high-jump when I get back on Thursday," he said.

Mr Hempleman-Adams set off from Ellesmere Island on March 17 and reached his goal late on Sunday night, despite badly bruising his leg in a 6-metre fall from a glacier a week ago.

But he admitted that the trek across icy terrain, dragging a sledge weighing 45kg (100lb), had convinced him that this should be his last solo trip.

In many places he had to climb or abseil ice faces to continue.

"It was far harder than anything I have ever done, because of the combination of mountaineering skills and polar travel," he said in Resolute Bay, in the Canadian Arctic, at the end of his gruelling three-week journey.

"This was too close. I just thought: I have got to grow up. I'm getting too old."

He added that a failed attempt to make the same trip four years ago had gnawed away at him.

"I wanted to go out with a bang, doing something no one had done before," he said.

But Mr Hempleman-Adams admits that he will not be giving up exploration entirely, describing the trip merely as his "last solo Arctic expedition", which, perhaps to his wife's dismay, should leave plenty of scope for future adventures.

He dedicated his achievement to Terry Lloyd, the ITN reporter killed last month while covering the war in Iraq, who had followed several of Mr Hempleman-Adams's previous adventures.

"He was just such a delightful man and the consummate professional," he said.

The geomagnetic pole is the reference used by scientists to record the general location of the magnetic north, as the actual pole can shift significantly day by day, due to environmental factors.

On average it moves between 5 and 25 miles a year, drifting in a north or north-westerly direction.

Five years ago Mr Hempleman-Adams became the the first person to complete the so-called "explorers' grand slam" by conquering all four poles - the geographic and magnetic, north and south - and by scaling the highest mountain in each of the seven continents.

But he still describes his adventures as a hobby; his "proper job" is running a chemical factory in Swindon.

The Guardian

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