Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2000

On the "whose next" question, the answer is that no one has done what Peary, Henson, et al. did, i.e., go to the pole with absolutely no hope for relief from any other person.

Every later expedition, to a greater or lesser extent, has relied on aircraft and radio to dramatically alter the nature of the feat. Byrd flew over the pole in '27 (contested), knowing that a search party could be organized if he failed to return on schedule. Amundsen, Nobile and Ellsworth crossed the pole and went on to Alaska a few days later.

In the early 30s, a Soviet team (one of whom was a professional acquaintance of my father) established a camp about 30 miles from the pole and rode the ice down into the East Greenland sea. After the war, the Air Force flew regular missions to the Pole, and a fellow named Fletcher set up bases on various ice floes. Not sure how close any of these were to the actual pole.

Then come the stunt men:

• Plaisted, 1967, "first" to go over the ice (by snowmobile, with air lift out);
• Herbert, 1968, ("first" by dogsled; first to cross the ice over the surface; supported with 28 tons of airdropped supplies, including a hut and a bathtub, provided by the armed forces of 3 countries);
• Steger (by dogsled, no air re-supply, but airlifted out); and numerous later persons (first by skis, etc.).

I believe within the last few years, two men made it to the pole and back without re-supply. Nevertheless they had the advantage of an emergency radio beacon and relatively good chance of air rescue. (In the appendix of their book they dispute the Peary/Henson achievement-calling them "amateurs"). The fact remains that these guys could push things to the absolute limit knowing they could always call for help, subject only to having to fork out the cost. Its too bad they could not be more gracious, and admit that their exploit simply serves to demonstrate that what might appear, based on the experiences of others, to be impossible can be achieved by someone with the right combination of skill, strength, planning and good luck. Their conclusion should have been that folks who claim that Peary/Henson's feat was impossible need to rethink that.

In short, if Peary and Henson did not do what they set out to do (but of course, they did), then no one did it.

Doug