http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2010/04/17/Fall_ends_North_Pole_adventurers_trek_452117.html
Perth
adventurer Tom Smitheringale's bid to be the first Australian to ski
solo to the North Pole has ended after he fell into freezing water.
Smitheringale,
39, was rescued by a Canadian military aircraft at 9am (WST) on Friday
and airlifted to northern Canada, where he is receiving treatment for
hypothermia, friends of the adventurer said.
The fitness trainer
had set off an emergency locator beacon about eight hours earlier. He
was a little over halfway to his destination.
Smitheringale, who
left the Canadian arctic base of Ward Hunt Island on February 26, had
battled inclement weather and frostbite during the past six weeks.
He
was expected to take almost three months to complete the perilous 800km
journey, braving blizzards, broken ice and polar bears, and towing a
160kg sled across some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth.
Only
two others have successfully completed the solo journey to the
geographic North Pole. All five attempts in the past five years have
failed, with two adventurers dying.
Perth-based blogger Jim
Pizzey, who has been documenting Smitheringale's journey online at
www.onemanepic.com, wrote earlier on Friday that two Twin Otter
fixed-wing aircraft and a helicopter had been dispatched from the
Canadian military base of Alert to rescue him.
'I have very little
information at present other than that he appears to have fallen
through the ice and has become hypothermic,' Mr Pizzey wrote.
'He is currently in the back of an aircraft on his way to the medical centre at Alert.
'I expect him to arrive at 1200 WST. I'll update this with more information as I get it.'
Smitheringale
was in a race against time to reach the North Pole before April 26,
when the last Russians are due to leave Barneo ice station and take any
remaining Arctic expedition members with them.
Saturday, April 17, 2010 » 07:36am
I repeat. Noone ever reached North or South Pole (inc. Attenborough), because it's impossible: they never existed !
Attenborough reaches North Pole
http://bigpondnews.com/articles/Entertainment/2010/04/17/Attenborough_reaches_North_Pole_452310.html
Veteran
British wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has reached the
North Pole for the first time at the age of 83, the BBC said on
Saturday.
The naturalist and presenter made it to the top of the
world while filming in the Arctic Circle for a new BBC nature series
highlighting the impact of global warming on the Earth's extreme
regions.
Attenborough, who also recently visited the South Pole, said: 'The poles - North and South - look superficially very similar.
'But
when you visit them within a few weeks of one another, as I have just
done, you realise how profoundly different they are and how what is
happening to them is going to affect the entire planet,' he added.
'A
century ago, the poles were just about the most inaccessible place on
Earth. Today that has changed. Nonetheless, to have visited them both
within a few weeks of one another is a huge privilege.'
The BBC
presenter, the brother of acclaimed actor Richard Attenborough, is
famous for acclaimed nature programs including Life on Earth, The
Living Planet and The Trials of Life.
Until now, most of his previous programs have focused on tropical parts of the world, he noted.
'Having
seen what I've just seen, from penguins to polar bears, from the frozen
ocean to snow-covered volcanoes, I can't imagine why I've left visiting
these marvellous, astonishing and beautiful places until so late in my
life.'
His new series, Frozen Planet, will be broadcast in late 2011.
Saturday, April 17, 2010 » 11:19pm