Whats it all about

In November 2010, a team of 6 fit, highly motivated Britons will walk, unsupported and each hauling sledges weighing up to 90kg to the South Pole. Why? To reclaim the record...

460 miles of sub-zero temperatures with wind chill reaching as low as -40 C. Headwinds of up to 50 miles an hour, glaciers, crevasses, sastrugi (ice waves), mental isolation and monotony. All these need to be overcome in order to set a new record time for an assault on the Pole via the Beardmore Glacier route - traditionally the British gateway to the Pole. The route takes the team from the base of the Beardmore Glacier and climbs for over 100 miles, before crossing over 300 miles of the Antarctic plateau to the pole itself.

“Are the British going downhill?, No! there is plenty of pluck and spirit left in the British after all…”
Robert Baden-Powell, Capt R F Scott Memorial Service, 13 February 1913.

The South Pole. Centre of the Antarctic continent, a land mass of 8 million square miles (14 million square km) of the most remote, inhospitable and unforgiving terrain known to man. The largest desert on the face of the earth.

In 1910, Captain Robert Scott and his party sailed from the UK and landed in Antarctica in preparation for their ultimately doomed attempt to reach the Pole. It was a year later that shortly after reaching their goal, Scott and 4 of his companions perished on the return journey having found that Norwegian, Roald Amundsen had beaten them to the prize.

99 years since the great expeditions to claim the pole, it is time for the British to again claim their rightful place at the forefront of Antarctic endeavour. A tough challenge in normal conditions. This is not a race between teams. This is man against himself, nature and against the hardest rival conceivable – the clock.  

Best of British South Pole Expedition from i-catching movies

Fortnum & Mason - our initiating partners, have been supporting expeditions since they opened their doors in 1707. F&M have been at the forefront of extending the influence of Great Britain overseas, their provisions have supported Wellington at Waterloo (1815), Florence Nightingale in the Crimea (1855), Mallory on Everest (1922), Howard Carter in Egypt (1922) and a host of other expeditions of discovery and exploration. A quintessentially British brand, F&M and the Best of British Team are a modern linkup with a traditional flavour.