Blizzard: Race To The Pole

This book includes a foreword by Ranulph Fiennes. Accompanying the extraordinary television series, this book recreates the worst journey in the world - to experience first hand the chilling truth behind the race to the South Pole. At the beginning of the last century, reaching the South Pole was the greatest terrestrial journey left to man. To get to the bottom of the earth, traversing the very worst of what the natural world had to offer, would be an achievement that would symbolise humanity's ultimate domination of nature. The stakes could hardly have been higher. By the spring of 1912 the race was over: Scott was dead and Amundsen, the victor, was on his way home. Ever since the debate has raged over whether Scott was an arrogant incompetent or whether he was the victim of bad luck - a rare set of meteorological circumstances.

THE GREAT RACE attempts to answer the question by leveling the polar plateau and re-running the race in an experiment of unrivalled ambition. Two teams, selected from among the world's greatest adventurers, will be kitted out entirely in the style of the original expeditions. The difference will be that both teams will start at the same time and from points within ten km of each other. This means that for the first time it will be possible to see whether it was luck or judgement that led Amundsen to victory and Scott to his death. This book tells the incredible story of the original race, together with aspects of the modern-day race that shed light on Scott and Amundsen's achievements. It includes the diary of the British team leader and expeditionist Bruce Parry.