Lone explorer heads for Pole

Press, 9 February 1983, Page 9

Lone explorer heads for Pole

By DIANA DEKKER in London An adventurer and mountaineer from Bristol, David Hempleman-Adams, aged 26, has left Britain for basecamp in the first stage of his solitary walk to the North Pole. Mr Hempleman-Adams,

who has already scaled the Matterhorn and the Eiger, hopes to make the journey in 55 days. He trained for the trip in Switzerland and in the coldest commercial deepfreeze he could find. He will begin his adventure at Ward Hut Island in Canada. The first 288 km will

be through 9m-high ridges of pressure ice using skis and mountaineering gear. If he finds polar bears a problem he intends to frighten them off using a few pots and pans hung together — “and if that fails I've a high-velocity rifle." He intends to travel be-

tween 16 and 32km a day. walking or ski-ing and lugging a sledge loaded with almost 45kg of gear.

He will wear a specially built aluminium suit and will be in constant touch with a two-man team which hopes to airlift supplies of a highprotein diet. On arrival at ihe Pole he plans to plant a United Nations flag.

Mr Hempleman-Adams. who studied marketing at Bristol Polytechnic, has had no polar experience but says that one of the first men to reach the North Pole was an American who had never seen ice except for what was splashed into his gin and tonic.