Icewalk

In March 1989 the author set off with an international eight-man team to cross 500 miles of frozen Arctic sea. This is an account of their journey and draws on diaries of the whole team describing their gruelling daily experiences, worsened by the constant threat of attack by polar bears. Satellite pictures had shown 40-foot icewalls and despite temperatures of -55c, fragmented ice was drifting 6 miles a day, leaving large stretches of open water ahead of them. Despite frostbite, severe gaping wounds, a near fatal virus attack on a Japanese member of their party, and a spinal injury, the author willed himself on. Even when they stood jubilant at the Pole, their troubles were not over. Retrieval aircraft were prevented from take-off by the airstrip splintering in the spring thaw and after 55 days the fragile bonding of the team nearly snapped.