
Polar exploration history is rich beyond the wildest dreams of success and fame. It holds, indeed, the heaviest inheritance that has ever been entrusted to the courage and fidelity of adventurous men and women. The polar regions also hold the heaviest price on human survival. Today the British polar community lost a Great Explorer: Lt Col Henry Worsley died in Punta Arenas, Chile, after undergoing surgery for bacterial peritonitis. He was rescued from a point 30 miles short of his end goal having attempted a trans-continental crossing of Antarctica. Henry raised £101,000 for the military support charity The Endeavour Fund after covering an approximate distance of 914 miles on foot unaided, battling temperatures as low as -40 centigrade. He was 55 years of age. The Heroic Age of Polar Exploration relied on the individual and collective determination and endurance of men rather than the efficiency of machines. Today the increased use of aeroplanes, satellite phones and motorised sledges has replaced the age old method of man-hauling sledges across the land. Henry sought to maintain this Antarctic tradition, an extraordinary undertaking given the sheer scale of the distances involved. From all the team at From Fire to Ice, when we look up at Northern Star or the Southern Cross, we will remember you.