North Pole Tenderfoot. Doug Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ what he expected from the trip to the pole.

      “I do not—repeat, do not—expect it to be fun,” he replied. “You do trips like this for the physical, mental, and spiritual challenge. It’s absolutely grueling, but there’s tremendous satisfaction when you complete the journey. And there’s great camaraderie when a group of people come together and combine their talents to achieve a goal.”

      On and on it went. Each team member was more macho than the last. Each was a veteran of pain and punishment. I was a veteran of meetings and memos.

      I introduced myself to Bill Martin, the co-leader of the trip, a lanky guy of forty-nine with a big smile. A resident of Gainesville, Florida, he had led climbing expeditions in North and South America, Russia, the Himalayas, and Antarctica.

      Bill wondered if I was related to Rob Hall, who had been a good friend of his.

      “Had been?” I asked.

      Bill explained that Rob was the guide whose death on Everest was made famous by Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air. “Rob was a major dreamer who lived the dreams that others merely dream,” Bill said.

      Thinking I might find an answer to the eternal question, I asked, “Why do you do it?”

      “Because I’m brain damaged,” Bill explained with a proud smile. “I spend six weeks a year on adventures. I’m an orthodontist. I arrange my practice so that I can train and make trips like this.”

      “So what’s it really like on a trip like this?” I asked, a thinly veiled attempt to understand what I had gotten myself into.

      Bill quickly became analytical: “When I climbed in Antarctica I learned that first you’re freezing—colder than you’ve ever been before. Then, as time goes on, you acclimate, your body adapts—assuming, of course, you’re in good enough shape to handle the trip.”

      Good enough shape?

      I wondered what was good enough shape. Again, I consult this Jedi Master: “What’s good enough shape?”

      “I run up and down the stairs of the local university’s football stadium,” Bill said, “wearing a full pack.”

      He paused to let me explain my training regimen. Figuring that my daily two-mile run wasn’t macho enough, I did the only thing I could think of—I took a long slug of Scotch.

      Gulp!

      I was in trouble. What had I been thinking?

      Sensing my anxiety, Bill suddenly shifted from macho mountain man to mentor. He assured me I would be okay. “Listen close and train hard, harder than you can imagine, and you’ll be fine.”

      I took a deep breath, and made a mental note to keep close to Bill during this Hell week. He could be my guide to the world of high adventure.

      The rest of the expedition team included:

      • Celia Martin, Bill’s forty-five-year-old sister, also from Gainesville, also an orthodontist. Our teeth would be straight for this trip. An alumnus of Outward Bound wilderness courses, Celia was an avid hiker. I would learn that she’s quick to speak her mind. When I messed up, she was blunt about saying so, but she conveyed the message with a gentleness that made me feel okay about my incompetence.

      Celia Martin

      • Alan Humphries, thirty-six, from County Down in Northern Ireland, near Belfast. Alan was an entrepreneur with a chain of small casinos in and around Northern Ireland. Next to Paul, Alan was our most experienced musher, having dogsledded across Hudson Bay in 1996 and piloted an eight-day team in the 1997 World Dogsledding Championships, a time-trial sprint race covering twenty-five kilometers a day over three days in Finland.

      Alan Humphries

      He said he had dreamed of going to the North Pole since childhood. “I remember getting a gift as a child, a little guy known as Action Man who came with a polar exploring expedition kit, complete with dogs and sleds and the whole works. I’ve had the bug since then.”

      • Randy Swanson, forty-two, was from Grandville, Michigan, where he owned an auto repair business. He had climbed Africa’s Mt. Cameroon and Mt. Bartle-Frere in Australia. Like Alan, he was also an alumnus of one of Paul’s Arctic trips.

      Randy Swanson

      I asked Randy what drew him to this kind of trip.

      “I love the physical rigors,” he said. “I like it when the going gets tough. That’s when I shine.”

      Gulp. Who were these people?

      An accomplished guitarist with tastes ranging from classical to alternative, Randy said he found it difficult to explain to friends why he wanted to go to the North Pole.

      “Nobody understands,” he said. “They all think I’m going to Alaska. Or they wonder if I’m going to stay overnight in lodges. Or they want to know if there’s a certain path I’ll be following. Most people don’t have any idea what this trip will be like.”

      • Corky Peterson was from Minneapolis, where he had been the Hennepin County data processing director until his retirement. On the trip up to Wintergreen, Craig and I were most impressed (or intimidated) by Corky’s bio. We wondered what kind of guy at sixty-nine would sign on for a trip like this.

      He clearly was no ordinary person. He had an intensity of focus and sense of priority unlike any of the rest of us.

      Corky Peterson

      “I went on a wilderness trip to Ellesmere Island last year and thought everyone would be about my age,” he said. “I was shocked to find they were mostly twenty years younger. People thought, ‘Oh, how wonderful it was that someone my age would undertake such an endeavor.’ I thought, ‘Hey, what’s the problem?’”

      On our trip, Corky stood to become the oldest person to ever reach the North Pole by foot.

      “But I hope I can do something worthwhile with the Aspirations! Expedition for people my age,” he said. “Maybe within my church and with others in my age group, maybe I can be an encouragement for us to get off our duffs, to stop letting people tell us we can’t do this or that.”

      Like Alan, Corky has dreamed of going to the North Pole since he was a boy.

      “I used to stare at the globe in school and wonder what was underneath that spindle at both ends. I want to be where time has no meaning, where all the longitudes come together. The pole is within reach, and now I have the time to do this,” he said.

      “What do you think of the risk?” I asked. “What scares you?”

      “I’ve read a lot about previous polar teams. Falling through the ice is a challenge, keeping up physically СКАЧАТЬ