Pole to Pole

0ur plan to reach Antarctica by ship from Cape Town has failed.

But we have discovered a company which says it could get us to the Pole.

We must take a risk with them or go home.

But their base is in South America - we're at the end of the wrong continent.

We must fly 6,000 miles across the Atlantic, turning our back on the 30 degree meridian.

0ur route goes via Rio de Janeiro and the Andes to Santiago in Chile.

The Virgin is closed when I arrive in Santiago,

but the view is worth the walk.

In this well-ordered capital, a celebration is underway.

The band of the Palace Guards strikes up an oddly familiar refrain.

It's the president's birthday. The Chileans aren't always nice to their leaders.

18 years ago, they bombed the palace and President Allende took his own life.

Chileans may seem subdued compared with other South Americans,

but there are many pleasures here.

I meet our guide, Patricio, for lunch at one of the world's most elegant fish markets.

Both the cuisine and the music are local.

Patricio gives me the low-down on the pipes they call "quena".

- They're difficult to play? - Yes, it is.

It's difficult to put in tune all the little pipes

and it's difficult to keep the tune

because you are playing long notes

and you have to have strong muscles in your stomach to keep the air going.

General Pinochet, who got rid of Allende,

tried to ban these instruments as being "too representative of the Left".

He had more success with human beings - 2,000 of those he arrested are still missing.

It's a further 1,700 miles down the coast to the town of Punta Arenas,

which lies beside the Straits of Magellan and opposite the island of Tierra del Fuego.

It grew up as the safest harbour for ships making the journey round Cape Horn.

From its airport, Adventure Network flies the only commercial plane into Antarctica.

We've crossed continents, we're now at the tip of South America,

and we're here on the appointed day for our departure. The plane's behind us.

But the weather conditions here are unlike anywhere else on earth,

and the final decision as to whether we go today rests with the pilot and the weather station here.

The pilot is a Canadian, Bruce Allcorn.

His plane cannot put down for long in the cold of Antarctica.

He can only fly out when he knows he can get back.

He's looking for 18 hours of continuous good weather.

There are a lot of low pressure areas. Is that common in Antarctica?

It's a phenomenon of the South Polar regions.

Back here a few pages, a few days ago, there's a classic example.

I don't know if you can see it here.

Just in the area here,

we have two, three, four, five low pressure areas

in an area that normally would only have one or two in other parts of the world.

- We're not going today? - Definitely not.

When will you decide about tomorrow?

7.30 a.m. We have a schedule at 7 a.m. with Patriot Hills to get their weather.

I'll come over here at about 7.15,

see what the weather man thinks, look at the satellite and we'll make a decision.

- What are the chances? - 50-50 at this time.

If you're a gambler, I'll give you better odds.

While we wait for the weather, I find out more about Adventure Network

from the local manager, Anne Kershaw.

Have you ever had to abandon an expedition?

Once in the early years, 1985, people had planned a three-week trip

and after over two weeks in Punta Arenas with bad weather, we abandoned it.

The only remotely encouraging advice is to go to the main square

and visit the statue of Ferdinand Magellan, who led the world's first circumnavigation.

If I want to return safely from my journey, I must kiss the Indian's foot.

Now I can get back safely, but when can I go?

Patriot Hills, Romeo Bravo.

OK. Weather is 15,000 scattered... 20,000 broken...

If you want to know the conditions in Antarctica, you call someone there.

There's no weather satellite, just the radio.

OK. Copy all. Bruce's plan as of this moment is to fly.

The DC-6 will fly. Planning wheels off eleven local. How copy?

This is the news we've been waiting for.

At the airfield, the engineers can start putting the plane together.

Bruce's DC-6 was first put together in 1953.

In aviation terms it's a geriatric - taking on one of the most demanding journeys in the world.

I've taken some risks so far, but none have made me quite so nervous.

As you can see, we're here, action stations, ready to go.

After 24 hours on the edge of our seats... well, our hotel beds in Punta Arenas,

we've been told the weather is OK to fly.

Planes have been known to turn back, so we could still have to go back,

but it looks as though we're off.

It's unlike any other departure we've made so far.

A bit alarming, a bit exciting. It really is a voyage into the unknown.

Well, here goes.

The adventure starts right away. Climbing aboard is a feat of mountaineering.

0n this airline you have to be your own baggage handler.

When all is loaded, the pilot shuts the door.

All part of the service - and he's the only one who knows how to do it.

Half the cabin is for freight, half for passengers - 25 of us today.

Climbing out of here I expect it to be a little rough.

There'll be some turbulence over the mountains.

The weather is generally good all the way. The landing at Patriot Hills is different.

If you haven't experienced it before, the ice is a little rough -

the airplane wheels around, lots of noise from the engines.

It's quite normal. Don't be concerned.

The seat belt sign means what it says.

When it's on, be in your seats with the belt on. I don't leave it on for nothing.

When the seat belt sign's off, you can wander around, come up to the cockpit.

If you're using a flash camera, please warn me.

It startles the hell out of me when they go off behind my head.

Willy and Rob will give you the rest of the evacuation stuff

and we'll see you in Patriot Hills.

We'll be about seven hours and 40 minutes, I anticipate.

In case of ditching...

Willy, the co-pilot, is, we're told, a fully qualified stunt man.

Turn number three.

OK. That's it.

As Bruce finally nurses us along the runway,

I'm seized by an uncontrollable reluctance to part with Chile.

The trouble with fear of the unknown

is that you never know what the fear will be like until it's too late.

0nce clear of South America, we have a 1,500 mile journey

to Adventure Network's base at Patriot Hills,

which is 600 miles from the South Pole.

The flight is self-catering.

It's quite liberating not to have to wait for trolleys.

It's also easier to meet fellow passengers. There's not a sane one among them.

Australian dentists who want to be mountaineers

and Japanese who want to ride motorbikes to the Pole.

This is the way to do it. All airline catering should be like this.

I pressed one once and it exploded. I don't touch them any more.

Four hours after setting out, we're over the pack ice.

We've reached what Bruce drily refers to as "PNR" - "The Point of No Return."

There is no longer enough fuel to get us back to Chile.

The mood in the plane changes. Public jollity turns to private contemplation.

Everyone prepares themselves in their own way for what lies ahead.

There are no in-flight movies to break the mood, just in-flight maps.

We've been going five and a half hours. Where are we now?

We've come from Chile over here.

Our approximate track is the inked-in line.

We're now south of the Antarctic Circle.

We've come past the... You saw the icebergs that were carved off of these ice shelves.

Was that real coast or was that ice shelf?

That's ice shelf extended from this area west of Alexander Island.

We're coming up to the Ronne Entrance area and we'll be coming over this coast shortly

and then on to Mount Rex and over the mainland proper.

Yeah. How big are the icebergs? It's hard to tell from up here. What size are they?

The ones we've been seeing have been up to a kilometre or two across.

The scale is difficult from altitude.

There was an iceberg 100 kilometres across, the iceberg that would break off an ice shelf.

Those happen only every few years.

Apart from your base at Patriot Hills, what else is around this area? Any settlements?

The next closest people would be at one of the scientific bases either on the coast

or South Pole Station - at least 600 miles to the next closest humans.

We have arrived at the emptiest continent on earth. No one lives here.

An area one and a half times that of the USA is temporary home to some 3,000 scientists.

The mountaineers glimpse their goal -

Mount Vinson, 16,000 feet - the highest point in Antarctica.

But the collective pulse really starts to quicken when the Patriot Hills rise toward us.

These are the tips of mountains submerged beneath an ice cap 15 million years old

and, in places, three miles thick.

For Bruce, this is a testing moment.

He must put down a four-engined, fixed-wheel aircraft on blue ice,

without using brakes.

Everyone knows what a risk we've just taken.

If anything had gone wrong, there are no emergency vehicles to help us here.

This is all there is at the terminal at Patriot Hills.

The plane must be turned round fast. If the engines stop for two hours, they freeze.

There's no time for a helping hand onto a new and slippery continent.

This is the bit we've all been warned about.

I know why. Jesus... It's absolutely like plate glass.

Too late to go back.

- Bruce! - How you doing?

The arrival of Bruce's plane is the major event at Patriot Hills.

Everything needed to sustain life here comes in and goes out on the DC-6.

Apart from unloading 25 passengers and their equipment,

there are large stocks of supplies for the base.

If bad weather set in, it could be a month before the DC-6 is seen again.

All the fuel has to be flown out and the empty drums taken back.

It makes it as expensive as Scotch whisky.

Skidoos and sledges keep up a constant shuttle of freight between plane and camp.

The rest of us - the human freight - walk.

Conditions are good today.

It's high summer and the temperature has soared to minus six centigrade.

I don't know quite what I expected to find here, but I think it was more than this.

Next morning, after a calm night of unbroken sunshine,

I take my first faltering steps in the art of Antarctic survival.

I learn that here, in this ice desert,

even the most mundane human tasks take on an epic quality.

That is the most extraordinary view from any lavatory anywhere in the world.

I'm probably the only person sitting on the toilet for the next thousand miles.

It doesn't matter there's no roof on it. I'd like to spend my whole life here.

The trouble is it's bloody cold - you can't really hang around.

All human waste has to be removed from Antarctica. You can't leave anything here.

So anything I may pass today will be airfreighted out to Chile

where it's made into models and sold at the Duty Free shop there.

Makes you think.

Better be a good one.

The Patriot Hills base is a unique gateway - distributing adventurers around Antarctica.

Shinji Kazama hopes to be the first person to reach the South Pole by motorbike.

He's already ridden to the North Pole.

He's accompanied by that indispensable aid to 20th-century travel - a camera crew.

While Kazama tests the snow surface,

the doctors, dentists and accountants prepare to be airlifted out to Mount Vinson.

Their leader is Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund Hillary -

one of the first two men to climb Everest.

Just the logistics of an operation like this - like catering. Give us a day's menu.

It's a sumptuous mix of porridge in the morning,

crackers for lunch and rice for dinner.

- Doesn't that sound Cordon Bleu? - How do you get people to sign up?

I haven't told them about the menu yet!

You're from an illustrious climbing background - your father was the first man up Everest.

When you were young, were you given any option but to become interested in climbing?

If anything, Dad almost discouraged us from going to the mountains - certainly to climb.

We went there skiing.