Adventures in Fail: Attempts to Quadbike to South Pole Ends in Deaths

Matt playing on one of the new toys, originally uploaded by Antarctic M.

Some rednecks from Norway tried to ride quadbikes to the South Pole. They must have thought that, with all of Al Gore’s global warming, and seeing how a bunch of fat ass penguins could walk it while a chilly Morgan Freeman narrates, it should be a cinch to drive there.

From Aussie news here:

The two survivors of a Norwegian expedition retracing the footsteps of legendary compatriot Roald Amundsen to the South Pole have defended their journey amid growing condemnation.

Bedraggled and showing signs of facial frostbite, controversial Scandinavian adventurer Jarle Andhoy and his 18-year-old companion Samuel Massie on Monday spoke of their ordeal after being airlifted from Antarctica to Christchurch by a US Operation Deep Freeze flight.

While the pair managed to trek non-stop for a week to the US base at McMurdo Sound, the three other members of the Wild Viking expedition are believed to have perished in the Southern Ocean after their 14-metre steel vessel Berserk disappeared a week ago.

He and Massie disembarked from the Berserk on February 13 near Scott Base to start their quest on quad bikes to mark the centenary of Amundsen becoming the first explorer to reach the South Pole on December 14, 1911.

The Berserk’s emergency locator beacon was activated last Tuesday. It lasted for several hours before transmissions ceased, and it is now assumed the yacht sank in one of the worst Antarctic storms in 20 years.

Lou Sanson, chief executive at Antarctica New Zealand, said the venture was unwise.

“It was very unusual to be attempting a 1600-kilometre trip to the South Pole on motorbikes,” Sanson said. “It is minus 20 (degrees Celsius) there. On the Polar Plateau it is minus 30. You get wind chill up to minus 70. These guys were 220km towards the pole and still had over 1200km to go.”

Its the height of summer in the Antarctic and its still too cold to dare attempt a journey to the pole. The myth that the world is warming, coupled with a bad plan and poor equipment doomed these fools.