In Shackleton’s footsteps – a polar adventure

I wake to the sound of the wind. It rustles, reminding me of a lonely carrier bag that’s been caught in a gust as the sound flaps violently around my head. As my senses focus, I’m momentarily disorientated by the flame-red tinge of the dawn light; my breath is visible, and my face is cold. Then I remember that I’m in a tent, up a mountain in the wilderness near Finse, western Norway, where overnight temperatures plummeted to a gnarly -15°C.

Before I can romanticise this fact, my alarm goes off. Ten minutes later, after getting dressed within my sleeping bag (to trap body heat; it’s as difficult as it sounds), I’m sitting in the mess tent vestibule on breakfast duty. My frozen hands light the stove and shovel snow into a massive metal kettle; I wait for it to melt, then boil. Outside a blizzard is swirling, but for now coffee and freeze-dried porridge are on the agenda.

“A hot meal is the one thing to look forward to on an expedition,” says Wendy Searle, a publicist turned hardened polar leader who, in 2020, skied solo to the South Pole; last night, she slept in the tent with me. The day prior, Searle and Louis Rudd – a former arctic warfare instructor and SAS soldier who’s now a renowned endurance athlete, and who has shepherded British Army reservists across Antarctica – led our four-strong team of keen polar amateurs as we cross-country skied for seven hours; each of us was laden with our own equipment, overnight supplies and numerous down jackets in a six-stone pulk.

If it sounds intense, it was. That’s the point: Searle and Rudd are giving us a four-day taster of their ice-cap adventure with Shackleton, the London-based clothing brand that has effectively turned travel agent. This year, it unveiled Shackleton Challenges, an in-house polar training programme created in homage to Ernest Shackleton, the brand’s namesake Antarctic explorer who died attempting to circumnavigate the white continent 100 years ago. Those looking to channel his pioneering spirit can test their own mettle with one of the brand’s multiday expeditions. Led by Rudd and Searle, Shackleton – founded by Ian Holdcroft and Martin Brooks – currently offers icy treks across Antarctica and Iceland’s Langjökull glacier, as well as Norway and the Alps; next year, they’re hosting a 40-day trek to the South Pole.

The launch chimes with peaking interest in polar travel, where hard-to-reach landscapes, sub-zero temperatures and snowy, desolate vistas offer an extreme disconnection from everyday life. Demand for adventure yachting down the Antarctic Peninsula is up 400 per cent at boat charter specialist Pelorus, while Cookson Adventures has seen a host of new customers requesting bespoke sailing trips to remote snowy regions – popular activities include paddling iceberg-strewn waters and whale spotting in a kayak.

On a sunny day, you really feel like you’re in heaven

For others who might prefer to cruise along the Antarctic coastline, Swoop and Quark Expeditions both offer the chance to spot penguins and seals from the comfort of a cabin. Swoop says its action-packed itineraries – traditionally the preserve of retirees with time and funds to spare – which include kayaking and snorkelling, are attracting younger clients. “Social media has driven awareness of the real possibility of getting [to extreme places] they’ve grown up seeing on David Attenborough documentaries,” says Lizzie Williams, a product and partnerships manager at Swoop. 

Former banker Henry Cookson founded Cookson Adventures in 2009 after completing treks to the North and South Pole. “People are more curious about seeing the wonders of our planet; we’ve realised that we don’t have infinite time so there’s a genuine desire to do something extraordinary.” Pelorus’s Geordie Mackay-Lewis agrees: “The days of a fly-and-flop holiday are done.”

A polar adventure is the antithesis. And a Shackleton challenge is not one executed on a whim. Attendees are given a six-month mental and physical preparation plan; the extensive personal kit list includes merino-wool base layers, balaclavas and wee bottles. Then there are preparatory webinars with Rudd and Searle. “It’s intimidating if you’ve never done anything like this before,” says Rudd, who joined Shackleton in 2019 after retiring from the Army. As well as curating the trips, he also wear-tests the brand’s clothing – everything from pocket placement to zipper construction has been given his seal of approval. The trips, he says, are “physically and mentally demanding… it’s a real journey into your own mind”.

I can attest to that. Expeditioners are thrown out of their comfort zones – dealing with the hostile cold is a feat of endurance in itself. Ranulph Fiennes, who cut off his own fingers after getting frostbite, told me his treks were like “hell on ice”. During the five days I spent with Rudd and Searle, I laughed a lot, but I also cried. A lot. “As human beings, we like to push ourselves,” says Shackleton co-founder Holdcroft, who has rowed the Atlantic and often competes in ultramarathons. The challenges offer both endorphins and experience. 

Access to experts is a further draw. One member of my group, a thirtysomething investor from Mexico, booked onto the trip after reading Rudd’s autobiography, Endurance, in lockdown; he later likened being on the ice with him to “learning how to play basketball with Michael Jordan… You can’t get this anywhere else.” 

Shackleton hero sweater, £225

Shackleton Team Jacket, £325

For any company today, experience is everything. “As a startup, we were going up against billion-dollar, mass-produced outdoors brands and trying to stand out, so we came up with this idea of ‘For the Challenge’,” says Shackleton co-founder Brooks, a former advertising executive. Their jackets and gilets are crafted in Italy using fully recycled performance fabrics. “We’re building a label that can offer customers the whole spectrum: from a merino hat right through to a life-changing adventure in the South Pole.”

The Shackleton name alone sells the ethos. “We knew it would communicate a meaning and purpose beyond the functional aspects of any product,” says Brooks, and Alexandra Shackleton, the explorer’s granddaughter, has joined as a patron and shareholder. Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance sank in 1915, and he managed to rescue all his crew before they perished. (In March, after a much-publicised search, the wreck was discovered at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.) It’s one of the most spectacular survival stories in maritime history – Harvard Business School teaches Shackleton-inspired leadership courses. There’s even a moon crater named Shackleton, which lies on the lunar South Pole.

Now Tom Hardy is reportedly starring in a film about him – and Alexandra Shackleton is delighted. Having spent her entire professional life talking publicly about his legacy, she’s a tad blasé when discussing the Antarctic icebergs or the man himself, but she’s gleeful when it comes to Hardy. “I might even get to meet him,” she says. “Years ago I’d have suggested Paul Newman.” 

Ernest Shackleton was all about discovery. And today, nothing feels quite so novel as the solitude found in the icy wilderness. “There’s a beautiful simplicity to it,” says Cookson. “You really get time alone with your thoughts and to have meaningful conversations. The pressures of modern life are just removed.”

In Finse, we get to grips with the skis and pulks by training on the vast flat of a frozen lake that sits on the cusp of a glacier. With each hour that passes, the changing light turns the ice varying shades of mauve, pink and grey; 4pm is known as the blue hour, when the whole expanse basks in a cool, pastel tinge. It’s dazzling and otherworldly, even through a pair of steamy ski goggles. “On a sunny day here you really feel like you’re in heaven,” says Searle. “A polar environment is raw, unspoiled and just huge.”

That humbling feeling leaves some visitors wishing to protect it. Brooks and Holdcroft have this year launched the Shackleton Medal – a £10,000 prize fund to protect the Polar regions. Pelorus and Cookson Adventures, meanwhile, take a scientist on most excursions, with clients contributing to the financial outlay. “It amplifies the experience because they’re giving back,” says Pelorus’s Mackay-Lewis. 

I’m about to push my own boundaries to the limit. Breakfast is over, the tent’s been dismantled and we’re in the whiteout wilderness. The wind whips like a leash, and the cold feels as if it’s puncturing my lungs from the inside out. We cross desolate terrain made famous in Star Wars; with the help of a compass and some birch sticks denoting a route, I’m leading the group downward in single file, but with visibility at barely even a metre, I feel as far away from real life as if I had really landed on the remote, snowy planet of Hoth. My deadweight pulk careers into me, knocking me off my skis for the 100th time. I cry again; disentangle myself again; push myself to my feet again. I think of Ranulph Fiennes, wishing I had the energy to scream that, yes, this really is hell on ice. Somehow I carry on.

Eventually, we’re back at our base camp, Hotel Finse 1222, sitting on plush, cushion-strewn sofas beside a roaring fire. Gin and tonic in hand, I’m disorientated, elated, exhausted – and immediately tipsy. High on adrenaline and fuelled by botanicals, I decide, as I stuff a packet of salty crisps into my dehydrated mouth, that it was probably the best experience of my life so far. The ice crystals in my hair quickly melted, but my sense of personal polar pride remains at a plateau. By endurance we do conquer, it seems.

Grace Cook travelled as a guest of Shackleton on its five-day polar skills challenge for polar beginners, £6,495; shackleton.com