Welcome Home!

Credit: Martin Hewitt

We are so pleased to say that, after nearly 80 days, Martin and Louis are finally home!

Sure, they are a little bit rough around the edges, pink across the nose and (more than) a few kg's lighter than they left... but we cannot wait to hear all about their epic adventure and share their photos with you.

Be sure to keep an eye out for Martin across the news, print and social media as he begins to conduct his interviews about the experience.

Have you been following their journey with us from the start? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

What was your favourite diary entry? Was there anything particularly memorable for you? If you could ask them anything, what would it be? What parts of the expedition are you looking forward to seeing/hearing the most? Or perhaps you have a message for the pair? Please share your thoughts in the comments below so we can pass them on!

And don’t forget, this isn’t the end… so be sure to keep following us for the next instalment of the Adaptive Grandslam series.

With thanks to our Sponsor, TSP Ventures

“The Partners and staff at TSP Ventures have enjoyed sponsoring the Adaptive Grand Slam challenges where we see the substantial benefits that Martin and the AGS have on the lives of people suffering from injury. The Adaptive Grand Slam is a massive and inspiring undertaking and I know that it will inspire, not just those with life-changing injuries, but also those of us fortunate enough not to have gone through what he, and others like him, have gone through on our behalf.”

- Chris Smith, CEO TSP Ventures

With thanks to our Sponsor, Round Hill Capital

“We are delighted to support Martin and the AGS team in their latest extreme challenge, walking unsupported to the South Pole. The Grand Slam is considered, amongst seasoned mountain climbers, the height of expedition achievement. The agility and innovation, the group will rely on to complete the challenge reflects everything we stand for at Round Hill Capital; Martin and his team inspire us to continue to break new ground.”

- Michael Bickford, Founder and CEO of Round Hill Capital

With special thanks to our Headline Sponsor, Olympian Homes

“Having met Martin in 2012, in the Himalayas, amongst an elite group of injured ex servicemen attempting to summit Everest he stood out even then. None of the team were able to summit that year but there was no doubting that Martin would be back and he duly succeeded in 2019.

Martin embodies and personifies the success of having very clear objectives, detailed planning, endeavour , determination and resilience in overcoming the adversity of losing the full use of his body and a career he loved, whilst becoming an inspiration, and supporting others, who have suffered in a similar way. As an example of the culture values that we at Olympian Homes aspire to there can be no finer example than Martin”

- Mark Slatter, Founder and Chairman of Olympian Homes and lead sponsor of the 2019 AGS Everest Expedition, the 2017 Aconcagua Expedition and the South Pole, Mt Vincent 2021 Expedition.

PRESS RELEASE

DISABLED EXPLORER MARTIN HEWITT SUMMITS MOUNT VINSON AFTER A 50-DAY TREK TO THE SOUTH POLE

Successfully climbing the highest peak in Antarctica, just days after reaching the South Pole, marks the penultimate step in Hewitt’s mission to become the first disabled person to complete the Explorers Grand Slam.

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● Hewitt, along with record-breaking polar explorer Louis Rudd (Director of Expeditions at Shackleton), successfully summited Mount Vinson (4,892m) in 3 days

● Just days before, Hewitt and Rudd reached the South Pole after skiing over 650km in 50 days, overcoming adverse weather and injury along the way

● Reaching the South Pole and climbing Mount Vinson is the penultimate phase of the AGS (Adaptive Grand Slam) – Hewitt’s mission to climb the highest peak on every continent and to reach both poles

● Hewitt is taking on the AGS to inspire others with life-long injuries and disabilities to achieve their potential

● Hewitt sustained a life-changing injury during military service with the Parachute Regiment, resulting in paralysis of his right arm

(January 14, 2022 – Union Glacier, Antarctica):

Martin Hewitt, founder of accessible exploring charity Adaptive Grand Slam (AGS), and Louis Rudd MBE, Director of Expeditions at Shackleton, have successfully summited Mount Vinson - the highest peak in Antarctica - following a 50-day unsupported and unassisted trek to the South Pole. Now that he’s ascended Mount Vinson (standing at 4,892m) and reached the South Pole, Hewitt is just one summit away from achieving his goal of becoming the first person with a disability to complete the Adaptive Grand Slam – an adaptation of the infamous Explorers Grand Slam.

The Adaptive Grand Slam has so far seen Hewitt and a team of disabled adventurers overcome adversity to summit the tallest peaks on every continent and trek to both Poles, with the aim of inspiring others with life-long injuries and disabilities to achieve their potential. Hewitt has been fundraising for the AGS Foundation, which was established to select, train, develop and empower disabled teams to tackle extreme expeditions and challenges, including Mount Everest, supported by professional expedition and challenge leaders.

On this penultimate AGS challenge, Hewitt and Rudd initially set off to reach the South Pole from the land edge of Antarctica - a total distance of 1,000km unsupported and unassisted. While trekking and dragging a 95kg pulk, Hewitt suffered a debilitating achilles tendon injury, which forced the pair to alter their original plan and seek medical attention at Union Glacier. Overcoming adversity and injury, Hewitt and Rudd resumed their challenge, trekking to the Pole from the ‘Last Degree’ - the 60 nautical miles that mark the last latitude of distance to the South Pole from 89° South. In total, the pair skied more than 650 km in 50 days.

During the Antarctica endeavour, Hewitt was supported by British Expedition apparel and travel brand, Shackleton. To accomplish the gruelling challenge and withstand one of the coldest climates on Earth, the team used Shackleton’s Expedition Pulk Suit, specifically designed to protect them from temperatures that routinely reach -40°.

The Adaptive Antarctica Expedition is also supported by Olympian Homes, Round Hill Capital, TSP Ventures and Blesma, the Limbless Veterans charity that Martin is a member of. The mission aims to raise funds for the AGS Foundation to enable others with a registered disability to take part in their own extreme challenge supported by professional expedition leaders, in order to help members of the disabled community regain confidence, independence and meaningful occupation.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Adaptive Grand Slam

The Adaptive Grand Slam group exists to train and enable disabled adventurers to take on some of the most extreme expeditions and testing challenges on the planet and inspire others with life-long injuries and disabilities to achieve their goals. If you’d like to support the AGS foundation, please follow this link https://www.adaptivegrandslam.com/donate

Shackleton

Shackleton designs and develops performance apparel for people living and working in the world’s extremes. Driven by exploration and innovation, our company is built on the life and values of polar titan Sir Ernest Shackleton and exists to inspire, prepare and equip people for the challenge. We design in London and work with the highest quality manufacturers in the UK, Italy and around the world. Fur-free and RDS-compliant, we are committed to continual improvement of our sustainability standards.

Olympian Homes

Olympian Homes was formed 26 years ago and has a history of mixed use development including speculative residential, retail, hotel, student accommodation and built-to-rent residential accommodation. It has developed successful partnerships with a number of blue chip partners including Marks and Spencer, Balfour Beatty, Travelodge, Brookfield and now the Goldman Sachs and Wellcome Trust-owned IQ Students.

Round Hill Capital

Round Hill Capital is a leading global specialist real estate investment, development and asset management firm. Since inception in 2002, Round Hill Capital has acquired and repositioned for long-term institutional ownership over 135,000 residential units and student housing beds. Round Hill Capital is a responsible landlord of assets offering housing to a range of occupants, from students through to senior citizens. Round Hill Capital has an established track record of positive returns and invests in and asset manages real estate on behalf of some of the world’s leading institutions and private investors. Further information on Round Hill Capital is available at www.roundhillcapital.com

TSP Ventures

TSP Ventures is an environmental technology venture firm. We support environmental and climate tech start-ups and early-stage businesses with capital, connections, coaching and advice. Our core belief is that businesses must serve the long-term well-being of people and of the Earth, and we strongly believe that having a noble purpose and making money should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.

DAY 58 - S78 29' 38.40", W85 44' 22.20"

Credit: Josias Dein

Day 58

S78 29' 38.40", W85 44' 22.20"

///overbooked.chow.unembellished

Today was Summit Day. Today was a good day.

“Hi good evening, everyone, this is Lou and Martin, doing a joint blog, on day 59 [day 58] of the expedition.

As you’ll know from the previous blog, we arrived at high camp yesterday. We had a pretty rough night – the tent was getting hammered quite a bit through the night. The plan was to get up in morning, meet with the guides, and assess the weather conditions, and make some decisions about what we were going to do.

The first part of the morning, it was still quite windy, and it was quite clear that it wasn’t a good idea to head for the summit. And then we were waiting for a weather update to come in at 11 o’clock. That indicated that there was potentially going to be three days of pretty bad weather coming our way. But there was a gap before that came in. So after lots of agonising and discussions amongst the guides and ourselves, just after lunch, about one o’clock, we made the decision to go for the summit. We set off around about one thirty, and we managed to summit at just before 7 o’clock this evening, myself and Martin summited Mount Vinson, the highest point in Antarctica. We’re absolutely elated, and buzzing. It was just the most incredible day.

We were blessed with the weather. It was absolutely stunning, the scenery was truly mind-blowing. We’re now safely back down, in high camp, expecting the weather to start deteriorating from this evening, so we may get pinned down here for a few days. Definitely made the right decision; we got up there and bagged that summit. Absolutely incredible.

I’ll let Martin now pass on his thoughts and emotions about the day.

M: Yes, phenomenal; I feel very fortunate to have done a bit of mountaineering on different continents around the world, but I’ve never seen so many snow-capped peaks on a mountain range before. And the sheer volume of snow around here – we were blessed with the weather, we could see as far as the eye could see. Blessed with the team – we had awesome guides in Wes and Rolfe from ALE. I mean the rangers also came up; there are three rangers here from ALE who came up. It’s just an amazing experience. I feel so grateful for it. Just an amazing competent group of people, which adds to the value of the experience.

The whole route was amazing scenery after amazing scenery. And as we got up towards the summit ridge, we were then greeted with a whole new visual on a completely different aspect of the range that we hadn’t seen before. Absolutely fantastic.

We got to the summit, and then really an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. There’s so many people behind the scenes who’ve made this happen for both of us on this expedition. I just want to say a huge thank you to all of them involved. Keith, Keith Goddard, to Mark Slatter, to Chris Smith, to TSP Ventures, to Olympian Homes, to Round Hill Capital, to Shackleton, Chameleon, to our families in particular. It’s just been absolutely fantastic. And to BLESMA, it just shows that when you have a good team around you, and you put the time and effort in, you can achieve some pretty impressive things. And we certainly did that today…. And this man here with me, he’s got me to the Pole, I’ve learned a hell of a lot off Lou, Yes, for an old man, he’s a pretty strong lad.

More to follow, that’s us signing off. Keep following everyone.

Onwards.”

— Martin Hewitt and Louis Rudd

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DAY 57 - S78 29' 38.40", W85 44' 22.20"

Day 57

S78 29' 38.40", W85 44' 22.20"

///overbooked.chow.unembellished

The team reach high camp, and await the weather window for the summit push.

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin on day 57 of the expedition.

This morning we woke up in low camp on Mount Vinson, at an altitude of 2,800m. It was freezing. It was so cold. While it’s got 24-hour sunlight, the mountains were preventing the sun from actually hitting our camp area in the morning. So as we woke up, our moisture that had building throughout the night on the inside of the tent, and created a basically snow, like a snow film on the inside of the tent. So there was lots of snow where we’d been breathing, on the outside of our sleeping bags. Moisture had built up there, so there was snow all over the head area of our sleeping bags. And then the unpleasant task of getting out of the sleeping bags and getting kit ready to prepare for another climb in the cold started.

So we got out, got our kit ready. We have a centralised cook tent, so we went in there to get our breakfast sorted out. And then once we were ready, we collapsed all the tents down at low camp, and got all of our kit on; ice axes ready to go and our crampons on, and we started our climb. The route from low camp to high camp on Vinson is quite flat to begin with. You walk along this, almost like a valley floor, and then you’ve got an area where there’s a climb basically; the climb continues for about 850, 900 vertical metres. And it’s quite a steep pitch. It varies from about 30 degrees to around 45-46 degrees. Our guide up front, Wes, and Rolf, to the read, set a really steady pace. And we just go into a rhythm. And we started climbing.

As we quickly ascended, gained a bit of altitude, we could look back, and the views were fantastic. Looking back over the valley we’d just trekked through, we could see low camp. We couldn’t quite see base camp, that was further down the valley out of sight. But features and cracking mountains all around us. And again just an enormous amount of snow and ice here. Phenomenal scenery.

We made good progress up the fixed lines; the reason we used fixed lines…. Fixed lines are basically what’s called anchor points; you put an ice screw into the snow and ice, or you put a stake, a metal stake, into the ground. And through that you feed rope. And the idea of using this fixed line is just safety. If any of us where to slip and fall, hopefully you only go down as far as the last anchor point, and that holds. ”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 56 - S78 29' 59.64", W85 49' 27.48"

Day 56

S78 29' 59.64", W85 49' 27.48"

///winemaker.protections.allele

The team reach low camp on Mount Vinson

“Hi everyone, it’s Lou on day 56 of the expedition. It’s beautiful weather here at low camp on Mount Vinson, although very cold.

We set off from Vinson base camp this morning at 11am. We were roped up, with backpacks on and towing small plastic pulks. We worked our way up the Branscombe Glacier. There were a few crevasses around and signs of avalanche on surrounding slopes. The scenery was absolutely stunning. The route was around seven kilometres, and at took around five hours to reach low camp at 2,840m. We’re feeling great.

There are a small collection of tents here, behind snow walls, as this place can get smashed when it’s windy. We can see the fixed lines going up the head wall that we will tackle tomorrow. It’s a big day, with around 1,000m of ascent to high camp, which will probably take us around seven hours.

That’s all for this evening. Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 55 - S78 32' 2.04", W86 0' 6.84"

Day 55

S78 32' 2.04", W86 0' 6.84"

///prattling.setters.wheeze

Vinson camp at last!

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin on day fifty-something of the expedition. I’ve forgotten, to be honest [it’s Day 55].

We woke up this morning at Union Glacier, and there was much more positive news about weather. But it wasn’t quite confirmed before breakfast. Then after breakfast, we got confirmation that the weather at Vinson base camp was looking good. So we flew out to Vinson base camp, which is where I’m reporting from now.

Quite a short flight from Union Glacier, about 40 minutes, and some impressive mountain ranges. I never appreciated how many mountain ranges there were, or how many different mountains there were in those ranges, before I came. Unbelievable environment. On the approach into Vinson base camp itself, which is basically just another area, not too dissimilar to Union Glacier, only it’s on top of a lot of snow rather than on top of sea ice. It’s surrounded by mountains, and I’ve never seen such a volume of snow, in any mountain range in the world. It’s absolutely enormous amount of snow here. They’ve also had quite a lot of fresh dumps of snow as well.

We’re really fortunate in the way our rotations have worked; Lou and I are here with just a couple of ALE mountain guides, so we’ve got the whole of base camp to ourselves. Which is pretty cool. And the weather is looking good for the next few days. We’re going to leave here tomorrow morning, and go straight up to low camp, and then the mountaineering phase of the expedition, there’s a lot more riding on, dictated by, the weather than what it was on the trekking phase….. We were walking every day…. In 45 knot winds….. Up here it’s a bit different. One, the wind gets faster as you get higher, often. And there’s greater risk with that when you’re mountaineering. So weather will dictate our progress up the hill. But there is a potential for us to move from here tomorrow to low camp, potentially go to high camp the next day, and potentially go for the summit the next day. Provided our pace is ok, and we don’t suffer from altitude sickness. So it could be quite a short, sharp phase this. We’ll wait and see.

Exciting. We’re just sorting out kit out now. Obviously we’ve left all of our trekking kit at Union Glacier. When we were there we picked up all of our technical mountaineering gear. And now we’re just sorted all of that out. Getting out our crampons, ice axe, ice screws, carabiners, everything that we need for anything technical is all on our person. And getting all of our warm kit in place. Once all that’s done, we’ll be getting some food tonight, and getting our head down early, ready to get up in the morning and good to go to low camp.

We’ll give you another update tomorrow. Thanks for listening. Stay safe everyone. I know that COVID is rife back there again. Hopefully for us, we’re in a COVID-free environment.

Take care.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 54 - S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

Day 54

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

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The weather is slowly improving and Louis tests him mountaineering kit ahead of potential flight.

“Hi good evening everyone. It’s Lou reporting in on day 54 of the expedition.

We were on standby again, all throughout today, waiting for potential weather window for the flight across from Union Glacier to Vinson base camp. But sadly it didn’t work out for the day. Everyone’s saying that tomorrow is looking a lot more optimistic. There’s also a flight from Punta Arenas with about 60 expeditioners coming in, that’s due to come in. That’s looking positive. Everyone’s thinking that the weather gods are going to play ball tomorrow, and all the flights can take place. Hopefully it’ll mean me and Martin can move across from here to Vinson base camp, and then begin the next phase of the expedition, to summit Mount Vinson, which I’m really excited about.

We had a great day here today; the weather actually here in UG was pretty decent all day. We started off after breakfast, ALE, the logistics provider, laid on a crevasse rescue training session, so me and Martin went to that. That was a really useful refresher on all the rope work involved in dealing with emergency crevasse rescue procedures.

Then there were a couple of talks that we attended. Then Martin actually gave a talk to everybody here on the Adaptive Grandslam and the expedition. That was brilliant. I’ve heard it all before so I didn’t sit in for that. I headed out and went out on the skis, and got a few miles in on the skis for a bit of exercise. I took with me my Mount Vinson mountaineering kit – the boots and crampons and stuff. And put all that on and spent a bit of time moving about on blue ice using ice axe and crampons. To get a bit of exercise but testing out my mountaineering gear as well just to make sure that’s all functioning well.

Then we had a very inspirational movie night. They put on The Alpinist, which is an absolutely fantastic documentary about a young Canadian climber called Marc-Andre Leclerc. Truly inspiring alpinist-style climbing. Very similar – for those that have seen it – to Free Solo with Alex Honnold; it’s very much in that vein. I won’t give you any more spoilers for those that haven’t seen it, because there’s some pretty epic scenes in there. We really enjoyed watching that, and that’s got us really fired up now for Vinson.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow the weather gods play ball and we start moving forward to the next phase. We’re getting a reasonably early night and preparing. All our gear’s packed. Praying that after breakfast we get some good news and we can hopefully do the next blog from Vinson base camp. That’ll be great.

That’s all from myself and Martin here in Union Glacier in Antarctica this evening. We look forward to updating you tomorrow.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 53 - S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

Day 53

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

///mushed.hyperlinks.devolve

Trying to keep busy at Union Glacier as poor flying conditions mean no chance of getting to base camp today.

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin on day 53 of the expedition.

We’re still waiting for the weather, is the long and short of it. The visibility at both Union Glacier and Vinson base camp isn’t good enough for the pilots to land. They’re doing it on visuals, because of the snow and the ice they’re landing on there’s no technology that they use to land at all. They’re purely going on human instinct. So they need decent visibility so that they’ve got good contrast to make those decisions. At the moment they don’t have that.

So today we had a table-tennis competition, which was quite interesting. I’ve played a little bit of table tennis in the past, not a great deal but I thought I could at least hit the ball, until I realised the standard here. There’s a lot of people here who claim to be mountaineers and expeditioners, but actually they’re pretty much professional or semi-professional table-tennis players. And I got knocked out in the first round, which was good fun. Lou didn’t even enter, such was his lack of confidence in his ability. But we had quite a few good players, and Nims – who’s just got a documentary and book our called Project Possible [the documentary is called 14 Peaks], which is worth a watch if you’ve not seen it. Nims won it, and not only is he a good mountaineer, he’s a pretty Ninja table-tennis player. That was quite entertaining.

And tomorrow; if we’re not going to go tomorrow, we’re not quite sure what the forecast is still – we’re not quite sure what the forecast is so we’re still on hold. All our kit’s ready now, so we just basically rested (other than playing table tennis) today.

Tomorrow we’re going to start ticking over with the exercise again. It’s a different set of muscle groups we’re going to be using on Vinson, to what we were using on the Pole. There are not really any mountains you can climb in the immediate area around UG, there’s a lot of crevassing around here. So we’re just going to be going on the walking route, cycling, keeping the legs spinning over, ensuring that we don’t get lethargic.

I just want to do a shout out on the note of physical training. A lot of the physical training for this; I was very fortunate to do with my neighbour actually. My neighbours have got a young lad, a young son, called Harry, who’s 28. One of the things you want to look at when you’re training for an expedition, is to try and train with people that are fitter than you. And trying to train and keep up, and increase muscle mass with a 28-year-old, who I’m pretty confident will go for the international Crossfit Games within the next couple of years. He’s already at national level. It’s a good way for a 41-year-old to get beasted. It also improves fitness. And another shout-out to Jonny, and together we form a little private gym group in his garage called Testudo. So a shout-out to to them; thank you for all your help and support over the past year. We’re going to have some work to do when I get home, because I’ll have lost a lot of muscle mass on this expedition, from my body. So they’re going to enjoy getting me back in the gym, and getting the squat bar out.

That’s all for now. Keep following, and we’ll give you an update on the weather tomorrow.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 52 - S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

Day 52

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

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Waiting for a weather window continues.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in on day 52 of the expedition.

We were hoping to leave Union Glacier today, to move across to Vinson base camp. We were on standby all day. They were monitoring the weather in great detail and hoping for a gap to get us across on the flight. But sadly it didn’t materialise. It was very much a day of on the bus, off the bus, to the point where we actually packed all of our bags, and got loaded onto the aircraft. There’s some fog and cloud in the area of the landing strip at Vinson base camp that was just persistent throughout the day, and we never got a sufficient enough gap to get us in. So sadly, we’re still here waiting at Union Glacier. On the plus side, this evening, they had movie night and they showed Touching The Void, and for those who have seen it, I’m sure will appreciate, a pretty epic story with Joe Simpson, when he fell into a crevasse during a mountaineering expedition, and was able to crawl out with a broken leg. Pretty inspiring stuff.

Unfortunately another day and night here in UG, but again hoping that there’ll be a gap in the weather tomorrow and we can get across to base camp at Mount Vinson and start the second phase of the expedition to summit Antarctica’s highest peak.

Hopefully we’ll be able to update you with some better news tomorrow.

That’s all for this evening.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 51 - S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

Day 51

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

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Pulks and skis are packed away as the team prep for the mountain.

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin on day 51 of the expedition.

We’re back at Union Glacier, and we’re waiting now, to fly to the base camp of Mount Vinson. We may be flying tomorrow morning. ALE, who’ve been running all of our logistics and safety for us have got a lot of clients who’ve climbed Mount Vinson, and they’re all waiting to get back to Union Glacier. They’re all waiting in Mount Vinson base camp. So that means that there’s flights going out tomorrow, and we’re obviously quite keen to get out there as soon as possible and crack on.

We’ve spent today repacking all of our kit, so getting all of our trekking kit for the Pole taken out of our pulks and put into storage, and getting all of our technical mountain gear, and safety equipment out of storage, to get packed up and ready to go and make a summit attempt of mountain.

Everything, as always, is down to weather. The pilots, and they aircraft they use to get into base camp, a little aircraft called a Twin Otter, are phenomenal – great pilots and great machines. However, they need clear visibility, because of the obvious risks of flying in this environment. So they need clear visibility, at both the landing site, and the take off earlier. And that is where the challenge lies. Often, in the Vinson area, because of the topography around there, you can often get a bit of fog, in the valley floor. So the reason there’s often uncertainty about if we’re going to fly is because the weather prediction software that people use to look at patterns may say one thing, but actually on the ground you could have something slightly different. So they have to wait for updates in the morning from the team on the ground in base camp. Then marry up what the people on the ground are telling them which what the weather prediction software is telling them. So that’s the situation. We’re going to get a weather update in the morning, and we’re going to be on about 30 minutes notice to move. All of our kit is ready now, we’re good to go. Hopefully we’re going to start phase two of the expedition tomorrow.

Vinson massif is the mountain we’re going to try and climb. It’s the highest mountain in Antarctica. It’s just over 4,800 metres. The other advantage of us doing the South Pole trek prior to doing Mount Vinson summit attempt, is that we’ve just been to 3,000m. So we’re now acclimatised to that altitude. Which means that when we get to Vinson base camp, we should be good to go to move to camp one quickly, without having to hang around.

When you get acclimatised during mountaineering to a specific height, you tend to hold that acclimatisation for around 7-10 days. We’re now physiologically adapted to the 3,000m mark. That should enable us to make a move fairly quickly when we get to Vinson base camp, up towards camp one. There’s two camps on Vinson above base camp. Camp one and camp two. We’ll probably go for camp one as soon as we can. Then we’ll look at what the weather’s doing. We’ll look at how we’re feeling, and that will dictate the rest of our summit attempt. We should be looking at somewhere between five and seven days to climb Mount Vinson.

Thanks very much for following. Please spread the word. The expedition’s not over yet. It’s just phase one that’s complete, we’re now on phase two. Hopefully we’ll give you an update from Mount Vinson base camp tomorrow at some point.

I just wanted to do a shout out tonight to a fantastic Service charity. An Armed Forces charity that I’m a very proud ambassador of, called Supporting Wounded Veterans.

Keep on following. All the best. Speak to you tomorrow.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 50 - S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

Day 50

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

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At last, the Pole.

“M: Hi everyone, it’s Martin and Lou on today’s blog, on day 50 of the expedition.

Today was a pretty special day, as we got to the geographic South Pole.

L: Absolutely amazing, after having skied over 60 nautical miles in six days together, we arrived on the centenary of Shackleton’s death. Which was a pretty momentous day, so it was great to come in on that historic occasion.

M: The South Pole is really difficult to explain without seeing it for yourself. But if you see any pictures online, or in magazines, there’s a huge, very significant research centre there, run by the Americans. I was a bit taken aback by the size of the place, it’s a lot bigger than it looks in pictures. That was pretty impressive, a number of different telescopes there, a lot of research going on. We didn’t actually see anybody moving around. They’re all obviously either busy….

L: They’re all on New Zealand time, so they’re all in bed.

M: Oh there you go, that’s why we didn’t see anyone moving around. And there’s two Poles there; you’ve got a ceremonial Pole, which is surrounded by the flags of the 12 nations that signed up the Antarctic Treaty. And then there’s the actual geographic South Pole. The geographic South Pole itself is slowly moving, because the ice and snow on the continent is constantly moving. The geographic South Pole is about 120 metres away from the ceremonial South Pole. So we went to both, to make sure that we’re ticking the boxes properly, and then we got all the flags out and took some photos, which was fantastic. A range of different emotions to be honest with you. From gratitude for the opportunity to do this, to everyone supporting us - and our supporters in particular – through to a bittersweet moment if I’m completely honest because we didn’t do the 720 miles unsupported that I was hoping to do. But mostly gratitude that we actually made the right decisions, that enabled us to actually get there, and then being in a decent position to attempt Mount Vinson.

L: Really excited for the next stage of our expedition in Antarctica, to head off on Mount Vinson. We’ve just met our guide, Wes, the ALE mountain guide who’ll be taking us up. And it’s just me and Martin with Wes, so just the three of us, tackling the summit. Potentially, depending on weather, we could be heading off as early as tomorrow. We’re just starting now to prepare our equipment and switch to mountaineering mode. Really looking forward to heading over to Mount Vinson.

M: I forgot to say, we’re now back at Union Glacier. We didn’t have much time at the Pole. We got there, and the weather at Union Glacier was descending into high wind and poor visibility, which is not great for flying conditions obviously. There was a plane, luckily, at the Pole, to pick up Preet, who we’ve mentioned in previous blogs. She’s done an amazing journey herself, to the South Pole, and done it in a cracking time as well. So we all got to fly back in on that together, and we managed to get back in before the weather changed. We nailed a quick turnaround. We’ll let you know what’s going on tomorrow, but for now, we just want to say thank you very much for following.

L: Yep, that’s all for this evening. Thanks for all your support everyone. We look forward to continuing the blog updates as we tackle Mount Vinson.

Onwards.”

— Martin Hewitt and Louis Rudd

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ARRIVAL AT THE SOUTH POLE

Huge congratulations to Martin and Louis who have successfully made it to the South Pole in the last hour.

The pair have been back on the ice for a week tackling the Last Degree - the 60 nautical miles which mark the last latitude of distance to the South Pole from 89° South - and have timed their arrival at the Pole with the centenary of the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Given the adversity they've had to overcome along the way, it's a truly fitting coincidence.

Having set off from Hercules Inlet with the aim of covering 1,000 kilometres unsupported and unassisted, the pair were forced to diverge from their original plan when Martin suffered a debilitating achilles tendon injury. Despite the short break for medical attention at Union Glacier, Martin and Louis have skied more 650 kilometres in the last 50 days to reach their ultimate destination.

Completion of the Last Degree also means Martin's dream of becoming the first person with a disability to complete the Explorers Grand Slam (known as the Adaptive Grand Slam) remains very much alive. The pair will now rest for a few days before taking on the second part of the Adaptive Antarctica challenge - an ascent of Mount Vinson.

We'll leave the final word to Louis, who paid tribute to Martin on the eve of their achievement.

“What this guy has done has been absolutely outstanding. By the time we get into Pole, he’ll have skied over 400 miles with one arm. I’ll just let that sink in. Over 400 miles in the most inhospitable environment on the planet, across some really challenging terrain, in sub-zero temperatures, with one arm. To have done that, and covered over six degrees, is absolutely outstanding. It’s been a privilege and an honour to do this expedition with him. I certainly couldn’t have asked for a better expedition partner.”

— Louis Rudd

And of course, we cannot let our incredible sponsors go unmentioned as without them, none of this would have been possible, so huge, huge shout out and thank you to Olympian Homes, TSP Ventures and Round Hill Capital for all of their continued support, mentorship and guidance.

Take a look back at some of the highlights of the expedition so far…

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DAY 49 - S89 59' 26.88", W7 43' 5.52"

Day 49

S89 59' 26.88", W7 43' 5.52"

///virologist.reattachment.temp

The team are within a mile of the geographic South Pole!

“Hi everyone, this is Martin, on day 49 of the expedition.

We got up this morning to much better weather; clear blue skies and no wind. Still very cold, still in the -20s, but the wind factor makes a huge difference on the plateau. So no wind was fantastic. So much so that when we stopped in our breaks today, we didn’t even put our warm down jackets on. We just kept the normal windproof jackets from Shackleton we’ve got on.

We’ve been really lucky with the wind conditions today. And the visibility. We started off tracking our normal routine. Lou normally starts for the first 90 minutes and then I take over, then we alternate who’s doing the shift up front. Towards the end of our first shift, Lou just stopped, and I came up alongside him. And we saw what appeared to be structures on the horizon. There was a bit of fog on the horizon at the same time, and once that had cleared, we saw that they were indeed building, and they were the buildings of the South Pole Scott-Amundsen American base. We could see some satellite buildings, and one appeared to be quite a large, brown-looking structure, and that’s the main base at the South Pole.

We got to see that from quit a distance away and that was then our target for the day. We kept on going. Today we just intended to keep on going until my Achilles started causing me a drama, and then we stop. But luckily, it hasn’t been too much of a problem today. We’ve made it to ALE’s base. We’re not quite at the South Pole. We’re just less than a mile short of the South Pole. So tomorrow morning, we’ll now be getting to the South Pole. I’m very excited. The other good thing about getting to ALE’s base, is that tonight we’re going to get to sleep in a tent – not our tent, their tent. And apparently their tents have got heaters in them. So that’s going to be quite surreal. Great day. We’ve had an interesting time on this expedition, and it feels a bit surreal to be honest with you that the first phase of it is going to come to an end tomorrow.

A range of different emotions hitting us if I’m honest; overwhelming emotion is gratitude, for the opportunity to come and do this, and how lucky I am to have this opportunity. I’m also grateful for the people who’ve been involved in it. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to have good involved people in your life who can provide support and guidance and mentorship. I’m very fortunate to have that, in as much of our sponsors, but also in the people who are our friends who are out sponsors – Chris and Mark in particular. Thank you both for all your help and guidance on the journey to here, and on this trip itself. And also the team at Shackleton who’ve been helping us out, and the team at RHC Capital, without you guys we wouldn’t be able to do this, it’s as simple as that.

And most of all, on the trip itself, to Lou. One thing I’ve tried to do, ever since I was a kid, whatever it is I’ve been doing, is surround myself with people who are competent, who are experienced, who I respect. And often who are better than me at doing whatever it is I wanted to do. And when it came to looking for someone to be a mentor and to train me, and to advise and guide the expedition, I searched around a few different people. Lots of names came up when it came to polar guides, but as soon as I met Lou, I knew he was the one I wanted to partner with. Luckily he’s not in earshot at the moment, so I won’t embarrass him but the way in which he’s conducted himself has been second to none. Thank you all.

Hopefully we’ll be calling tomorrow from the South Pole.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 48 - S89 45' 48.96", W80 23' 42.36"

Day 48

S89 45' 48.96", W80 23' 42.36"

///carotid.undeservedly.accelerators

Louis gives his most important shout-out of the expedition.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou updating you on day 48 of the expedition.

Woke up this morning, and the wind had actually come around 180 degrees, which is really unusual for this location, high up on the polar plateau. It’s normally head wind, as you’re skiing into Pole. But today, we had the luxury of the wind behind us. Really cold temperatures; it must be well into the late -20s, and with the wind on top of that, touching -30 was what it felt like. But to have it behind us; this is the fourth time skiing to the South Pole, and I’ve never had the wind behind me on the way into Pole. So that was a novelty.

We made pretty good progress; we kept going really until Martin’s Achilles started to give him a bit of trouble, which was round about 5 o’clock this evening we stopped. We achieved over 12 nautical miles. So we were pleased with that. We’re now camped only 14 nautical miles from the South Pole. Tomorrow, at some point, later in the day, we should start to see some signs of the buildings and infrastructure at the Pole, which we’re really excited about.

The plan is, we probably won’t manage the whole 14 nautical miles tomorrow. We need to manage Martin’s Achilles, and just take It steady. Then the plan is to hopefully ski in on the 5th of January, which is also the centenary of the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton. A real milestone day. It’d be great to ski in on that momentous day as well. That’s the plan.

I’d just like to finish off with a shout out. And it’s one I’ve deliberately been saving right towards to the end of the expedition. It’s to my expedition partner, my tent mate, and dear friend, Martin Hewitt. Otherwise known as the Dog. I just want to say, what this guy has done has been absolutely outstanding. By the time we get into Pole, he’ll have skied over 400 miles with one arm. I’ll just let that sink in. Over 400 miles in the most inhospitable environment on the planet, across some really challenging terrain, in sub-zero temperatures, with one arm. To have done that, and covered over six degrees, is absolutely outstanding. The challenges he’s had throughout this journey, I could write a book about it, I really could. Not just his Achilles tendons, but he’s had bouts of diarrhoea, and vomiting, he’s had lots of issues with his paralysed arm. Because that’s just a dead weight, it’s been pulling on his shoulder joint. The amount of pain he must have been in with that. Then the amount of pain he’s in with his good arm, because all the effort is going through that, and the shoulder. And yet he’s kept going, and kept going, and faced every challenge with absolute determination. For me it’s been a privilege and an honour to do this expedition with him. Something Henry Worsley said to me, when I finished my very first journey with him – that he couldn’t have asked for a better travelling companion. I’d like to also use that line and apply that to Martin. I certainly couldn’t have asked for a better expedition partner. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

That’s all for this evening. Lots more to talk about in the next couple of days.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 47 - S89 33' 24.12", W77 6' 50.04"

Day 47

S89 33' 24.12", W77 6' 50.04"

///solemnly.squeaker.juxtaposing

More steady progress South. The Pole is just days away.

“Good evening everyone, it’s Martin on day 47 – yeah 47 – of the expedition.

Today’s gone well. The Achilles is holding up. It’s not normal obviously, it’s still giving me a bit of gip, but we’re getting through the day. We did 13.5 nautical miles today, over 13 again, so that’ good. And that’s taken us closer to the Pole. We’re now less than 30 miles from the South Pole. So we should be getting there on either the 4th or the 5th of January, depending on weather and Achilles. If it keeps on allowing me to do the distances we’re doing at the minute, we should be there on either the 4th or the 5th. So that’s all great.

It’s cold up here, -28 today. We woke up this morning, and I could feel it. You really do. We’re actually walking in quite a small number of layers; because you really can’t afford to sweat. The plateau of Antarctica itself is quite heavy snow. You’re still working to pull the sledge through that. You don’t want to be sweating. So I’ve only got a merino wool base layer on underneath my Shackleton jacket, which is a windproof jacket. I’ve got a little gilet on top of that, just to try and keep the wind off. You feel the cold, but when you get moving it’s fine. And then as we stop for our breaks to get some water and food, trying to get the food, the snack bag down now is getting challenging as well, because of the cold. In that everything is so deeply frozen that it takes a bit of time to heat up in your mouth. Chocolate for example – the Grenade bars that we’re eating – everything just gets so hard. That’s a bit of an interesting challenge; before we even get to eat. We’ve got these full face masks by a company called Noronna – brilliant facemasks. And that protects our face from frostbite, and wind chill effect. But that – when you breathe out through that, the moisture just freezes around the mouthpiece – there’s a little mouthpiece that’s open – so that’s where it comes out, otherwise your googles would steam up inside. Even with the expeditions I’ve previously been on, you always get a bit of snow round there, but now the snow that builds up around there is three, four inches in height. So you’ve got to snap all that off before you can start eating. That’s all fun and games. So really cold up here, but the progress is going well.

I just want to do a shout out and a thank you to the team that help us with our UK hillwalking weekends from a professional perspective. We have mountain leaders that help us. In particular wanted to say thank you to Lachlan, from Mountain Addiction, and Paul Spackman from Mountain Mindset, and Tom Rothwell from Mach 2, and Tom Bodkin from Secret Compass, and Richard Boardman. All of whom help us keep our team members safe when we do our hillwalking weekends in the UK. Which is the first stepping stone for anyone to come on an Adaptive Grandslam challenge event. If anyone’s interested in getting involved in Adaptive Grandslam, those UK hillwalking weekends are an introductory experience for anyone to come along. And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you know anyone who’s registered disabled, who could do with a challenge in a supportive environment with people who know what they’re doing, not me obviously, the MLs [mountain leaders], get them to go on the website adaptivegrandslam.com. Scroll down to the mission section, and you’ll see the Cumbria challenge there and the Yorkshire challenge; it’ll give you a flavour of what those weekends are about, and then get them to get in touch.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 46 - S89 19' 59.52", W78 45' 1.08"

Day 46

S89 19' 59.52", W78 45' 1.08"

///synchronus.strummed.hurriedly

Louis has a difficult day but the team continue to make good progress towards the Pole.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in for day 46 of the expedition.

Great weather conditions today again; very light winds, temperatures much lower though, now that we’re up on the polar plateau. We’re definitely wearing a lot more kit – hands and stuff – and we’re definitely being a lot more careful. Definitely feeling the cold. But it’s good visibility.

I was a bit unwell today. I didn’t feel great – just a bit nauseous first thing this morning. I couldn’t face eating my breakfast at all. Then I was a throwing up a few times early on in the day, on the initial breaks. So a tough day for me really, when I wasn’t able to eat anything, and being a bit sick. We stuck it out, and managed to grind out 13.2 nautical miles. Really pleased with that. Got some good mileage in. And we’re now camped only 40 nautical miles from the South Pole. We’re really pleased with our progress. Hopefully I’ll feel a bit better tomorrow and we can carry on and grind out another good day as well. All in, pretty good progress considering.

I’d like to finish off with a shout out. I’d just like to thank ALE, which is Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, for all their support and help with making this happen. Particularly in the early phases with all the planning; Steve Jones, who is the expedition manager, planning manager back in the UK. Thanks to you Steve for all your advice and support with all the planning and preparation for this trip. And then once in country again, the various people, and there are a lot of people, far too many to name. The medical team have been hugely supportive; Martin Rhodes, and Paddy, and Nat, thanks to all you guys. Tim Hewitt, head of operations at Union Glacier, for getting us back out here to be able to do this last degree as well, and organising all of that. Again, huge thanks from me and Martin for everybody really across ALE, for all your support in making not just our expedition, but all the expeditions over many years possible. We really do appreciate that.

I need to get an early night, cause I’ve had a bit of a rough day. Fingers crossed I’ll be a bit better tomorrow.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 45 - S89 6' 55.80", W80 57' 33.48"

Day 45

S89 6' 55.80", W80 57' 33.48"

///resonances.courthouse.agar

Steady progress towards the South Pole.

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin on day 45 of the expedition, which is also New Year’s Eve – another special day. We’ve had some great weather today, the core temperature up on the plateau is quite cold obviously – it’s between -25 and -30. We’ve had no wind today. There’s a bit of high cloud, but the sun was penetrating through that, so that actually made it quite comfortable. So conditions are great. There’s a noticeable difference in the amount of snow up here, versus ice, in comparison to where we were before we had to head back, just after Thiels. It’s quite deep snow and we’re digging in around here around two or three foot of fresh snow, so they must have had quite a lot of fresh snow in the past couple of weeks up here. But that’s not having any impact on pulling the sledges, that’s all going well. But we’re just taking it steady.

So the plan at the minute is just to go until the Achilles starts to cause a problem. I mentioned it earlier – before we went back into Union Glacier – but there’s stages to the Achilles tendonitis coming on. So we’re just getting to the point where, each day now, I’m going to keep on going until I get these shooting pains basically. And that is normally an hour or two before the spasms start and I can’t weigh bear. So I don’t want to get to that point. We want to maximise our chances of getting to Pole, and still have enough in reserve with the Achilles for Mount Vinson, our summit attempt at that.

So with that in mind, we walked today until I started getting those spasms, those shooting pains, and that was at around half four; so we stopped as soon as that started, and we managed to get 10.7 nautical miles done before the pain started. So that’s good. I’m hoping that it holds out, and enables me to continue doing that kind of distance.”

— Martin Hewitt

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