The Midland sponsored British expedition team is on its way back to the UK and has already begun to unveil extraordinary images of its treacherous 13 days on ice.
And, since reaching the North Pole on Monday, following its dangerous 120 nautical mile trek, the three man Race Against Time team, headed up by Coventry explorer Mark Wood, has won praise from the great explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
As expedition patron he sent the exhausted team the following uplifting message: “Very well done to Mark and all the Team on a great achievement under extremely difficult conditions, Very Best Wishes, Ran Fiennes.”
Aimed at exposing the true extent of climate change in the Arctic Ocean, Wood, and his two serving soldier teammates, Paul Vicary and Mark Langridge, reported encountering “strange”, “bizarre” and “warmer than usual” Arctic conditions.
In just one dramatic video clip it has unveiled so far it can be seen how startlingly fragile the Arctic Ocean is becoming on the back of our warmer climate, and shows just how brave the team was to take on this challenge.
It shows Mark Langridge teetering dangerously on his skis as a section of ice breaks away from the main ice sheet under his feet narrowly avoiding falling into the freezing Arctic Ocean.
It has also unveiled a series of amazing photographs that show quite dramatically the differences in the ice conditions explorers normally expect to see in Antarctica.
On Thursday 28 April, the expedition’s main sponsor, Mark Tweddle, who runs fruit import and export firm, Jupiter Marketing, which stepped up to save the expedition at the 11th hour, said: “I’m delighted to confirm the team is flying back to the UK today.
“The team has begun to recover from its time on ice and is now focusing its energy on revealing why it was so important that the team made this extremely difficult journey.
“It was abundantly clear from conversations we had that the conditions the team was facing were dangerous, and far different to what would be expected.”
The Lichfield father-of-two, who is also a Burton Rugby Club director, added: “The video footage and pictures the team is now starting to reveal has begun to reveal the dramatic conditions being caused by our planet continuing to change at what is an alarming rate.
“I’m extremely proud to have been able to make this expedition a reality, and my hope is that it will encourage a different approach to tackling climate change going forward.”
As well as reporting facing “difficult terrain”, including a “barrage of ice blocks”, “ice boulder fields” and “massive, unrelenting, ice rubble”, the team was forced to ditch skis to scale what it described as “an amphitheatre of ice walls” that was both physically and mentally draining.
Just 15 miles off the North Pole it also came across a “massive expanse of water” which it said was “bizarre so close to the Pole”, coupled with strangely warm temperatures of around -10, and added that the “difficult terrain” was “unrelenting”.
One of the first things the team did when arriving at the North Pole was to fly Jupiter’s Marketing’s flag and it gave a huge thanks to the company in an audio message home from the top of the world.
The team flew into Heathrow late Thursday night and as well as planning to give lectures on what they have discovered on their return, it has also announced plans to create a documentary of its short time on ice.
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