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Parks & Williams reach the North Pole

12.04.2011
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Richard Parks and Steve Williams have reached the North Pole, a feat which sees Richard complete Leg 6 of his epic World-First 737 Challenge. He now heads straight off to start perhaps the most daunting leg of the Challenge – Everest.

At the start of the expedition, Richard and Steve had shared Base Camp with Ben Fogle and Prince Harry as they got ready to set off on their respective adventures.

Richard and Steve’s team had been making good progress for the previous 6 days under the guidance of one of the best polar travellers in the world, Alain Hubert and they started the penultimate day around 11km from the pole. Richard stated; “When we got to camp on Sunday night we were about 8km from the pole but when we woke up yesterday morning we were about 11km from the pole thanks to the polar drifting! When we got close to the pole we were using the GPS constantly, the ice is moving around above the pole so we were almost making 90 degree adjustments, sometimes coming back on ourselves to actually get over the pole on the position. At times it was a bit like the Benny Hill show! We were going back on ourselves, left and right, to get exactly on the North Pole. It was a very different experience to arriving at the South Pole but amazing none the less”.

After 6 days of skiing across pressure ridges and crossing open leads, pulling pulks weighing around 50kgs, Richard and former Olympic Gold Medal rower Steve reached the Geographic North Pole in conditions skirting -40c.

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