Relentless

If Waitrose could pitch to run the franchise for the Royal Parks, Richmond Park would be its first target. It drags the essence of affluent, sure-of-itself West London wealth into itself like a negative singularity. There’s a road that runs around its verdant edges. Somewhere on this smoothly surfaced periphery, Ben Saunders, 31-year-old Arctic explorer, athlete and adventurer is delving deep into his being to find the essence of solitude, far away from the park’s dull certainties. Currently he is preparing to take on his biggest challenge to date – an unaided solo roundtrip to the South Pole. No one has ever walked to the South Pole and back before unaided and alone. But, as often happens with these things, the process of preparation for the expedition has shored up another unexpected possibility. A sponsor has said that they want to back him to attempt the world speed record to the Geographic North Pole. The record stands at present as 56 days and 22 hours, but this was done with the use of sled-pulling dogs. Ben Saunders reckons he can beat this alone and unaided. So, there is a distinct possibility that the South expedition may be postponed until next year, and that in the meantime he may run to the North Pole instead.

“I think I have a good mental constitution for endurance. I wouldn’t say I’m a loner. 
I’m completely happy with my own company, I’m not a raving sociopath, but it’s amazing to me how many people aren’t. So many people say they hate being alone even for a day, or even an hour, and think that the solo aspect of what I do would be the most challenging. In fact, for me it’s the easiest bit. Saying you’re an ‘arctic explorer’ is a great chat-up line, but the reality of an existence like mine is not so conducive to having relationships. It is difficult, not only because of the constant extended absence that is always looming large, but it’s more the stuff in between expeditions. All the stress of the organisation, the strain of constant training, the sleepless nights spent worrying about funding, and being tired all the time. There’s no routine or consistency to my life. It’s all apparently random. It’s difficult for another person to fit into that.”

Sandhurst seemed like a good idea at the time. Ben was always testing himself as a kid. He got a Casio digital stopwatch for his birthday when he was about eight or nine, and soon he was setting tasks for himself and timing runs in the Devon countryside where he lived. It was an idyllic life. With his younger brother they’d spend days making tree houses, damming up rivers, having adventures in the woods. Real Boy’s Own stuff. Somewhere along the line, Ben got a Raleigh mountain bike. That opened up a whole new realm of adventure. Soon he was racing, testing his un-dropped balls against the Devonshire valleys around him and his own endurance. 
It was hardly surprising that school bored him. All the fun to be had, all the inspiration, was to be found outdoors. Ben liked to read books, but books about adventurers, astronauts and soldiers. He nurtured the common boy-child’s dreams of jumping out of aeroplanes, of conquering evil and other testosterone-fuelled heroism. Young Ben, however, was determined to dream with his eyes wide open. After achieving three badly graded A-Levels, he talked his way into Sandhurst Military Academy. He was sponsored by the Light Division, and started a career path trodden by so many of his adventurous heroes. Thing is, though he sounded posh (his step dad spoke nicely), Ben was never at home there.

I wouldn’t say I’m a loner. I’m completely happy with my own company, but it’s amazing to me how many people aren’t. They say they hate being alone even for a day, or even an hour, and think that the solo aspect of what I do would be the most challenging. In fact, for me it’s the easiest bit.

Not having been to public school, he failed to fit into any of the usual pigeonholes nurtured so lovingly by the British ruling classes. Fate struck when, in the middle of his training, he smashed his leg to pieces off-duty in a car crash. Pensioned off into the ‘cripples platoon’, he had a moment to think about his future. The feeling had started to creep into his consciousness that he wouldn’t be happy being a cog in the huge military machine. Soon, he made the first real decision of his adult life. He was leaving the Army. Within weeks, he was working again in the outdoor shop in which he had toiled as a teenager, and hatching plans for the next move.

“I had this ridiculous idea that only five people had walked all the way to both poles and had also climbed Everest. I wondered if it would be possible to do all three in a year. It would be like the ultimate triathlon. So I went to see the Royal Geographic Society with this plan and was laughed at. So I started to write to people, including Sir Ranulph Fiennes, to see if I could get some support. To my amazement, I got a long, handwritten letter from Sir Ranulph by return. It blew me away. He gave me some ideas for trips I could do as a warm-up for my great plan. And he hooked me up with Pen Haddow. We got on well and began making plans, and before we knew it we were planning to go to the Geographic North Pole, which was an in-at-the-deep-end plan for me, a really serious trip. We needed to get to a place where we could pack everything we needed for two months, and even on a shoestring it would be vastly expensive for us both. That was also the first time I had to raise serious sponsorship.”

Having left Sandhurst, Ben set out to join what had always been one of the other preserves of the British upper class: the corps of explorer-adventurers. Ben was again at a disadvantage. But the ubiquity of the web has meant that the solitude of an Arctic Explorer’s existence can assume the nature of commodity. Thus, charities, corporations and individuals can tap in directly to Ben’s lone excursions. He can be safe in the knowledge that if he should end up as lunch for a Polar Bear, or a frozen, broken-limbed element of the ice-cap, that the world will take note. This frisson is undoubtedly partly what corporations buy into and Ben has been able more than most to take advantage of this titillating and inspiring spectacle of his adventures. Ben thus exists along the fault line of a contradiction. He represents aloneness, the triumph of the singular flesh against the elements and one’s own spirit – yet this aloneness is transformed – daily, weekly, monthly – into entertainment and intrigue. His text and video updates form snippets, as it were, of the Nightly News from Nowhere. Whilst most if not all of the big explorer boxes have been ticked, it’s the purity and grace of the style in which these adventures are performed that matters. It’s easy after all these days, to stick a finger in an atlas, hire a packaged adventure experience to your destination of choice and then to think of one’s self a windswept explorer. But just as stripped-down alpinism continues to define the cutting edge of mountaineering, what truly matters in Polar exploration is not what you do, but the way in which you do it.

“I had this moment on the 2004 expedition to the North Pole when I had been out on my own on the ice for about six weeks and hadn’t seen anyone. I had had a really good day. I found a really good piece of ice to camp on, there was good weather, it was safe and I wasn’t scared. I remember looking up at the sky and knowing more or less what the weather was going to be doing. This feeling of utter contentment suddenly overwhelmed me. I had nothing, no possessions – nothing that wasn’t dedicated simply to keeping me alive. It was a moment of complete happiness. And I remember thinking this is probably the longest time in my entire life that I had not been marketed to. I remember thinking that everyone had seemed to be telling me, ‘Okay, you think you’re happy but what about if you had that 46-inch plasma screen or the new 911?’. I was completely removed from all that stuff that we’re constantly being told matters. And I missed none of it. All I missed was people, and the experience of sharing something so profound.”