Legends

Antarctica is abound with legends and children grow up hearing the stories about the great Antarctic explorers. 

Examples of the most legendary stories include:

• • In 1773, the English navigator James Cook landed on the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. Along with his reckless men, Cook was the first man to cross the polar circle and to circumnavigate the Antarctic Sea. 

• In 1822 James Weddel discovering South Orkney and South Shetlands around the Antarctica peninsular.

• After approaching the South Pole and reaching the summit of Mount Erebus (1907 – 1909), explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton had a risky expedition in 1914 in which the ice sucked down his ship and he and his men had to survive for several months before they were rescued. 

• The first one to reach the geographic South Pole was the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, a few days before the Englishman Robert F. Scott, who died with his group on the way back from their voyage. 

However there are many other hero's of Antarctica. We decided to re-enact one of the unsung group of hero's who explored Antarctica against all expectations in truly awful conditions. Despite our own trials and tribulations, with the greatest of efforts we managed to survive this re-enactment.

The Legend of the Green Rope

It is well known that Mallory climbed Everest in 1924, although it is unknown whether he achieved the summit and he unfortunately perished on the way down. It is less known that a key part of his equipment was a green rope. A few years later this rope was brought off the mountain by a Corsican team of climbers, led by the great great uncle of Manu. 

It was then lent to an Norwegian expedition in 1938 who planned multiple summits out in Antarctica. This expedition was doomed from the outset. The expedition leader had an unfortunate habit of mistaking left for right and the group frequently would end up at the sea rather than the summit. Their timing was also bad as they sailed into Antarctica in March and within two weeks of arriving their boat became ice-bound. By spring there were only three people left out of the original twelve, who, being surprisingly well-fed and strong, trekked all the way up the Antarctic penninuslar to be rescued by a whaling expedition. They survived the hostile glacial, crevassed terrain by being joined together by the green rope. Enclosed is a picture of the three remaining team members 

We decide to re-enact this endeavour by using the same green rope on our expedition. After much discussion, some would say argument, three unfortunates were keel-hauled into using the green rope. What was not explained to them was the magical properties the green rope had acquired from its disasterous prior expeditions. It was learnt that the green rope had the following:

• • It had its own understanding of gravity, some day's it would be light as a feather and other days, it would drag the team into the snow

  • It had a great inclination to drift towards crevasses. The green team would constantly battle to hold the line whilst being admonished in a most unfair manner by our guides.

  • patented SnowSticktm coating for binding snow to the rope.

  • It had a great fondness for acquiring as much water as it could, and would then freeze solid

  • It had a love of tangling itself around the feet and skis of the green team while attempting turns skinning up the mountain. The steeper and more precarious the mountain, the more the green rope exhibited a life of its own.

Despite this the green team toiled for four weeks in Antarctica with no calamities. They finally arrived back into South America and, with great relief, reunited the green rope with Manu, to return it back to Corsica where, hopefully, it will rest in a museum of ancient climbing gear never to be used again.