Expedition to the End of the Earth
By Brad Mills
Imagine dragging a 160 kilo sled uphill for 1200 kilometres across the driest, windiest and coldest place on earth, on foot. Imagine rowing non stop across the Atlantic Ocean, battling high seas for 40 days. Together, Jamie Fitzgerald and companion Kevin Biggar completed both feats, and at a tender age of 26, Fitzgerald tells INTREPID of his journey to the bottom of the world, and his plans for more.
Fitzgerald and Biggar rowed in the trans-Atlantic rowing race in 2003 and smashed the previous record by 21 hours. It was on this expedition that they first discussed the idea of trekking to the South Pole. Thanks to Sir Edmund Hillary, many New Zealanders feel a special connection with Antarctica. The pair found out that no Kiwi had walked from the coast to the South Pole unsupported. The Pole had been reached using animals and machinery, but few have ever used pure man power. "We also found out it would be the 50th anniversary of Scott Base, and Sir Ed's trip in tractors. We then found out there had never been anyone in the world that had walked there and back unsupported. So we thought, let's do that, we'll go there and back," says Fitzgerald.
From the outset, the pair decided not to dwell on the negatives, such as the reason why no one in the world had ever succeeded in walking to the South Pole and back to the coast unsupported. Fitzgerald and Biggar fixed their thoughts on getting excited, focused on goal setting, and prepared for the worst.
They had heard stories of what can happen in the extreme cold, and the thought of losing bits of the anatomy to frost bite made them only more determined to be well equipped. "In Antarctica, a few years ago, a guy lost about an inch off his old fella. If you think about it, an inch at minus thirty has got to be a fairly big percentage!" laughs Fitzgerald. "We were pretty passionate about not having that happen. If you're going to commit to doing something like this in Antarctica, you have to bite the bullet and train as hard as you possibly can, even dragging car tyres around the streets of Wellington, getting laughed at by everyone." Not only did they drag six tyres behind their backs, but one of them was full of concrete to simulate the hefty 160 kilo sleds.
Jamie was no mountaineer; "I'd never skied before, and I was able to pick up a new discipline, before being thrown into the most inhospitable place on earth and achieving something that not many other people had. I had to be passionate. I had no idea of what minus 30 was like, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could take up another sporting discipline and try to understand all the things that you needed to know. How to get through each day was the biggest challenge for me. I had to get my head around it, because if you mucked it up there'd be nasty consequences."
The pair spent a month in two different locations in northern Canada, living at minus 30, learning the skills of how to survive. They had to become like Eskimos and learn how to set up their tents in the extreme cold, how to melt ice, how to eat and how to go to the toilet as quickly as possible. "There's this rule that at minus 30, you have about 20 seconds when the wind's blowing hard in your face, where skin exposed to the wind can get frost nip, which can then turn into frost bite."
Unlike Antarctica, the Arctic Circle has polar bears, and so while training they had been warned about them. It's illegal to kill them, so they were given a can of counter assault bear spray (like pepper spray). "On reading the instructions on the label, there were these three rules before using it. Number one was, the bear had to be within five metres, number two, the bear had to be down wind, and three, it had to have its mouth open and eyes wide open." (Basically ready to attack). "And on the very bottom there was a small caption which read, 'Under no circumstances should this bear spray give you a false sense of security.' It was a shocker!"
Back in New Zealand, Fitzgerald had previously been a bank manager, and both men had experience in running their own businesses, and so they set about organising funding in order to complete the half a million dollar expedition. They didn't ask for any handouts, or stand outside a Westfield mall with a sausage sizzle; they went straight to the media and very wisely promoted themselves as being a news-worthy event. They gave Radio Works and TV 3 exclusive rights to the story, allowing video and audio feeds from their tent each step of the way. In return, "they gave us excess advertising space, so we then had something tangible," says Fitzgerald. Xtra MSN hosted a website for them, and they had people on board helping them each step of the way, and fortunately they were as excited to see them succeed as the trekkers themselves.
To succeed in Antarctica, all their equipment was meticulously tested, with no hem left unstitched. Attention to detail was the key. They wanted to spend time in New Zealand's coldest place, and ended up spending several nights in an industrial freezer at minus 20 degrees, in South Auckland. They took a fan into the freezer with them to simulate wind chill, and found out that with the thick 900 gram down gloves they were wearing they were going to lose almost all dexterity. They ended up designing and adding extra fingers to their gloves, so they could use things like a screw driver.
After two years of intense preparation the wait was over, and their time had come to meet the ice that would be their home for the next 52 days. It was meant to be October 31, but on November 8, 2006 , Antarctic Logistics Expeditions (ALE) flew them from South America to the coast of Antarctica, 1200 kilometres away from the South Pole. On landing they checked their portable GPS to find they were 18 kilometres closer to the coast than they were meant to be. Fitzgerald remembers when they finally got down there and hooked up on to the 160 kilo sleds and started the uphill climb they were hit with the reality of what lay ahead. "After taking the first few steps, we looked at each other and said, 'Aren't we meant to be laughing about now, with all the training we did?' It was a bit of a joke. Did I mention it's the windiest place on earth?" The winds there are mainly kabatic, which is when the air near the ground cools, becoming denser and heavier, and slides downhill, which was right into their faces. "The next three days were in storm conditions in knee deep snow, and we were only doing eight hours a day covering seven kilometres." Not only was their flight late, but the depressing start was made worse because after three days of blizzard, they had reached the original drop off point.
For Fitzgerald and Biggar, hardship and trial were something they had been through together before, and Fitzgerald explained how in the tough times they would talk about their triumphs in the Atlantic rowing race. Before the rowing race in 2003, Fitzgerald was only a reserve in the team; "I didn't really know Kevin when we flew to the Canary Islands for the start of the 5000 km race, which is the equivalent to rowing up and down New Zealand five times." After their triumphs at sea, they had formed a bond that would see them through the tough times to come in the South Pole. Fitzgerald says that their differences in personality saw them through, as the other person could see things a different way, and when one was feeling like giving up the other could push on. Fitzgerald compares himself to Biggar; "He's analytical and detail focused, whereas I'm more focused on the relationship and communication." Together they would look back and laugh at the times rowing, when due to severe sleep deprivation they were both hallucinating. "Kevin once thought he was rowing through a Japanese fishing village for three days. And one time, after Kevin had slept, he came out and asked, 'How's it going?' I was like, 'Oh, just putting out the rubbish,' completely in another world!"
With the Atlantic race, not only was it an adventure, but a competitive race, and together they both knew they had to raise the bar if they were going to succeed. "Which is a tricky thing when you're in an extreme environment," explains Fitzgerald. Raising the bar is exactly what both rowers did in the Atlantic race, as they exceeded all traditional long distance rowing patterns of two hours rowing, two hours sleeping, as they slept for only an hour and rowed for one and a half. The second day of the 40 spent at sea was the most memorable and worst day of the race. An intense head current was pushing them back, with a storm closing in overhead. The easy option was to put out their sea anchor, which would stop them being dragged, but they decided to keep rowing through the storm, to push the boundaries, and to put in the hard yards. Fitzgerald remembers the following morning well; "We got in touch with Rob Hamill, and asked how far behind we were, and he said, 'you're actually 30 miles in front. Everyone else decided to put out their sea anchors, whereas you kept going.' This was a pivotal turning point, and it taught us a huge lesson - no matter how big or small a decision is at the time you make it, later on it may have a real effect."
On day 32 of the race the same thing happened with the exact same results, and it turned out they won the race by the amount of time they had made while they were rowing through the storms. Apart from having the continuous motion of rowing while asleep, and slogging their guts out through storms, and even capsizing once and ruining their electrical gear, the trip had its highs. You could say they felt free, and as one with the ocean, as they passed flying fish, saw the odd whale or pod of dolphins, and rowed naked. With a laugh, Fitzgerald explains; "When naked, you're actually sitting on sheep skin, so it's not like two boys having a fun time on the ocean. The natural fibre and oils from the sheep skin prevent you from getting salt water boils and such." A very interesting theory one may say, but a theory they decided to keep as a boat thing while trekking at minus 30.
Back on the ice, Fitzgerald and Biggar trudged through the storms, and were able to walk over mountain ranges that had never seen a human footprint, and while the tough times were rough, their disciplined daily routines got them focused for the huge task ahead. "We knew exactly whose job it was to do what each day. A typical day would see the fleeting night vanish at 2.30am, and it was time to get up to put the stove on to melt some ice, as 20 hours of sunlight awaited. After brekky, we would call Search and Rescue (ALE) via radio with our position of how far we'd gone. Then we'd pack up and walk for 90 minutes, then 10 minutes off, to guzzle back some fat." Their diet was 69% fat. They ate butter, salami and chocolate, basically the denser and fattier the better. "There was a bit of a science to it - we needed as much energy versus weight as possible, to keep the weight of the sleds down. Each day we ate the equivalent of 16 Big Macs - that's 6500 calories, when the normal amount is about 2000." Fitzgerald and Biggar would continue their 90 minutes walking, 10 minutes resting routine until they'd reached their goal for the day, which was usually 25 kilometres. Checking the GPS at the end of the day, they could see if they were even 100 metres off, and if they were they wouldn't pitch their tent until they'd walked the extra distance. Despite mounds and crevasses, white outs were to be the most taxing, as they would lose sight of their direction, and pretty much everything else too. "It's like riding your mountain bike through redwoods, but you're inside a ping pong ball - it all looks the same." Breaking down each step of the way with small milestones soon saw them eat up chunks of time, and they loved to celebrate each small milestone with a treat. "Although, even in minus 30, two grown men couldn't manage to get an instant pudding to set. It was terrible!"
Each milestone was the beginning of a new goal, and in the last 600 kilometres before the Pole, their goals had to be totally restructured, as disaster struck. Fitzgerald remembers slipping over numerous times, picking himself up and moving on, but one bad fall led to him tearing a hamstring. "We didn't slow down, but it made my mornings a little miserable. I then put more pressure and responsibility on the other leg and what happened then, is that I tore the other hamstring." Most people at this stage would have radioed for help or lay over and at least rested, but together they pushed on. The last week turned out to be beautiful on the enormous polar plateau, as they neared their seemingly remote destination. With torn hamstrings, and the Pole in sight, they couldn't quite believe their eyes.
Almost every day, around four Hercules aeroplanes land at the South Pole packed with tourists. The presence of around 250 people living there was almost an anti-climax. But they had made it. On January 2, 2007 , they were the first New Zealanders to ever walk to the South Pole unsupported. The return trip was now impossible with Fitzgerald's condition, so the pair decided they would fly home.
To a relieved family and team of supporters, the pair returned to New Zealand victorious. At the end of it all, Fitzgerald was most shocked by his appearance. With a shabby looking beard, his reflection in the mirror was a remarkable change to 52 days previously - he had lost 25 kilos, regardless of the 16 Big Macs a day. When asked which feat was most rewarding, out of the Pole or Atlantic, Fitzgerald replied without hesitation - the South Pole. "A lot less people have done the South Pole, and it was great knowing we had taken each step together, whereas on the boat there were times where only one of us was rowing while the other slept." In hindsight, the biggest drag for the pair with the South Pole journey, was that they had pulled 160 kilos of equipment and food, which was enough for the trip back to the coast, which along with the kites, didn't end up being used. Fitzgerald jokingly mused that he may put some kites on 'trade-me'.
Presently Fitzgerald is an influential public speaker and has been working with Waikato University, travelling to schools throughout New Zealand, talking about his experiences, his passions, and promoting goal setting. Fitzgerald said that he's not done looking for further opportunities to push the limits and to try something new, and he alluded to a possible desert crossing. Although, getting the New Zealand public behind him on that one may be more difficult.
In the near future he is going to work with a consultancy company in Auckland . He says the company's role is in "exciting company cultures, making it more branded and customer focused." Another venture he's keen to get involved with is called Project K, where he plans to walk the entire length of New Zealand on the national pathway, which is a track that, when completed, will run from Cape Reinga to Bluff, joining many previous tracks in New Zealand. The project involves bringing in troubled kids every 50 kilometres, kids who have had hard backgrounds, and may be slipping under the radar a bit, and for them to be part of the expedition.
This hardy intrepid adventurer has pushed his body to the limit, he's set a world record, and done something no New Zealander has ever done. When asked how he summons the enthusiasm to keep at it, he quickly replies; "It all comes down to passion. If you've got that passion, then all the hard work that you have to get through seems so much easier."
