Ben Saunders, a 27 year-old adventurer, recently announced his next expedition: an 1800-mile unsupported (i.e. Ben and his adventure mate, Tony Haile, will carry everything they need with them) journey from a hut at the edge of Antartica to the South Pole and back. It will re-trace the route Robert Falcon and his expedition team took in 1912 before the harsh conditions got the best of them on the return journey.

I’ve been a fan of Ben’s since listening to his talk on his last expedition which was an ambitious unspported solo expedition from Russia to Canada through the North Pole.

Side-stepping the usual big corporate sponsorship route, Ben is appealing to individuals to sponsor this expedition. It didn’t take long for us here at Iridesco to realize that we’d be happy to sponsor Ben & co on this journey. This quote from the expedition website eloquently captures a beautiful idea:

… What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. - George Leigh Mallory, 1922

It is the same reason why members of Iridesco spend vacations going cross country on trains. Or trekking across Swiss Alps on bicycles to test our physical and mental limitations. It’s all simply in the name of adventure, exploring the world we live in, learning from it, and caring about it.

So why the seemingly random mile 398? En route to the South Pole, Ben and Tony will encounter the giant Beardmore glacier, a.k.a. the gateway to the Antartic Plateau . It is here that they will be challenged by some of the harshest and most dangerous of environments on Earth. They will ascend “3,000 metres in just 104 miles”!! While there is no way to accurately account that mile 398 will be the mark of the “gateway” (based on previous logbooks) for their particular journey, we want to symbollically support them right as their challenge picks up a critical notch!