Made it, ma! Bottom of the world!
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BenWeber, Strathspey's lone polar hero, has made it to the South Pole.
Confirmation came in the earliest hours this morning that the Carrbridge man had completed his awesome 700-mile-plus trek in honour of his late mother Marian.
Last night, after 58 gruelling days of neck pain and difficult terrain Ben had posted:
"I am so close now. It was hard to sleep last night. Despite it being -30C outside, in the tent it must have been around 20C!
"It wasn’t possible to stay in the sleeping bag: way too hot. I ended up lying on top of it in my base layers with all the doors open to try and ventilate and cool down.
"At the same time, the excitement of it all; gradually approaching the Pole, was difficult to stop thinking about!"
As his countdown to glory began, he blogge: "As planned, I started to get up a couple of hours earlier than normal to get ready for a long day. Up around 4.30am and eventually all packed up and ready to go just after 7am.
"And it was a long but good day. The conditions at the start continued to be glorious but by around three hours later, they deteriorated into semi-whiteout with fog descending; though the sun was able to get through a little to give okay visibility.
"It cleared up by the time I camped though. There was a little bit more of a breeze than yesterday but nothing much. I ended up looking like the abominable snowman again, the way my breath would just freeze onto me!
"I JUST WANT TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD!
"12 hours later and time to pitch the tent again! 30km covered and a happy me! Pretty much what I wanted.
"I now have just over 31km to get to the Pole! So so so close, it’s unbelievable!!
"There will be two flights from the Pole to Union Glacier on the 13th: one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so it would be alright to arrive in the morning if the 13th.
"But I just want to get there! I want to enjoy being there, at the bottom of the world!!! Getting there tomorrow evening and.. yes it will be tiring but…wow! It will be over! I will have done it!!! The weather forecast is okay: calm with sun and cloud, so the conditions should be fine… hopefully everything will be okay!!!"
Confirmation came at just after 5.30 this morning in an email to the Strathy from his webmaster Alan Rankin:
"Ben reached the Pole early this morning – he's bloody well gone and done it!"
The 41-year-old former compliance advisor had set himself a £5000 target for cancer relief, to give the health service a better chance of early and accurate diagnoses following the tragedy of losing his mother to the disease. At the latest check he was over half way to that but is hoping now that he' s completed his geographical course, the public will help get him to that other line.
More on this story as it comes in from Antarctica.
Photo: The Abominable Snowman part 2: more abominable and more snowman!!
Visit Ben’s blog site to hear Ben’s audio diary from his overnight camp and donation links to Cancer Research UK at www.polarweber.com
