I’ve read almost all of the books about Shackleton and his expeditions including Shackelton’s own book on the Endurance expedition, “South”.
Shackleton is not only the toughest man who ever lived but also the luckiest. He was also a foolish risk taker and the irony of the Endurance expedition was that if it had not sank he would have perished trying to cross Antarctica. The shore party for Endurance was supposed to lay the depots for the trans antarctic crossing but because of the weather and delays couldn’t do it until a year later.
Shackleton would have made it to the South Pole on the Nimrod expedition had he taken Nansen’s advice to use dogs. Instead he followed the advice of British polar explorer Frederick Jackson and took Siberian ponies instead. The ponies were a disaster just like they proved to be for Scott’s Terra Nova expedition.
I hate to be all “girlie” here but I actually cried when Shackleton ordered the dogs killed.
Very sad.
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Big Shackleton fan here. Read most every book about early Antarctic exploration. These men were incredible risk takers with goals of exploration and polar conquest. Shackleton’s Endurance expedition is THE ultimate survival story. Apollo 13 can’t even compare. They had hundreds of people helping get them back to Earth while Shackleton had to keep his men alive for nearly 18 months after his ship sank, take an open boat journey across the roughest seas in the world, find a “needle in the haystack” of an island, then cross mountainous unexplored terrain with no climbing equipment, sleepless for 36 hours to get help to go back and get the rest of his men - which took four separate tries by the way. Unbelievable courage, fortitude, and devotion. Not one of his men perished. This story should be standard teaching in every school about the greatness of man and what he can accomplish.
The trip across South Georgia Island!!!
The decision to ‘slide’ down the mountain, sitting on the gear!!!
Do they have bergschrunds on South Georgia Island?
My father always said, the harder you work, the more luck you will find. That and the Grace of God.