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The Endurance was on Shackleton's third trip to the Antarctic. If all the follow on rescue voyages to recover men from Elephant Island and the Ross sea side of his expedition are considered as one trip, than he made four trips, dying within hours of seeing South Georgia again on the fourth. Yet for all the drama of the third the most impressive thing he did was on his second trip. On his first trip he'd accompanied Scott on the world's first overland attempt on the South Pole. He returned leading his own expedition for the second and had his goal ready for the taking. He'd made it past the hard part, the climb up to the polar plateau. The weather was good, the going left was easy and the goal was a mere hundred miles away. And he turned back! Because he calculated lack of time and supplies would likely kill them on the way back. Darn few humans in history, willing to start the trip, could have made that decision. Scott couldn't and died for it. Shackleton was as obsessed with that goal as any man in history, but had the unique character to overcome it

Having in the interim been beaten to the pole goal, his third trip intended the only possible goal to top it: crossing the continent overland via the pole. That goal was finally achieved in 1958, using then modern machinery to fulfill the outline of Shackleton's plan. Sir Vivian Fuchs taking on the Shackleton role and Sir Edmund Hillary the role of Shackleton's Aurora expedition laying down stores for the Ross sea final leg. BTW any Shackleton fan, who hasn't already, should track down and read the story of the Aurora expedition. It wasn't quite as dramatic as the Weddel Sea side, but was still impressively difficult and in spite of best efforts did have some deaths.