When men were brothers – vale Antarctica expeditioner Geoff Somers

Thirty-six years ago Dr. Jeff McMullen encountered the extraordinary British adventurer. Geoff Somersin the latter’s historic trek across Antarctica.

A 6,450-kilometer journey on HUSKY-PRAWED SLEDGS along the widest axis of Antarctica has long been hailed as an achievement. ‘impossible pass‘.

Below-freezing temperatures, snowstorms and high winds, as well as deep crevasses in the so-called ice Inaccessibility Zoneposed a daunting challenge.

On March 3, 1990, Geoff Somers, a famous British expedition explorer, was one of six people. six different countries Those who completed the 220-day difficult walk.

Their intention was always to make history with another person first.

They also wanted to show the world that people of different cultures, experiences, and skills—American, Russian, Chinese, French, Japanese, and British—could cooperate in the effort necessary to preserve Antarctica’s magnificent white wilderness of astonishing, unforgettable majesty and beauty.

The death of Geoff Somers in the UK, aged 76, after a long illness (17 July 2026), revived my memories of his remarkable calm, courage and skill.

A band of brothers who will forever be celebrated International Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1989-1990) also shows how much is possible with unity and how our world is changing.

Geoff Somers took responsibility for logistics due to his extensive experience in the expedition. British Antarctic Survey.

American, Will Steger and French, Doctor Jean-Louis EtienneThey were already highly experienced polar expeditioners. Steger was the first person to reach the North Pole on an unsupported dog sled walk. Etienne became the first person to go to the North Pole on skis alone.

Remarkably, the Russians allowed one scientist, Viktor Boyarskyto join the team. It would measure the alarming hole in the ozone above Antarctica; this was a contribution that would later lead to a ban on the release of dangerous chlorofluorocarbons.

China allowed a glaciologist Qin DaheTo study the levels of industrial pollution drifting onto one of Earth’s last pristine surfaces. No one thought that Qin Dahe would endure the seven-month marathon because he did not have the experience of the Japanese expedition. Keizo Funatsu.

To understand how people from these rival great powers were able to work closely together and, at times, push each other beyond normal human limits, recall the world’s season of optimism.

Mikhail Gorbachev perestroika reforms In 1985, he opened his closed society for a while. The Antarctic expedition offered the opportunity for true international cooperation.

When an international expedition set off in July 1989 Punta Arenas in southern Chile, Russians flew the men and 38 huskies in a huge Soviet Ilyushin-76. This the Red Army military transport vehicle landed in an icy field King George Island. The six people were then ferried onto the ship. Twin Otters aircraft to their starting point at the end of the path Antarctic Peninsula.

Three and a half months later I boarded an old Canadian firefighting ship. DC-6 Nicknamed “Albatross” in Punta Arenas, Chile, with a plan to interfere with the expedition in the Patriot Hills near Antarctica Ellsworth Mountains.

After trudging through ice and snow for 104 consecutive days, I was hitchhiking with a crew of fresh huskies to get some much-needed rest. It was a risky flight because the DC-6 had no skis and the pilot would have to land it on a sheet of ice.

As I stated in my article moment, A Life Full of Extremes – Journeys and Encounters:

‘Four times the Albatross lumbered towards the Drake Passage, and four times it failed to go all the way. ‘One engine broke down, one engine caught fire, there was a small electrical fire in the cockpit, there was a problem with the generator, the spark plug was faulty and on it went.’

By our fifth attempt, the husky was nervous and whining. We comforted them for nine hours in the darkness of the DC-6’s freezer cabin until we passed the point of no return with the ice floes below.

With unreliable radar, the plane finally circled for an hour until the pilot spotted colored markings and tents below. Powering through mountain peaks, the DC-6 plummeted, clipping an ice ledge and leaping at least four stories into the air. Snow fell on the right wing, but the 70-year-old pilot remained in control.

The “Albatross” had landed and six researchers were standing and cheering.

I met Geoff Somers by giving him letters and taped messages from his family. His brother Chris, a photographer living in Australia, organized our schools to follow the progress of the entire history-making trip.

The Antarctic winter was evident on the faces of all six researchers, with frost marks on their noses and cheeks. After months of isolation, without seeing any other humans and with only a few high-flying birds, an unforgettable friendship was formed.

I’m sure the expedition team was grateful that we finally arrived in Antarctica with fresh huskies running in circles and enjoying the comfort of being on the ground again.

Frenchman Jean-Louis Etienne gave me a bear hug and introduced me to the others.

Co-leader Will Steger said he blinked when the DC-6 splashed because he was afraid a catastrophic crash might kill us. He added that this would ruin the entire expedition. Everyone laughed, and we broke a bottle of vodka, which the Russian Victor Boyarsky continued to fill.

It was cold, minus 45 degrees Celsius. The wind cut his back like a knife. No matter how many layers you wore, you still felt as cold as the sheets of blue ice stretching towards the magnificent Ellsworth Mountains.

While sleeping in small tents, we noticed in the morning that our breath was freezing around our stubble-filled chins. Even the double sleeping bags were cold and wet.

All the huskies slept in the open, curled up and often half-buried in snowdrifts.

The huskies, harnessed to the sleds, dived several times into deep and dark crevices. Somers, Steger and Etienne threw themselves into the ropes to save these beloved animals. They only lost one during their entire journey.

I watched as English Somers graciously looked at the frozen paws of a husky and realized that in this wilderness a dog truly is a man’s best friend.

“Dogs are the real heroes in Antarctica” “We loaded his sled while he put on his harness,” Somers said. “It is only the spirit and endurance of these magnificent animals that will get us to the South Pole by Christmas.”

Geoff Somers would become the first Briton to cross Antarctica along its widest axis by foot and sled.

place of birth Khartoum In Sudan in 1950, Geoff was the son of a British doctor and a hardy mother who served as an Army Radio operator during the Second World War.

He left school without getting grades to fulfill his dream of learning to fly a plane. Instead, he hitchhiked around the world, learning the skills that come with interacting with different cultures in far-flung places.

You need a lot of survival knowledge to operate in Antarctica.

Somers had become adept at walking in the wind, hunched over and guiding his body between the tents. Antarctica has the strongest recorded winds of any place on Earth, so you could easily be blown to death if you lose your footing in a storm.

I’ve never experienced the temperatures these guys endure. Cold, frozen stripped the metal thread of a camera lens or caused fingers to stick to metal film magazines.

Geoff Somers showed me his split hands and cracked, painful, taped fingers. He had dealt with a frozen toe and a broken tooth. “We need to finish the journey” he said, “So we’re all moving on.”

Under this extreme pressure, medical doctor and environmental scientist Jean-Louis Etienne attempted to treat their wounds and tend to their mental state.

Etienne questioned each researcher as the journey progressed, trying to evaluate how people from such different cultures could best function under tremendous stress.

The Frenchman presciently predicted that his work would be helpful to international astronaut teams planning long space missions in the future.

Geoff Somers laughed at matters of the mind. He was a practical man, adept at straightening out gear, repairing broken sleds, and calming nerves when great whites landed. Although there was some radio link and satellite navigation, Geoff navigated using a sextant and a wristwatch.

He told me at Patriot Hills:

“There are so many ways Antarctica can kill you… not tying up your tent in high winds, not burning it with your little stove, not being roped together and falling into a crevasse in a blizzard, or not being separated from others because of a power outage… any one of these little missteps and you are gone.”

The expedition was on day 218, just 25 kilometers away from its final destination. MirnyyA Russian base where the Japanese expedition Keizo Funatsu fed huskies and then got lost in one of the fiercest snowstorms.

Keizo survived in the whiteout for 13 hours by burrowing a hole in the ice and snow, just like the husky.

When their epic journey was over, Geoff Somers quietly walked over to the husky team, petted each animal and, in his own words: “I congratulated them” about his extraordinary achievements.

Soon after, all huskies were banned from Antarctica to prevent them from spreading canine viruses to seal the populations.

I came here thinking that humanity and future mining were undoubtedly much greater threats.

I spent 17 days in Antarctica because the old “Albatross” jumped into a snowbank and had to be dug up on King George Island.

then i wrote daily:

I don’t know any man or woman who has seen Antarctica and hasn’t been changed forever. This is the closest experience I have to traveling to another star. Because in this world of ice, all the shapes are beautifully confusing – a magnificent iceberg, a formidable crevasse, cliffs of blue ice that refract the light and appear to flow like a frozen waterfall, great perfectly shaped pyramid mountains, vast fields of ice sparkling in the midnight sun, and always the whiteness of the snow, swirling blizzards of blinding white.

Valet Geoff Somers.

Dr Jeff McMullen AM is a journalist, author and filmmaker, former ABC foreign correspondent and correspondent for Four Corners and Sixty Minutes, and winner of the United Nations Media Peace Prize.

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