This article was taken from the September 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Ranulph Fiennes, 69, has trekked alone through the Arctic, crossed the Antarctic on foot, been the first man to travel the Earth along its polar axis, run seven marathons in seven days across seven continents -- after a heart attack -- and climbed the north face of the Eiger despite severe vertigo. He was also a member of the SAS, discovered the ancient city of Ubar -- buried under the sands of Oman for over 2,000 years -- and attempted to be the first to cross Antarctica in the polar winter. On this expedition, the nearest rescue centre was 13,000km away. "I like breaking records; it's the only thing I know how to do, so it's my job," says Fiennes. "I don't like failures." Described by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's greatest living explorer, he tells Wired what he's learned from living a life of extremes.
Silence the wimpish voice
"On the Antarctica expeditions, when you're just one man hauling 200kg through snow and ice, things start going wrong with you.
You're wearing downhill ski-boots that will hurt your feet, so the end of your toes will go raw and sort of bloody, and then when you move forward it's very painful. You get stuff called 'crotch rot', so moving is very sore down there. Your teeth fillings fall out, and in Antarctica you're right under the ozone hole, so your exposed lips get scabby. Then there's gangrene, haemorrhoids and sores. In your head, a sort of wimpish voice is permanently trying to say, 'Well, I must stop, or I'll be having to cut my fingers off again,' but you've got to mentally fight that voice."
Expect moments of mild fear
"One time in the Antarctic I fell into a crevice without a rope.
All I had was a ski stick and two big mitts. The ski stick had a strap so, as I plunged down, it got caught about two feet from the top. I was dangling eight feet [2.4 metres] down from it. The crevice was a couple of hundred feet [60 metres] and unfortunately I was by myself. I absolutely panicked, but, rather like a wild cat that you catch by the scruff of its neck and it can actually bring its rear feet up and scratch you, I managed to get out. Looking at the hole into which I'd fallen and subsequently got out of, it's just a miracle. When my partner Mike Stroud saw the crevice, he wondered how the hell I got out. But this was only mild, temporary fear."
Know how far to push yourself
"Do not try and get out of your comfort zone. My longest periods of fear have been when I stupidly tried for a while to do climbing in order to get rid of my phobia, which is vertigo. It didn't work.
I was completely out of my comfort zone when climbing the north face of the Eiger. I had a moment of abject panic, which I am ashamed of, with a 1,200-metre total drop. I would have done anything other than remain there -- I would have said 'get me out of here' if there had been a way of doing it, which I've never done in any other circumstance -- not even fighting the communists in Oman, when there were scary moments. I suppose the fear of turning back in front of everyone was greater than the fear of carrying on."
Never underestimate luck
"The element of luck is huge with every expedition. When we went on the Transglobe Expedition, which is the only time human beings have ever been around Earth vertically [without air assistance], covering 83,000 kilometres, we managed it largely because we got lucky with the year, 1979. We were doing the Northwest Passage above Canada to get to the North Pole and we got through 800 kilometres of ocean, which left us with 640 kilometres of skiing over mountains to get to the pole. Eight years later, we discovered from the Canadians that, had we tried to get through that bit any time in the next seven years, it would have been frozen and we wouldn't have got through. So that was very, very lucky."
Don't go solo -- it could cost you fingers
"If you're stupid enough to do a solo expedition, then you've only got your own self to argue with and hate, which can be difficult sometimes. The Arctic solo trek was when I got frostbite in 2000 and I made a mistake by trying to set out too early when it was very cold and very dark. I thought that the moonlight from the full Moon would help, but actually it gave me no advantage because it was cloudy. All that the Moon did do was to cause the tide to come up and smash the ice that I was walking on. Each floe weighs 300,000 tonnes, and when it hits the cliffs or land, it crunches up everywhere. The noise, the darkness and the cold was huge, and I ended up with frostbite for the first time in 30 years. So yeah, you make a mistake and it costs you fingers."
Take your partner's advice
"On the very last night of my first attempt to climb Everest [in 2008], I got within 300 metres of the top and I had a sort of heart attack. I was lucky to get out alive. My wife had given me these glyceryl trinitrate pills and to keep her happy I'd brought them, although I don't generally like pills. So I remembered and managed eventually to find the bottle. I really was panicking and managed to open the bottle, big mitts, ropes, gas mask and all, took the pills and foamed at the mouth like you're meant to do. I later discovered that you are supposed to take two of these pills; I'd taken the whole bottle, which was about 80." (He eventually succeeded in climbing Everest a year later, becoming the oldest Briton ever to do so.)
Think fresh
"In the 70s I volunteered for the Sultan of Oman's army, whose Muslim people were being threatened by the Marxists from Yemen. We only had 160 people in the army, but there were 5,000 from Yemen, well trained and very well armed. So I changed to the SAS tactics that I had learned. I've got these 60 Baluchis and Arabs and some Zanzibaris, and changed it so that they only moved at night. In three years we never moved by day; we had two machine-guns per group of four, and walkie-talkies between the group -- that way you can deal with huge numbers of enemies. We had a great kill ratio -- we used to sit up on the border in caves and, as these guys came in to do nasty things to the Muslims, we got them before they came in."
Know when to quit
" On my latest expedition -- crossing Antarctica in the polar winter -- I got severe frostbite about 200km from the coast, so I left [the team] in March. That day, the temperature was -33
[degrees Celsius], which is nothing: it really isn't very cold. On the day that it happened, there was a big whiteout, meaning I couldn't even see my own skis. I was trialling new ski-boots and I realised that the bindings had gone so loose that my boots were slipping out all over the skis. I had to take my mitts off to do it so I had bare hands for possibly 12 to 15 minutes, then suddenly I saw that the left hand had gone totally white. I knew from experience what that meant. Luckily, there was a doctor at the base who saved my hand from amputation damage. And that was that."
*Read more from our <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/09/how-to/make-the-impossible-happen"
title="Make the impossible happen">Extreme How To special here</a>*
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
