tonyhaile.com
If I ask you to picture someone who has successfully reached the South Pole twice, most recently solo and unsupported from Hercules Inlet. If I also add that this person also broke the previous speed record for the route, and that they are planning an even more demanding expedition for 2007, does a certain image come to mind? Well, if that image is of a tiny British woman in her early forties who weighs about as much as my leg then you’re dead right.
I had lunch with the incomparable Rosie Stancer today. I shared a tent with her on one of my first expeditions to Svalbard and she is one of those rare people who will always have a smile on her face even when the tent is disintegrating around you. As I mentioned above, she went on to do great things. It always amazes me that a person so seemingly fragile can perform so well when facing such demanding challenges. She is a good reminder that Apsley Cherry-Garrard got it almost bang on when he talked about the qualities necessary for life at earth’s extremes.
“If you want a good polar traveller get a man without too much muscle, with good physical tone, and let his mind be on wires – of steel. And if you can’t get both, sacrifice physique and bank on will.” If only he’d known Rosie, he might have added women to the equation too.
