He’s walked the Antarctic, climbed Mount Everest and chopped off his own frostbitten fingers – but for explorer Ranulph Fiennes, taking photos is the hardest part of the job
‘The World’s Greatest Living Explorer’ is in his seventies, but still determined to cross Antarctica in winter. He sat down with the Post to recall some of his most epic adventures
Ranulph Fiennes has walked from pole to pole, crossed the Antarctic unsupported, discovered a lost city in the desert, climbed Mount Everest at 65, and chopped off his own frostbitten fingers, but the ‘World’s Greatest Living Explorer’ still reckons taking photos is the hardest part of his job.
Now in his seventies, Fiennes is showing no signs of slowing down, having become the first man to travel pole to pole over land with friend Charlie Burton, the first to travel the entire Northwest Passage in one summer and the first to complete an unsupported crossing of the Antarctic on foot with fellow explorer Mike Stroud, enduring immense cold, frostbite and “crotch rot”.
His fingers became so frostbitten after a solo crossing of the Arctic attempt in 2000, he cut them off in his garden shed when he came home to avoid the surgery bill, and the Guinness World Records crowned him “the greatest” as long ago as 1984.
But exploring is expensive. Sponsors want their logos photographed against epic backgrounds, which is not often straightforward when survival is the first priority.
“It was a huge job,” Fiennes tells the Post of his 1979 pole-to-pole adventure, the Transglobe Expedition.
The “job” almost cost one member his ability to walk after a misadventure with the camera.