That's impressive

Bacon, butter fuel fastest South Pole trek: Adventurers set new record by completing 700-mile expedition in 33 days

The three Canadians broke a record set by an American just last month. One of the explorers said that he really, really wants some pizza. He had previously done a run across 4,300 miles of the Sahara. They didn't use dogs, apparently, but pulled 170-pound sleds with one man going along on snowshoes as the other two skied, sometimes through whiteouts and temps as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Congratulations, I believe, are in order.

Today's 'Slice of History' mentions an ill-fated Antarctic expedition

On November 12, 1912 the bodies of Robert Falcon Scott and two of his fellow expedition members were found by a search party, eight months after their death in a blizzard as they returned from the remarkable feat of reaching the South Pole, although they were the second team--the first having been Norwegian Roald Amundsen's, who arrived four weeks earlier, to the Britons' disappointment.

Doomed Expedition to the South Pole, 1912

An excerpt from Scott's diary, dated February 17th, regarding the first death as they made their way home on skis (unlike Admundsen, Scott had dismissed the use of dogs in favour of horses, which died in the extreme conditions):

After lunch, and Evans still not appearing, we looked out, to see him still afar off. By this time we were alarmed, and all four started back on ski. I was first to reach the poor man and shocked at his appearance; he was on his knees with clothing disarranged, hands uncovered and frostbitten, and a wild look in his eyes. Asked what was the matter, he replied with a slow speech that he didn't know, but thought he must have fainted. We got him on his feet, but after two or three steps he sank down again. He showed every sign of complete collapse. Wilson, Bowers, and I went back for the sledge, whilst Oates remained with him. When we returned he was practically unconscious, and when we got him into the tent quite comatose. He died quietly at 12.30 A.M. On discussing the symptoms we think he began to get weaker just before we reached the Pole, and that his downward path was accelerated first by the shock of his frostbitten fingers, and later by falls during rough travelling on the glacier, further by his loss of all confidence in himself. Wilson thinks it certain he must have injured his brain by a fall.

On March 29th, the following entry was written:

Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority...We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last...Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale...

Subsequently, Scott has been both championed as a great English explorer and criticised as an heroic bungler. Reading his story, I see a lot of the roots of Beyond the Mountains of Madness, the campaign we played for so many months.

Today, the US research station at the South Pole is known as the Admundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in recognition of these men's endeavours.