Q&A: Pen Hadow, explorer

How has technology changed the experience of travelling and working in the world's most isolated regions?
In part we can travel much more safely. We can do more because we have these greater safety margins. The experience is different [to explorers of the past] but we are not here to have an extreme experience - we're doing this to get a survey done, it's a job of work. And therefore within reason we are much happier having a high level of communication.

Green IT from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more...

A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

The downsides are that you are in an extreme situation. People at home can never fully appreciate the extreme stresses that have to be dealt with on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis. And your mind being split between where you really are and the people back home actually produces all sorts of tension - additional tensions - when you're trying to focus on what you're doing. So it's not just nice to be able to talk to your mum all the time.

The idea that because we've got access to satellites and can send all these things back that life's a laugh all of a sudden just isn't the case. It's very, very time pressured every single day. So it's constantly trying to have to prioritise as to what's the most important or useful use of time.

The breakthrough for us [on the Vanco expedition] is going to be that we have a three-way comms between the team as we're going along. We've got throat microphones linked to ear pieces and we can talk when we need to, which will make life different. That's a different experience for Polar surface travellers because normally you are in your own world while you're pulling your sledge. You're left to your own thoughts until the next tea break in 75 minutes time.

How can technology play a role in engaging the general public with environmental issues?
It's the intimacy that the technology enables between the viewer and the explorer. So for example we've got some live heart rates being beeped out onto the website onto the homepage so you can actually see the explorer's heart rate hammering away in real-time and you can even opt in at a particular heart rate of your choosing as to when you get an email alert or a text alert saying something interesting's happening. So it's closing the distance psychologically and, in a sense, geographically between those that are interested in following this sort of a project and those that are actually delivering a project.

It's not just that it's a long way away and who cares and why should we care. It's right there in front of you. You've living breathing it as we are. And therefore getting more involved and more engaged with the process and therefore more inclined to absorb more information about what this environment is all about and why is it important - what the implications of a disappearing ice cap are. Having got people involved, we then want to use that engagement to deliver messages of greater public value than simply following the story.

What gadgets/tech can you not live without - at home, and while on an expedition?
I hate to say it but at home it'd be my BlackBerry. Life would grind to a halt really without my BlackBerry. Boring but true.

And as far as on the expedition. I don't take any [personal] technology - I've got food and a stove and a few bits and pieces.

There's been a debate amongst the team as to whether we will actually take iPods or not [on the Vanco survey] - because they're seen as being quite isolationist. You're sitting in a tent with your two colleagues and you've got two people listening to iPods, how does that make you feel when you're not listening to an iPod and you can't talk to them because they might as well actually be on a Tube train somewhere? So the debate's out as to whether any iPods are actually going to make it onto the ice.

How much planning and preparation work is needed for a project like this?
This will have taken three and a half years of which two and a half have been pretty much full time for me. And there's now a team of almost 40 people who have been working on this project, many of them full time.

That's one of the benefits of going later. Because things were getting incredibly tight and training is the hardest thing to fit in when there's so many other things that always seem to be slightly more urgent and more important on any given day. So I'm pleased that we've got that extra time - so I know I'll be as fit as a flea when I set off. And I know my colleagues will be.

What inspired you to want to be an explorer?
It's a mixture of inspirations over many years. I was brought up by the same lady that looked after Scott of the Antarctic's son. So I was brought up on stories of his endeavours down in the Antarctic since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Or knee high to an Adeli penguin depending on your point of view. So that's as much reason as anything.

Do you think developments such as the internet which allow people to experience things remotely will end up making travel and exploration less necessary?
Clearly some areas that are relatively fragile, that are currently experiencing high levels of visitors are probably best left alone. The extent to which virtual experiences can start to scale that back again remains to be seen. There must be something in it.

I don't know where that's tracking. At the moment we seem to be getting more and more mobile and more and more out there.

What aspect/s of the survey are you least looking forward to?
The first 10 days. Swimming at night - being forced to swim at night in highly dynamic ice so it's really moving around quite a lot. There's no solid ice. It's all drifting around, swirling around and you can't stay in the water indefinitely and it's dark so you can't get any sense of big picture around you especially once you're down in the water. And then you hear the dreaded 'splash ker-plonk' and you wonder was that a bear dropping itself into the water to come and check you out, or was that a piece of ice just falling off into the water. That's about as bad as it gets I would say.

Bears are curious and they're not afraid. And if they're hungry it's not so good. It tends to be the sick or old or immature bears that are the problems, and are harder to deter but once you're in the water it's very hard to really do anything to frighten the bears off or indeed defend yourself. The biggest bears - the ones with the biggest bodies - are off the Alaskan coast which unfortunately is where we're setting off from, so my wildest nightmares are looking to be more likely rather than less likely to be true.

For page one of the interview, click here.