Adventurer near Banbury hopes to become first Briton to complete 870-mile South Pole solo trek

Frederick Fennessy will look to follow in the footsteps of legendary explorers Shackleton and Scott when he embarks on an adventure of a lifetime next month.

The 29-year-old, who lives in Great Tew, will face temperatures of minus 40°C and months of isolation as he attempts to put his name in the record books.

Frederick grew up on Exmoor National Park and says this is where he first found his passion for adventure and the outdoors.

As children, Frederick says he and his brother were always outside playing in tree houses, making ziplines or tobogganing during the winter months.

He said “We were always outside, and we consider ourselves lucky to have that countryside to run around in, where me and my brother could just be boys.”

It was studying at Sherbourne School in Dorset as a teenager that Frederick first became interested in antarctic exploration after reading books about the great explorers.

Frederick said: “Reading the books about Scott and Shackleton and their stories of endurance and exploration from that golden Edwardian era inspired me as a youth.

“For me, Antarctica has been this plateau of endurance and survival but also leadership and decision-making, and I think from early on I felt that I wanted to put my stamp on the continent.

“I wasn’t too fussed about breaking big records I just wanted to do something notable and experience what those great explorers experienced, so the seed was sown from the early teens and has never gone away.”

After completing a mechanical engineering degree at Boston University, work took Frederick to Germany and Qatar before leading him back to Oxford.

Since returning to the UK, Frederick decided to focus on planning and preparing for his Antarctic mission full-time.

That involved skiing 650 kilometres across Greenland in 2021 with a small team of Norwegians.

Frederick said: “This trip was a seminal experience for me, a baptism of ice rather than fire, a really good expedition and a good learning curve.”

The following year, Frederick travelled to the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic to undergo another expedition in minus 40°C temperatures.

He said: “It was not far from the North Pole, we were skiing over the ocean. The distance was not as far as in Greenland but it was a lot colder.

“It was minus 40°C most days and we ended up having to evacuate one of the team members who had got frostbite and needed to be helicoptered out.

“We were swapping the risks of crevasses in Greenland with polar bears in the Arctic Ocean, it was another really good learning curve for me.”

Most recently, Frederick took part in a solo mission in Arctic Sweden over a few weeks, learning to set up his equipment efficiently.

He said: “It was quite humbling just to be on my own, I’m good with my own company but I was quite surprised how it felt to have that safety net taken away from me.”

These smaller expeditions were all leading up to Frederick’s huge solo adventure he will embark upon next month.

Frederick will start at Gould Bay on the Antarctic coast, close to where Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship became trapped in sea ice in 1915.

He will then trek for 65 days covering roughly 20 to 10 miles per day across dangerous crevasses, ice mountains and thousands of metres of elevation.

Speaking about the reason for undertaking the mission on his own, Frederick said: “It’s been a personal challenge for me.

“It’s definitely going to be harder going alone, as I will have to pull all the equipment myself meaning it will be a heavier weight.

“I feel I have more control on my own and I’m good with my own company and am looking forward to being completely off-grid for over two months.”

During the expedition, Frederick will be closer to the astronauts stationed on the International Space Station than to anyone on Earth.

His only communication with the world for 65 days will be a few minutes long satellite phone call, he is required to make to a safety team based in Antarctica.

To ensure his body is up to the challenge, Frederick has been maintaining a high level of fitness over the past years, which has included completing 100-mile ultramarathons.

He has also spent many hours with his head buried in spread sheets working out exactly how much food is required and how much energy he will burn daily.

As well as the preparation, Frederick has spent many hours finding sponsors and raising much of the money himself to fund the expedition.

Ahead of the trip, Frederick says he is most looking forward to the scenery, particularly at the start near Gould Bay, where he should encounter an emperor penguin colony.

He said: “I’m looking forward to seeing a bit of wildlife and then beautiful mountains, glaciers, and stunning views once I am high enough on the continent and after that it will just be white out for a month.

“Also the solitude, when the sun is out and I’m not too cold or tired it’s a very special place to be.”

In terms of apprehensions ahead of the trip, Frederick said: “There are a few sections where the crevasses are quite bad and I will have to be careful finding snow bridges to cross them.”

Frederick will celebrate his 30th birthday, Christmas and welcome in the New Year whilst undertaking the expedition.

If successful, the man from Great Tew will become one of just around 350 people to complete the journey and the second youngest person ever to do it solo.

To find out more information about Frederick’s expedition, visit his website at: https://expedition90south.com/expedition