For myself, I think that what makes this era of explorers so interesting is that you can actually relate to what they do.
For example, reading about Tillman and Shipton's wanderings in the Karakorum, I can actually imagine being in the same situations myself - whereas if, say, I read about Yates, Pritchard et al on the Torres del Paine, or Mick Fowler on Spantik, it's much more difficult to imagine what they're experiencing, and what's going through their minds. (Although the books are still well worth a read, if only for the 'wow' factor)
(n.b. this viewpoint doesn't really explain why reading about the Endurance expedition is so compelling, since I can't easily imagine what it must be like to eat nothing but penguins for 2 years!)
That said, I don't really see the attraction in repeating their feats. Doing so will not bring back the olden days, and IMHO no matter how accurate the period gear is, the final acheivement will never be as great. For starters, they will be setting off in the knowledge that what they are doing is at least possible, if very difficult. The first time around, many of these expeditions had no idea whether they would survive, and indeed statistically the odds were generally stacked against them.
I think the real reason is that this kind of thing sells. People love to read about these expeditions, and it's much easier to get sponsorship to pull a sledge round the antarctic dressed in 1900s gear than to go and climb a hard new line on some Himalayan 7000-er, which, I submit, is the closest we can get nowadays to that kind of exploration.
Posted: 13/11/2000 at 10:32
