Cold: Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth - Softcover

Fiennes, Ranulph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1471127842 ISBN 13: 9781471127847

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2014

Synopsis

There are only few human beings who can adapt, survive and thrive in the coldest regions on earth. And below a certain temperature, death is inevitable.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes has spent much of his life exploring and working in conditions of extreme cold. The loss of many of his fingers to frostbite is a testament to the horrors man is exposed to at such perilous temperatures. With the many adventures he has led over the past 40 years, testing his limits of endurance to the maximum, he deservedly holds the title of 'the world's greatest explorer'.

Despite our technological advances, the Arctic, the Antarctic and the highest mountains on earth, remain some of the most dangerous and unexplored areas of the world. This remarkable book reveals the chequered history of man's attempts to discover and understand these remote areas of the planet, from the early voyages of discovery of Cook, Ross, Weddell, Amundsen, Shackleton and Franklin to Sir Ranulph's own extraordinary feats; from his adventuring apprenticeship on the Greenland Ice Cap, to masterminding over the past five years the first crossing of the Antarctic during winter, where temperatures regularly plummeted to minus 92ºC.

Both historically questioning and intensely personal, Cold is a celebration of a life dedicated to researching and exploring some of the most hostile and brutally cold places on earth.

About this title

Review:

'Fiennes' new book provides unsparing accounts of his expedition hardships, including months drifting on a disintegrating, polar-bear-haunted Arctic ice floe, and seeking shelter from 200mph winds while pitching his tent in the icefields of Antarctica... A stirring read' Book of the Month, Lonely Planet Traveller Magazine

'How did you lose several fingers? A mystery. I know what I can and can't do at minus 30 and minus 40. It was a normal icy day. I was not in a danger zone. If you try peeling a banana with mitts on, you can't. Therefore you take them off. I took 'em off and saw my hand had gone white. The same hand had done a winter ascent of the Eiger. I knew what it had got itself into. I had to get back to safety, which meant putting the hand in my crotch, the only warm place. I was in a whiteout. An Irishman came back very kindly to help - endangering himself' Kate Kellaway

'One of the world s greatest living explorers has described in a new book how his wife s thoughtfulness enabled him to survive a heart attack on Everest. The brush with death is one of several narrow escapes recounted in Cold' Sian Griffiths, Sunday Times

'Perhaps when you are as driven as he is you can never be fulfilled but Fiennes, who once used a fretsaw to cut off his frost-bitten finger tips, is probably assured of legend status. Not just because of the £14m he s raised for charity, his contribution to science and his catalogue of physical achievements, but that he personifies, as this book testifies, the indomitability of the human spirit and the belief that anything is possible' Flemmich Webb, Independent

'Tracing the history of polar exploration, [Fiennes] finds men deranged by isolation; ruthless captains abandoning unwanted crew in the uninhabitable Arctic; scurvy merrily rotting the gums of every man it touches. He relates, in juicy detail, stories of cannibalism and the public outcry they provoked at home' Stefanie Marsh, The Times

'This celebration of the most brutally cold places on Earth covers man s early discoveries through to the first crossing of the Antarctic during winter.' --Evening Standard

About the Author:

Sir Ranulph Fiennes was the first man to reach both poles by surface travel and the first to cross the Antarctic Continent unsupported. In the 1960s he was removed from the SAS Regiment for misuse of explosives but, after joining the army of the Sultan of Oman, received that  country's Bravery Medal on active service in 1971. He is the only person yet to have been awarded two clasps to the Polar medal for both Antarctic and the Arctic regions. Fiennes has led over thirty expeditions, including the first polar circumnavigation of the Earth, and in 2003 he ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents in aid of the British Heart Foundation. In 1993 Her Majesty the Queen awarded Fiennes the Order of the British Empire (OBE) because, on the way to breaking records, he has raised over £14 million for charity. He was named Best Sportsman in the 2007 ITV Great Briton Awards and in 2009 he became the oldest Briton to reach the summit of Everest.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1471127842
• ISBN 13: 9781471127847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496