Posted: Nov 08, 2007 01:03 am EST
(MountEverest.net/ThePoles.com) Dubbed "the world's greatest living explorer" by fellow Brits, Ranulph Fiennes - cousin to actor Ralph Fiennes - has a checkered adventure past, including an Antarctic traverse to Scott Base.

In 2003 at age 59, Fiennes suffered a heart attack onboard a plane in UK, and lost his wife to cancer the next year. True to his nature, Ran moved fast. In 2005, after completing a marathon at age 61 the explorer was headed to Everest with Jagged Globe's outfit - and a new wife.

On June 3, Fiennes had to abort only one hour into the final summit push, reportedly for health reasons and logistics mishaps. Another member of team, Jens Bojen (62) instead became the oldest Briton to climb Everest.

Everest encore

The following year, at age 62, Ran set up shop on MySpace and took off for Eiger's north face.

Climbing for vertigo, Ran dispatched, “spending the night bivouacking on a mountain face is not something I've done before and an aspect that has always worried me is that I might get a vertigo attack during the night if I wake up and suddenly think: ‘Where are we?'"

The climb was successful, Ran bagged the summit along with UK guide Kenton Cool (5-time Everest summiteer) and now he's decided for a comeback on Everest - at age 64, with a terrible fear of heights - and a double heart bypass.

The small team will attempt Everest from the south side this time; a third member is Dr Rob Casserley, a medic and high-altitude cameraman.

The money

As usual, Ran hopes to raise money for the Marie Curie Cancer Care - shooting for £3 million this time. The Delivering Choice Programme aims to give terminally ill people the choice over where they are cared for and die.

“I was moved to support Marie Curie Cancer Care after I lost my mother, wife and two sisters, the latter three to cancer, all within an 18-month period. Given the choice most people would choose to die at home, surrounded by the people they love – I have seen first hand the difference that can make,” Ran says.

Marie Curie Cancer Care say that Fiennes has his own financial backer for the expeditions. "This means that every penny raised goes to the charity." The North face of the Eiger for Marie Curie Cancer Care in March 2007 reportedly raised £2.7 million.

Marie Curie, born Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father, became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and fled Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule.

In 1891, she went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne where she met future husband Pierre Curie. The discovery of radioactivity (by Henri Becquerel in 1896) inspired the Curies in their research, often performed under difficult conditions. The two isolated polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth, and radium.

Marie Curie actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and during World War I, assisted by her daughter, Irene, she personally devoted herself to this remedial work.

Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize. Following her husband's death in 1906, Marie Curie took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences at Sorbonne, the first time a woman had held this position.

In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity.

(Source: Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967.)

According to the BBC Ranulph's adventure career started after he was “kicked out of the SAS for deliberately blowing up a Twentieth Century Fox film-set in Castle Coombe, Wiltshire."

Ran's biggest expedition took place in 1980 at Antarctica, when he and two friends did a 3600 km/2236 miles Antarctic traverse to Scott Base - using air and skidoo-support. It was the second traverse of the continent, since a 1958 tractor traverse to Scott Base. 9 years later, an international bunch of skiers almost doubled the distance, crossing 6400 km/3977 miles at Antarctica with dogs and air-support.

In 1993, Ran and a friend did a kite supported traverse, the two were picked up after 2170 km/1348 miles - the shortest traverse to date (except for a 1600 km/994 mile traverse in 2005 by another British team with a starting point only 500 km/300 miles from the South Pole - their first point of resupply).

Compared to the regular 1130 km/700 mile trek from the coast to the South Pole however, Ran's short traverse was still not bad considering the team had no resupplies.

In 1996 during a solo attempt to cross the Antarctic without resupplies, Ranulph had to give up in a race with a Polish and Norwegian all separately out for the same quest.

Ran told media, "I thought I would be fastest until I learnt that they (Ousland and Kaminski also attempting the traverse solo) would be using kites to pull themselves along. They could cover more than 100 miles a day, burning only 2,000 calories, whereas I could do just 16 miles, using 8,000 calories. The months I had spent at home training with heavy weights were a waste of time. I should have been training with kites."

"Marek had an accident and dropped out of the race, but Borge was well ahead of me. I thought I might still catch him, so I conserved fuel by drinking less water. This was my second mistake; I developed a kidney stone, which meant I had to give up, while Borge went on to cross the Antarctic solo."

Borge Ousland was the only one to finish the 2845 km/1768 mile traverse from Berkner Island to McMurdo.

In 2006 finally, Norwegian Rune Gjeldnes finished The longest March - a 4804 km/ 2988 miles solo kite ride across Antarctica. The distance (Los Angeles to New York plus 200 miles), was done in 90 days, without resupplies. With his victory, Rune Gjeldnes also became the only person to have traversed both polar ice caps without resupplies. For this feat, Rune was awarded among the Best of ExplorersWeb in 2006.

Ranulph later also attempted to ski to the North Pole unsupported but was airlifted with frostbite, reportedly after his sled fell in the water.

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