This is me. My name is Ben Saunders. I specialize in dragging heavy things around cold places.
这就是我。我叫本·桑德斯。 我特别擅长在寒冷的地方 拖行重物。
On May 11th last year, I stood alone at the North geographic Pole. I was the only human being in an area one-and-a-half times the size of America, five-and-a-half thousand square miles. More than 2,000 people have climbed Everest. 12 people have stood on the moon. Including me, only four people have skied solo to the North Pole. And I think the reason for that -- (Applause) -- thank you -- I think the reason for that is that it's -- it's -- well, it's as Chris said, bonkers. It's a journey that is right at the limit of human capability. I skied the equivalent of 31 marathons back to back. 800 miles in 10 weeks. And I was dragging all the food I needed, the supplies, the equipment, sleeping bag, one change of underwear -- everything I needed for nearly three months. (Laughter) What we're going to try and do today, in the 16 and a bit minutes I've got left, is to try and answer three questions. The first one is, why? The second one is, how do you go to the loo at minus 40? "Ben, I've read somewhere that at minus 40, exposed skin becomes frostbitten in less than a minute, so how do you answer the call of nature?" I don't want to answer these now. I'll come on to them at the end. Third one: how do you top that? What's next?
去年5月11日, 我独自一人站在北极点上。 在那片有一个半美国大的大地上, 在那片5500平方英里的地方, 我是唯一的人类。 有2000多人登上过珠穆朗玛峰。 有12个人曾站立在月球上。 而包括我在内,只有4个人 曾独自一人滑雪去北极。 而我认为这是因为 -- (鼓掌) -- 谢谢 -- 我认为这是因为 -- 就像克里斯说的那样,犯傻 。(笑声) 这是一段考验人类极限的 旅程。 我滑的距离相当于31个马拉松来回, 10周滑了800英里。 我拖着所有所需的食物, 日用品,装备,睡袋, 和一套换洗的内衣——这些是我在三个月的必需品 (笑声) 而在剩下的16分钟多一点的时间里,我们要做的, 就是尝试回答三个问题。第一个:为什么? 第二个: 你怎样在零下40度的条件下上厕所。 “本,我知道在零下四十度的时候, 暴露的皮肤会在一分钟内冻伤,所以你是怎么解决内急的?” 我现在先不回答这个问题,等到最后再告诉你们。 第三个:你是怎样完成的?下一项挑战是什么?
It all started back in 2001. My first expedition was with a guy called Pen Hadow -- enormously experienced chap. This was like my polar apprenticeship. We were trying to ski from this group of islands up here, Severnaya Zemlya, to the North Pole. And the thing that fascinates me about the North Pole, geographic North Pole, is that it's slap bang in the middle of the sea. This is about as good as maps get, and to reach it you've got to ski literally over the frozen crust, the floating skin of ice on the Artic Ocean. I'd spoken to all the experts. I'd read lots of books. I studied maps and charts. But I realized on the morning of day one that I had no idea exactly what I'd let myself in for.
这都要追溯的2001年的时候。 我第一次探险是和一个叫朋·哈道的人,他极富经验。 当时,我在他身边就像学徒。 我们想从这里—— 北地群岛(俄罗斯北部群岛)滑到北极。 而北极,地理上的北极点,最令我着迷的是 它正好就在北冰洋的正中央。 就好像地图那样精确, 而要到那,你就得真的滑过 那冰冻的雪壳, 北冰洋上漂浮着的冰层。 我咨询过许多专家, 也读过大量的书籍,研究了地图和图表。 但在第一天早上 我对我自己到底陷入了一个什么样的境地, 毫不知晓。
I was 23 years old. No one my age had attempted anything like this, and pretty quickly, almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. We were attacked by a polar bear on day two. I had frostbite in my left big toe. We started running very low on food. We were both pretty hungry, losing lots of weight. Some very unusual weather conditions, very difficult ice conditions. We had decidedly low-tech communications. We couldn't afford a satellite phone, so we had HF radio. You can see two ski poles sticking out of the roof of the tent. There's a wire dangling down either side. That was our HF radio antenna. We had less than two hours two-way communication with the outside world in two months. Ultimately, we ran out of time. We'd skied 400 miles. We were just over 200 miles left to go to the Pole, and we'd run out of time. We were too late into the summer; the ice was starting to melt; we spoke to the Russian helicopter pilots on the radio, and they said, "Look boys, you've run out of time. We've got to pick you up." And I felt that I had failed, wholeheartedly. I was a failure.
我当时23岁。我的同龄人 都不曾尝试过这样的挑战, 而且很快, 几乎所有可能出错的事都出错了。 我们在第二天就被一只北极熊袭击。 我的左脚大拇指还长了冻疮。 我们的食物也所剩无几。饥饿让我们体重大为下降。 当时的天气状况也极为反常, 我们当时 毫无疑问只有初级的通讯工具。 没钱买卫星电话,所以我们只有高频收音机。 你可以看到两个滑雪杆从帐篷顶伸出来。 每边都有一根金属线拉下来。 那是我们高频收音机的天线。 在两个月内,我们只有少于2小时 的与外界的双向通话时间。 最关键的是,我们时间不够用。 我们滑了400英里,但离北极 还剩200英里的时候,我们就没时间了。 夏天已经来临,冰都开始融化了, 我们通过广播同俄罗斯直升机驾驶员通话, 他们说:“看看小伙子们,你们时间不够了。 我们得把你们接上来。” 当时我感觉我彻头彻尾地失败了。 我就是个失败者。
The one goal, the one dream I'd had for as long as I could remember -- I hadn't even come close. And skiing along that first trip, I had two imaginary video clips that I'd replay over and over again in my mind when the going got tough, just to keep my motivation going. The first one was reaching the Pole itself. I could see vividly, I suppose, being filmed out of the door of a helicopter, there was, kind of, rock music playing in the background, and I had a ski pole with a Union Jack, you know, flying in the wind. I could see myself sticking the flag in a pole, you know -- ah, glorious moment -- the music kind of reaching a crescendo. The second video clip that I imagined was getting back to Heathrow airport, and I could see again, vividly, the camera flashbulbs going off, the paparazzi, the autograph hunters, the book agents coming to sign me up for a deal. And of course, neither of these things happened. We didn't get to the Pole, and we didn't have any money to pay anyone to do the PR, so no one had heard of this expedition.
我就这么一个目标, 打记事起就有的这么一个梦想,我却连影子都没摸着。 在那次旅途中,每当旅途变得艰难, 我便在心里来回播放两个镜头, 来激励我不断前行。 第一个便是成功抵达北极这件事本身。 我能够绘声绘色地想象我自己, 走出直升飞机的舱门,摇滚乐在背景声中响起, 我手握滑雪杆,上挂英国国旗,你知道,随风飘扬。 我甚至能看见自己亲自把国旗插在北极上,你知道, 那是一个光荣的时刻,伴随着背景乐也即将达到高潮。 第二个镜头是 我想像自己马上就要到达希思罗机场, 又是那种身临其境的想象, 照相机闪光不断, 狗仔队们,索要签名的粉丝们, 要来找我出书的出版商们。 当然,这些都没有发生。 我们没去成北极,也没有挣着钱。 没钱去找人宣传,就没人 知道这次探险。
And I got back to Heathrow. My mum was there; my brother was there; my granddad was there -- had a little Union Jack -- (Laughter) -- and that was about it. I went back to live with my mum. I was physically exhausted, mentally an absolute wreck, considered myself a failure. In a huge amount of debt personally to this expedition, and lying on my mum's sofa, day in day out, watching daytime TV. My brother sent me a text message, an SMS -- it was a quote from the "Simpsons." It said, "You tried your hardest and failed miserably. The lesson is: don't even try." (Laughter)
当我回到希思罗,我妈,我哥, 我爷爷,他们都在那,我爷爷还拿着英国国旗,一小面。 (笑声) 就是这样,我回到了我母亲身边。 我当时精疲力尽, 心灵受到了极大的创伤,认为自己就是失败者。 还欠了一屁股债。 我成天躺在母亲家的沙发上, 整日看着日间电视节目。 我哥给我发了一条短信 是从《辛普森一家》上引的,说:“ 你竭尽全力,却以悲惨失败结局。 所以,结论是:一开始就别去做。” (笑声)
Fast forward three years. I did eventually get off the sofa, and start planning another expedition. This time, I wanted to go right across, on my own this time, from Russia, at the top of the map, to the North Pole, where the sort of kink in the middle is, and then on to Canada. No one has made a complete crossing of the Arctic Ocean on their own. Two Norwegians did it as a team in 2000. No one's done it solo. Very famous, very accomplished Italian mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, tried it in 1995, and he was rescued after a week. He described this expedition as 10 times as dangerous as Everest. So for some reason, this was what I wanted to have a crack at, but I knew that even to stand a chance of getting home in one piece, let alone make it across to Canada, I had to take a radical approach. This meant everything from perfecting the sawn-off, sub-two-gram toothbrush, to working with one of the world's leading nutritionists in developing a completely new, revolutionary nutritional strategy from scratch: 6,000 calories a day.
三年一晃而逝,我最终从沙发上爬了起来, 并且开始计划另一次探险。这次, 我准备独自一人,直接穿越 地图顶端的俄罗斯, 到地图中间的那个弯的北极那, 然后抵达加拿大。 没有人独自完成横跨北冰洋的壮举。 两个挪威人曾组队在2000年完成过,但没有人能独自穿越。 而享誉盛名,富有成就的意大利登山家, 雷纳德·梅斯纳尔在1995年作出了尝试, 但他却在一周后被救起。 他形容这个旅程 比攀登珠穆朗玛峰还有危险10倍。 所以,这大概也是我为什么要试一试的原因, 但我知道,想要安然无恙的回家就已经不容易了, 更不用说还要穿越北冰洋,到达加拿大。 我必须得很激进。 这意味着我得从熟练使用 专门缩短的,不到两克的牙刷开始做起, 还要于世界上最杰出的营养学家之一合作 从零开始,共同制定出一套全新的, 革命性的营养策略—— 6000卡路里一天。
And the expedition started in February last year. Big support team. We had a film crew, a couple of logistics people with us, my girlfriend, a photographer. At first it was pretty sensible. We flew British Airways to Moscow. The next bit in Siberia to Krasnoyarsk, on a Russian internal airline called KrasAir, spelled K-R-A-S. The next bit, we'd chartered a pretty elderly Russian plane to fly us up to a town called Khatanga, which was the sort of last bit of civilization. Our cameraman, who it turned out was a pretty nervous flier at the best of times, actually asked the pilot, before we got on the plane, how long this flight would take, and the pilot -- Russian pilot -- completely deadpan, replied, "Six hours -- if we live." (Laughter) We got to Khatanga. I think the joke is that Khatanga isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from there. (Laughter) It was supposed to be an overnight stay. We were stuck there for 10 days. There was a kind of vodka-fueled pay dispute between the helicopter pilots and the people that owned the helicopter, so we were stuck. We couldn't move. Finally, morning of day 11, we got the all-clear, loaded up the helicopters -- two helicopters flying in tandem -- dropped me off at the edge of the pack ice. We had a frantic sort of 45 minutes of filming, photography; while the helicopter was still there, I did an interview on the satellite phone; and then everyone else climbed back into the helicopter, wham, the door closed, and I was alone.
去年2月,旅程开始了。 我们有一个庞大的支持团队:一个摄影队, 几个后勤人员, 还有我女朋友,她是个摄影师。 一开始进展得挺顺利。我们乘英航飞到莫斯科。 接下来是从塞伯利亚到克拉斯诺雅茨克的短暂飞行, 乘坐的是俄罗斯国内的一家航班叫KrasAir(发音很象坠机),(笑声) K-R-A-S 下一段路,我们租了一架俄国的老爷机, 飞到一个叫Khatanga的镇, 那应该算是最后一片有人烟的地带了。 而我们的摄影师,一个在最好的条件下乘飞机也会犯晕的人, 在上飞机前跑去问飞行员,我们得飞多久才能着陆, 而那个俄国飞行员毫无表情地回答道, 6个小时——如果我们活着到达的话。 (笑声) 我们就这样到了Khatanga. 开句玩笑,Khatanga并不是世界的尽头, 但是从那里你可以看得见世界的尽头。 (笑声) 本来我们只准备待一个晚上。结果最后被困在那里10天。 原因是伏特加酒醉后的报酬纠纷 在直升飞机飞行员和机主之间, 所以我们被困住了。哪儿也去不了。 最终,第11天早晨,我们解决了所有的问题。 把东西装上直升机。两架直升机一起飞到 冻结冰层边沿,在那里将我放下。 我们拍摄了一个美妙的45分钟短片, 还有摄影。当直升机还在那里, 我通过卫星电话接受了采访, 然后其他的所有人登上直升机, 砰的一下,飞机舱门关上了,留下了我一个人。
And I don't know if words will ever quite do that moment justice. All I could think about was running back up to the door, banging on the door, and saying, "Look guys, I haven't quite thought this through." (Laughter) To make things worse, you can just see the white dot up at the top right hand side of the screen; that's a full moon.
现在我不知道文字是否能够还原那一刻的真实。 我当时满脑子就是走回机舱门, 砰砰砰打门,然后说:”好吧诸位, 我其实还没下决心。“ (笑声) 更加糟糕的是,你可以看这个白点, 在屏幕的右上方;那是满月。
Because we'd been held up in Russia, of course, the full moon brings the highest and lowest tides; when you're standing on the frozen surface of the sea, high and low tides generally mean that interesting things are going to happen -- the ice is going to start moving around a bit. I was, you can see there, pulling two sledges. Grand total in all, 95 days of food and fuel, 180 kilos -- that's almost exactly 400 pounds. When the ice was flat or flattish, I could just about pull both. When the ice wasn't flat, I didn't have a hope in hell. I had to pull one, leave it, and go back and get the other one. Literally scrambling through what's called pressure ice -- the ice had been smashed up under the pressure of the currents of the ocean, the wind and the tides. NASA described the ice conditions last year as the worst since records began. And it's always drifting. The pack ice is always drifting. I was skiing into headwinds for nine out of the 10 weeks I was alone last year, and I was drifting backwards most of the time. My record was minus 2.5 miles. I got up in the morning, took the tent down, skied north for seven-and-a-half hours, put the tent up, and I was two and a half miles further back than when I'd started. I literally couldn't keep up with the drift of the ice.
因为我们在俄罗斯被耽搁了一阵子,当然, 满月带来最大或最小的潮汐; 当你站在结冰的海洋表面时, 最高或最低的潮汐一般意味着 有趣的事情将要发生了--冰面将会小幅的移动。 我当时,正如你们所见,正在拖着两个雪橇。 95天食物和燃料的总重量, 是180千克--大概是400磅重。 当冰面是水平或者几乎水平时, 我可以同时拖拽两个雪橇。 当冰面不是水平时,我一点希望也没有。 我只能先拖一个,然后回头再拖另外一个。 准确的说,我翻越的是这些所谓的起伏冰 -- 来自风,潮汐和洋流的压力 把冰挤碎了。 NASA 形容去年冰层的情况是有记载以来最恶劣的。 而且冰层总是在飘移。 去年那整个10周我一个人滑雪时, 我顶风滑行了9周。 大多数时间我被冰层带着向后移动 我的记录是负2.5英里。 我早晨起来,收起帐篷,向北滑行了7个半小时, 支起帐篷,然后发现从出发的地方开始算, 我反而退后了2.5英里。 真是像逆水行舟,我往前滑的速度还赶不上冰层往后漂的快。
(Video): So it's day 22. I'm lying in the tent, getting ready to go. The weather is just appalling -- oh, drifted back about five miles in the last -- last night. Later in the expedition, the problem was no longer the ice. It was a lack of ice -- open water. I knew this was happening. I knew the Artic was warming. I knew there was more open water. And I had a secret weapon up my sleeve. This was my little bit of bio-mimicry. Polar bears on the Artic Ocean move in dead straight lines. If they come to water, they'll climb in, swim across it. So we had a dry suit developed -- I worked with a team in Norway -- based on a sort of survival suit -- I suppose, that helicopter pilots would wear -- that I could climb into. It would go on over my boots, over my mittens, it would pull up around my face, and seal pretty tightly around my face. And this meant I could ski over very thin ice, and if I fell through, it wasn't the end of the world. It also meant, if the worst came to the worst, I could actually jump in and swim across and drag the sledge over after me. Some pretty radical technology, a radical approach --but it worked perfectly.
(录像:) 今天是第22天。 我正在帐篷里,准备出发。 天气很糟糕 -- 昨晚上 冰面往后移了5英里。 在探险的后期,冰不再是问题。 因为没有什么冰了 -- (全是)开阔的水面。 我就料到这会发生。 我知道北极正在变暖。 我料到了这里将会出现开阔水域,所以我准备了秘密武器。 这里有一些关于仿生学的知识。 北极熊在北冰洋只知道向前走。 如果它们遇见水面,它们会游过去。 所以我们设计了一套潜水衣服--我们和来自挪威的科学小组合作-- 基于救生衣的原理-- 我想,直升机飞行员也许会用得着-- 我钻进外套里,它会从我的靴子盖到手套, 还可以拉上来圈住我的脸,在脸边上一圈贴的严严实实的。 这意味着我可以在非常薄的冰层上面 滑雪。 如果我掉了下去,也不会是世界末日。 这同样意味着,即使到了最坏的情况。 我能跳到水中然后游过去 还能够拖着我的雪橇。 一个相当激进的技术, 激进的方式--但很好用。
Another exciting thing we did last year was with communications technology. In 1912, Shackleton's Endurance expedition -- there was -- one of his crew, a guy called Thomas Orde-Lees. He said, "The explorers of 2012, if there is anything left to explore, will no doubt carry pocket wireless telephones fitted with wireless telescopes." Well, Orde-Lees guessed wrong by about eight years. This is my pocket wireless telephone, Iridium satellite phone. The wireless telescope was a digital camera I had tucked in my pocket. And every single day of the 72 days I was alone on the ice, I was blogging live from my tent, sending back a little diary piece, sending back information on the distance I'd covered -- the ice conditions, the temperature -- and a daily photo. Remember, 2001, we had less than two hours radio contact with the outside world. Last year, blogging live from an expedition that's been described as 10 times as dangerous as Everest. It wasn't all high-tech. This is navigating in what's called a whiteout. When you get lots of mist, low cloud, the wind starts blowing the snow up. You can't see an awful lot. You can just see, there's a yellow ribbon tied to one of my ski poles. I'd navigate using the direction of the wind. So, kind of a weird combination of high-tech and low-tech.
我们去年做的另外一件令人激动的事情 是跟通信技术有关的。 在1912年,在沙克尔顿的耐久征途中-- 有一个-- 他的一个队员,叫做托马斯 奥德-莱斯。 他说,“对于2012年的探险者们, 如果还有什么地方没有人探险的话, 毫无疑问会装备有小型手机 配上无线望远镜。” 好吧,奥德-莱斯算错了大概8年。这是我的小型无线手机, 铱星卫星电话。 所谓的无线望远镜是我的装在口袋里的数码相机。 在我身处极地的72天中的每一天, 我在帐篷里更新我的博客, 发送一些日记的片段, 发送这些我走过的路程的信息 -- 冰层的情况,温度 -- 以及每日照片。 记住,在2001年, 我们和外界时间交流仅有不到两小时的无线电交流。 而就在去年,我可以实时更新探险博客 在这个被称作比珠穆朗玛峰还艰险十倍的地方。 这不全是为了享受高科技,在所谓的雪盲环境里, (更重要的)是导航功能。 当雾气来临,云层压低,风把雪花吹起。 能见度很低。大家可以看到(屏幕),这里有一条黄色的 带子系在我的一个滑雪杆上。 我全靠风向确定前进的方向。 总而言之,高科技和原始方法的奇怪结合。
I got to the Pole on the 11th of May. It took me 68 days to get there from Russia, and there is nothing there. (Laughter). There isn't even a pole at the Pole. There's nothing there, purely because it's sea ice. It's drifting. Stick a flag there, leave it there, pretty soon it will drift off, usually towards Canada or Greenland. I knew this, but I was expecting something. Strange mixture of feelings: it was extremely warm by this stage, a lot of open water around, and of course, elated that I'd got there under my own steam, but starting to really realize that my chances of making it all the way across to Canada, which was still 400 miles away, were slim at best. The only proof I've got that I was there is a blurry photo of my GPS, the little satellite navigation gadget. You can just see -- there's a nine and a string of zeros here. Ninety degrees north -- that is slap bang in the North Pole. I took a photo of that. Sat down on my sledge. Did a sort of video diary piece. Took a few photos. I got my satellite phone out. I warmed the battery up in my armpit. I dialed three numbers. I dialed my mum. I dialed my girlfriend. I dialed the CEO of my sponsor. And I got three voicemails. (Laughter) (Video): Ninety. It's a special feeling. The entire planet is rotating beneath my feet. The -- the whole world underneath me. I finally got through to my mum. She was at the queue of the supermarket. She started crying. She asked me to call her back. (Laughter)
5月11日,我到达极点。 从俄罗斯出发,我花了68天走到这里, 结果看到白茫茫一片大地真干净。 (笑声)。 在极点甚至不是一个(固定的)点。什么都没有。 完全因为这里都是漂浮在海洋上的冰,随时在移动。 在这里插一个旗子,放在这里不久就会随着冰层漂走,通常是朝向加拿大或者格林兰的方向。 我预料到了这些,但我多少还是在期待着看见一些东西。 奇怪的情绪混杂着:在那里其实是比较暖和的, 周围很多开阔水面, 通过自己的力量到达极点当然是鼓舞万分的, 但我也开始意识到 我要从北极走回加拿大的成功率, 差不多400英里的路程, 即使在最好的情况下,也是很小的。 我到达那里的唯一证据 是我这张不清晰的GPS的照片,这个小卫星定位仪器。 你们可以从这里看到(屏幕) -- 这里有个9还有一串0. 北纬90度 -- 突然就到了是北极。 我坐在我的雪橇上,给GPS照了张相,录了一小段有声日记。 照了几张相。我拿出卫星电话。 在腋下把电池捂热。 我拨了三个号码。我打了一个给我母亲, 打了一个给我女朋友,还打了一个给赞助商的总裁。 结果我接到了三个电话留言提示(都没人接)。 (笑声) (录像):90. 奇特的感觉。 整个星球 都在旋转 于我的脚下。 这个世界 -- 在我脚下。 我终于打通了母亲的电话,她正在超市排队。 她开始哭,还让我待会儿在打给她。 (笑声)
I skied on for a week past the Pole. I wanted to get as close to Canada as I could before conditions just got too dangerous to continue. This was the last day I had on the ice. When I spoke to the -- my project management team, they said, "Look, Ben, conditions are getting too dangerous. There are huge areas of open water just south of your position. We'd like to pick you up. Ben, could you please look for an airstrip?" This was the view outside my tent when I had this fateful phone call. I'd never tried to build an airstrip before. Tony, the expedition manager, he said, "Look Ben, you've got to find 500 meters of flat, thick safe ice." The only bit of ice I could find -- it took me 36 hours of skiing around trying to find an airstrip -- was exactly 473 meters. I could measure it with my skis. I didn't tell Tony that. I didn't tell the pilots that. I thought, it'll have to do. (Video): Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
我越过了北极点滑行一周。 我想在情况变坏到无法前进之前 尽可能地靠近加拿大。 这是我在冰上的最后一天。 当我和我的管理团队通话时, 他们说,“看,本,情况越来越糟。 在你的南边有大片的开阔水面。 我们得把你接上飞机了。 本,你能不能找一块飞机着陆地?“ 当我接到这个关键的电话 这是我的帐篷外面的场景 。(没有合适的着陆点) 我从没尝试找过飞机着陆地。托尼,这次探险的总管,他说, “本,你得找到500米长的 平坦,厚实,安全的冰层。“ 这是仅有的一小块冰我能找到的 -- 就这还花费了我36小时滑行找寻 -- 整整473米长。我能用我的滑雪板测量。 我没有告诉托尼这个,我也没有告诉飞行员这个。 我盘算着,应该能行。 (录像): 嗷,嗷,嗷,嗷,嗷,嗷。
It just about worked. A pretty dramatic landing -- the plane actually passed over four times, and I was a bit worried it wasn't going to land at all. The pilot, I knew, was called Troy. I was expecting someone called Troy that did this for a living to be a pretty tough kind of guy. I was bawling my eyes out by the time the plane landed -- a pretty emotional moment. So I thought, I've got to compose myself for Troy. I'm supposed to be the roughty toughty explorer type. The plane taxied up to where I was standing. The door opened. This guy jumped out. He's about that tall. He said, "Hi, my name is Troy." (Laughter). The co-pilot was a lady called Monica. She sat there in a sort of hand-knitted jumper. They were the least macho people I've ever met, but they made my day. Troy was smoking a cigarette on the ice; we took a few photos. He climbed up the ladder. He said, "Just -- just get in the back." He threw his cigarette out as he got on the front, and I climbed in the back. (Laughter) Taxied up and down the runway a few times, just to flatten it out a bit, and he said, "Right, I'm going to -- I'm going to give it a go." And he -- I've now learned that this is standard practice, but it had me worried at the time. He put his hand on the throttle. You can see the control for the engines is actually on the roof of the cockpit. It's that little bar there. He put his hand on the throttle. Monica very gently put her hand sort of on top of his. I thought, "God, here we go. We're, we're -- this is all or nothing." Rammed it forwards. Bounced down the runway. Just took off. One of the skis just clipped a pressure ridge at the end of the runway, banking. I could see into the cockpit, Troy battling the controls, and he just took one hand off, reached back, flipped a switch on the roof of the cockpit, and it was the "fasten seat belt" sign you can see on the wall. (Laughter) And only from the air did I see the big picture. Of course, when you're on the ice, you only ever see one obstacle at a time, whether it's a pressure ridge or there's a bit of water. This is probably why I didn't get into trouble about the length of my airstrip. I mean, it really was starting to break up.
刚刚好,很惊险的着陆 -- 飞机实际上飞过了4次, 我有点担心它根本就不会试着着陆。 飞行员,我知道叫做特洛伊。我想名叫特洛伊的人 干这种行当的,应该是个硬汉。 看着飞机着陆时我如释重负的痛哭了。 真是一个很感性的时刻。 接着我想,我至少应该平静下来,给特洛伊留个好印象。 我应该保持那种坚韧的探险者形象。 飞机滑行到我站的地方。 门打开。他跳了下来,大概到我肩膀那么高。他说(孩童般的声调):”你好,我的名字是特-洛-伊。” (笑声) 副飞行员是一个叫莫妮卡的女生。 她穿着手工的套衫坐在那儿。 他们是我遇见过最没用男子气概的人,但他们让我那天特别高兴。 特洛伊 -- 特洛伊在冰上抽烟, 我们照了一些照片。他 -- 爬上绳梯,他说,“你上后边坐。“ 他丢掉了烟,先上了飞机前排, 然后我爬上了飞机后排。 (笑声) 在跑道上缓缓地来回几次后, 仅仅是为了把冰面碾平一些。然后他说:”好了,我准备 -- 我准备起飞了。“ 然后他 -- 我后来了解了这是很平常的一套动作,但那时我看了很是担心。 他把手放在飞机推进器上。 你们可以看到引擎控制器实际上是在驾驶舱的顶部。 就是那个地方的小操纵杆。他把手放在推进器上。 莫妮卡非常温柔把手放在他的手上。 我想,“神啊,拼了。我们孤注一掷了。” 飞机隆隆向前。冲击跑道。刚刚好能起飞。 在跑道最后,飞机的一个滑板刚刚好压碎由于水压隆起的冰脊。 我可以看到驾驶舱,特洛伊正在使劲操作控制杆, 同时他松开一只手,探到后方, 拨动了一个在驾驶舱顶的开关,(停顿) 是提示“系紧安全带”的提示,你们可以在墙上看到。 (笑声) 从空中我才最终看到整个(北极)的境况。 当然,当在冰上时,你一次只能看见一个障碍物。 不是一个压力冰脊就是一小片水。 这也许是为什么跑道长度没有给我带来上÷麻烦的原因。 我的意思是,冰层真的是刚刚开始破裂。
Why? I'm not an explorer in the traditional sense. I'm not skiing along drawing maps; everyone knows where the North Pole is. At the South Pole there's a big scientific base. There's an airstrip. There's a cafe and there's a tourist shop. For me, this is about exploring human limits, about exploring the limits of physiology, of psychology and of technology. They're the things that excite me. And it's also about potential, on a personal level. This, for me, is a chance to explore the limits -- really push the limits of my own potential, see how far they stretch. And on a wider scale, it amazes me how people go through life just scratching the surface of their potential, just doing three or four or five percent of what they're truly capable of. So, on a wider scale, I hope that this journey was a chance to inspire other people to think about what they want to do with their potential, and what they want to do with the tiny amount of time we each have on this planet. That's as close as I can come to summing that up.
为什么(我要一个人滑雪探险北极)?我不是一个传统意义上的探险者。 我不是边滑行边绘制地图, 人人都知道北极在那里。 在南极有一个大的科学考察基地。那里有一个飞行跑道。 有一个餐厅和一个旅行者商店。 对我来说,这次旅行是在探索人类极限。 生理的极限,心理的极限 还有科技的极限。这些才是使我感兴趣的事情。 同时对我个人而言,这也是考验个人潜能。 对我来说,这是个探索极限的机会 -- 把我自身的潜力推到极限,看够能坚持多久。 在更加宽广的尺度来看,让我着迷的是人们怎样 通过发挥他们的潜力来生活。 把自己逼到在自己能力所及的百分之九十五,百分之九十六或者百分之九十七。 所以 在更广阔的角度,我希望用这次旅行 去激励其他的人 去体会他们想利用自己的潜能做什么, 去体会利用我们每个人在这个星球仅有的一点点时间 他们想做什么。 这是我能够下的最好的总结了。
The next question is, how do you answer the call of nature at minus 40? The answer, of course, to which is a trade secret -- and the last question, what's next? As quickly as possible, if I have a minute left at the end, I'll go into more detail. What's next: Antarctica. It's the coldest, highest, windiest and driest continent on Earth. Late 1911, early 1912, there was a race to be the first to the South Pole: the heart of the Antarctic continent. If you include the coastal ice shelves, you can see that the Ross Ice Shelf -- it's the big one down here -- the Ross Ice Shelf is the size of France. Antarctica, if you include the ice shelves, is twice the size of Australia -- it's a big place. And there's a race to get to the Pole between Amundsen, the Norwegian -- Amundsen had dog sleds and huskies -- and Scott, the British guy, Captain Scott. Scott had sort of ponies and some tractors and a few dogs, all of which went wrong, and Scott and his team of four people ended up on foot. They got to the Pole late January 1912 to find a Norwegian flag already there. There was a tent, a letter to the Norwegian king. And they turned around, headed back to the coast, and all five of them died on the return journey. Since then, no one has ever skied -- this was 93 years ago -- since then, no one has ever skied from the coast of Antarctica to the Pole and back. Every South Pole expedition you may have heard about is either flown out from the Pole or has used vehicles or dogs or kites to do some kind of crossing -- no one has ever made a return journey. So that's the plan. Two of us are doing it. That's pretty much it.
下一个问题是,如何在零下四十度方便? 答案是,当然,是个商业秘密 --(众不满足) 最后一个问题。 下一步做什么?我想尽快说完, 如果我最后剩一分钟,我会说一些细节(关于第二个问题)。 下一步: 南极洲。 地球上最冷的,最高的, 最多风,最干燥的大陆。 1911年底,1912年初, 有一个看谁第一个到达南极点的赛跑, 那是南极大陆的心脏。 如果算上海岸冰架,你们可以看到劳斯冰架 -- 在这儿,下面的大块 -- 劳斯冰架跟法国国土面积相当。 南极洲,如果包括冰架, 是澳大利亚国土面积的两倍 -- 一个很大的地方。 那时谁先到南极点的竞争者是阿蒙森在斯科特之间, 阿蒙森是挪威人 -- 他有雪橇和哈士奇狗 -- 斯科特是英国人,斯科特船长。 斯科特有几匹小马和一些雪地车 几条狗,斯科特的装备全出问题了, 导致斯科特和他的四名队员最后只能徒步前进。 他们于1912年1月到达极点 却发现早有一面挪威国旗插在那里。 那里有一个帐篷,一封给挪威国王的信。 他们掉头,往海岸走, 五个人在回程的路上都死去了。 自此,没人再尝试过滑行穿越 -- 那是93年前的事情了 -- 从那时开始,没人再次滑雪 从南极洲海岸达到极点然后返回。 每一支你们听说过的南极探险队 从极点返回时,不是使用飞机就是汽车, 狗拉雪橇,或者风筝来实现穿越 -- 没人尝试过徒步返回。所以,这就是我的计划。 我们会有两个人一起做这件事。 我说的差不多了。
One final thought before I get to the toilet bit, is -- is, I have a -- and I meant to scan this and I've forgotten -- but I have a -- I have a school report. I was 13 years old, and it's framed above my desk at home. It says, "Ben lacks sufficient impetus to achieve anything worthwhile." (Laughter) (Applause) I think if I've learned anything, it's this: that no one else is the authority on your potential. You're the only person that decides how far you go and what you're capable of. Ladies and gentlemen, that's my story. Thank you very much.
在我收尾之前,最后我想说的是 -- 我有个 -- 我本来想把这个扫描下来结果忘了 -- 我有个 -- 学校操行报告。我那是13岁。 现在这个操行报告还放在我家的桌子上,镶在镜框里。上面写着: “本缺乏足够的动力 去做成任何有意义的事情。” (笑声) (鼓掌) 我想如果我从中学到了什么,那就是:没有其他任何人 能够成为你的潜力的主宰者。 只有你自己才能决定你能走多远,你有多大的能力。 女生们先生们,这就是我的故事。谢谢 谢谢