COVENTRY EXPLORER Mark Wood and his team has been praised by one of the heavyweight explorers after successfully reaching the North Pole in 13 days.
Since reaching the North Pole on Monday (April 25), the three-man team has won praise from the great explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
As expedition patron, he sent the exhausted team the following uplifting message: “Very well done to Mark and all the team on a great achievement under extremely difficult conditions – very best wishes, Ran Fiennes.”
Aimed at exposing the true extent of climate change in the Arctic Ocean, Wood – and his two serving soldier teammates – Paul Vicary and Mark Langridge, reported encountering strange, bizarre and warmer than usual Arctic conditions.
In one dramatic video clip, Mark and his team have successfully exposed how fragile the Arctic Ocean is becoming – and enhances the danger of the challenge the team undertook.
The clip shows Mark Langridge cautiously making his way across dangerously thin ice as a section of ice breaks away from the main ice sheet under his feet – narrowly escaping a dangerously fall into the freezing ocean.
A series of photographs also display the dramatic differences in ice conditions.
Mark Tweddle, the expedition’s main sponsor who runs fruit import and export firm Jupiter Marketing, said: “I’m delighted to confirm the team will fly back to the UK tonight.
“The team has begun to recover from its time on ice and they are now focusing their energy on revealing why it was so important that they made this extremely difficult journey.
“It was abundantly clear from conversations we had that the conditions the team was facing were dangerous, and far different to what would be expected.”
The Lichfield father-of-two said the video footage and pictures are revealing the dramatic conditions being caused by Earth continuing to change at an alarming rate.
He added: “I’m extremely proud to have been able to make this expedition a reality, and my hope is that it will encourage a different approach to tackling climate change going forward.”
Mark and his team will fly into Heathrow late tonight (April 28) and will soon start to create a documentary about their time at the North Pole.
