Alone and on Foot in Antarctica

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Alone and on Foot in Antarctica
Date: March 6, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Contributors: David Grann (Narrator/Reporter), Joanna Worsley, Henry Worsley

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Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour tells the compelling and tragic story of Henry Worsley, a British Army veteran and explorer, who attempted to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided in 2015. Staff writer David Grann narrates Worsley’s journey—his motivations, the physical and mental challenges he faced, and the legacy he left behind. Through Worsley’s own audio diaries, interviews with his wife Joanna, and historical context about Ernest Shackleton, the episode explores themes of endurance, ambition, marital support, and the cost of following one’s dreams.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Ambition: Following Shackleton’s Dream

• Henry Worsley was inspired by polar explorer Ernest Shackleton—a hero and distant relative (Frank Worsley, captain of the Endurance)—whose legendary expeditions and devotion to his men deeply affected Henry from childhood.
  • “By endurance, we conquer”—the Shackleton family motto—became Henry’s personal creed. (07:02–07:11)
• Worsley was motivated not only by admiration for Shackleton’s daring, but also by the explorer’s wisdom in knowing when to turn back for the safety of his men.

The Man: Soldier, Romantic, Adventurer

• Henry was meticulous, romantic, and artistic—qualities that set him apart from stereotypical explorers.
  • “He loved poetry. He loved art. He did tapestry.” – Joanna Worsley (04:39)
• Joanna, his wife, was initially attracted to Henry’s adventurous spirit, despite their personal differences ("I think it's great talking to people who are adventurers.” 04:03).
• Joanna reflects candidly on the tension between marital partnership and individual dreams. She supported Henry’s expeditions, recognizing his longing to fulfill his ambitions. (08:07–08:46)

Preparation and Routine: Life on the Ice

• Worsley’s journey required near-superhuman planning and minimalism—hauling a 300-pound sled, he meticulously recorded his stats and kept a satellite phone for emergencies.
• His daily routine was grueling:
  • Early rise, packing camp, hours of skiing in extreme conditions, 8,000 calories burned per day.
  • “Well, I’ve been skiing for 90 minutes and then taking a five-minute break and then off again.” (09:28)
• Food cravings were constant and vivid:
  • “Fish, pie, brown bread, double cream, steak and chips ... dairy milk chocolate, tomatoes, bananas, apples.” (09:40)
• The goal was simple: hit his mileage quota each day, no matter the cost. Progress was tracked obsessively. (10:13–10:51)

Psychological and Physical Challenges

• While inspired and sometimes elated, Henry endured isolation and increasing hardship.
  • “This beguiling continent will strip you bare.” – Henry Worsley on Antarctica (01:17)
• His nightly audio diaries were messages to supporters and schoolkids, whom he called “young explorers.”
  • "If I had the opportunity to ask Shackleton one question, what would it be? I think my question would be what have you learned about leadership?” (11:54)
• As the journey progressed, fatigue, injuries, and weight loss escalated.
  • “His back throbbed, all his muscles ached. His feet were bruised, his toes were discolored. He was suffering from the early signs of frostbite...he had lost more than 40 pounds.” (16:21–16:51)

The Final Days: Pushing Limits

• Henry became increasingly weak, with his routine collapsing under severe physical stress.
  • “I had a very interrupted night’s sleep last night. Bad stomach, probably the weakest I’ve felt in the entire expedition.” (16:11)
• Joanna describes her mounting alarm, seeing his spirit and health decline.
  • “There was something really not right about it. Then his voice, his despair, he cried quite a lot. He never cried.” (17:44)
• Despite being only 100 miles from his goal, Henry made the tough, Shackleton-inspired decision to call for rescue when he realized he could not safely continue.
  • “My journey is at an end. I have run out of time, physical endurance, and a simple cheering ability...I will come to terms with disappointment. Signing off.” (21:01)

Aftermath and Legacy

• Henry was evacuated but succumbed to peritonitis soon after. His death was met with national mourning in the UK.
• Months later, Joanna and their children traveled to South Georgia to scatter his ashes by Shackleton’s grave, in a moving private ceremony.
  • “We poured whiskey onto Shackleton’s grave.” (24:16)
• Joanna remains conflicted but respectful about the pursuit of dreams, now as her son expresses a desire to follow in his father’s footsteps.
  • “Henry’s death has not made me lose that really strong feeling of people must fulfil dreams.” (25:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Henry Worsley on confronting Antarctica’s challenge:
  “From then on, this beguiling continent will strip you bare.”
  (01:17)

• Joanna Worsley on Henry’s personality:
  “He really was a true romantic. He loved poetry. He loved art. He did tapestry... He loved the history of all these old explorers and he glamorised their lives at his head.”
  (04:39)

• Henry on the allure and terror of the unknown:
  “All about how satin strong your mind...hours in the gym cannot prepare you for that moment when the sound of the airplane...fades.”
  (01:17)

• Henry’s touching message as he withdrew from the expedition:
  “I too have shot my bolt. My journey is at an end...I spent 70 days all alone in a place I love. I'll lick my wounds. They will heal over time and I will come to terms with disappointment. Signing off.”
  (21:01)

• Joanna’s reflection on dreams and loss:
  “Henry’s death has not made me lose that really strong feeling of people must fulfil dreams.”
  (25:08)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–01:41: Introduction to Worsley’s expedition and motivation
• 03:13–05:13: Henry’s background, SAS experience, marriage to Joanna
• 05:13–07:02: Shackleton’s historical influence and personal connection
• 07:45–09:00: Family dynamics and the decision to pursue polar exploration
• 09:00–11:54: Routine and hardships of solo Antarctic travel
• 13:34–15:08: The physical and mental challenge intensifies
• 16:11–18:45: Health collapse and emotional toll
• 21:01: Henry’s final message
• 22:13–24:37: Aftermath, burial, and family reflections

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Conclusion

"Alone and on Foot in Antarctica" explores the intersection of human ambition, endurance, love, and the acceptance of limits. Through Henry Worsley’s last journey, the episode honors not just the spirit of exploration but also the wisdom of knowing when to turn back—and the courage it takes to follow a passion all the way to its end.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Floor 38. These are just anecdotes, but it's building up into something more coherent and I think it'd be interesting to really try.

[Henry Worsley]

To unravel what his ties.

[Joanna Worsley]

There's this sort of country city divide. There are inconvenient ends and it's not.

[David Remnick]

Clear where it goes next.

[Joanna Worsley]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

[Henry Worsley]

Good evening. So, underway at last about 100 miles from the Antarctic landmass.

[David Remnick]

In 2015, a British army veteran named Henry Worsley set out to become the first person to cross Antarctica on foot, alone and unaided.

[Henry Worsley]

3.94 nautical miles over 3 1/2 hours travel was pleasing. I'm in great spirits. It was so wonderful to be back on the snow heading south. Good night.

[David Remnick]

Worsley went on skis, pulling a sled loaded with more than 300 pounds of equipment. And he would pass the South Pole and then continue on to the other side of Antarctica.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, pilot journeys are all about how Satan strong your mind. Hours in the gym cannot prepare you for that moment when the sound of the airplane that has just dropped you off at your star point fades. Or from then on, this beguiling continent will strip you bare.

[David Remnick]

It was about as difficult a journey as a human being could voluntarily undertake. Staff writer David Grann brings us the story of Henry Worsley.

[Narrator]

Henry had been to the South Pole twice before, but this would be his first solo expedition. And it was also longer than his other expeditions and more dangerous than any other expedition he had ever attempted. Henry was a meticulous planner, ruthlessly whittling down all his equipment to the bare essentials. Most important was his satellite phone, which would allow him to stay in contact with ALE Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, a company that helped get polar explorers on and off the continent.

[Henry Worsley]

Okay, stats for decimal 660.

[Narrator]

Each night after a long trek, he would call Ale, give them his medical condition and his coordinates if, if he was ever in trouble, he could call for what he referred to as the most expensive taxi ride in the world, which would be a rescue plane to pull him out.

[Henry Worsley]

Thanks, Andy, Mike, you and Andrew.

[Narrator]

He also called a friend in London so he could record an audio diary of his day which could then be posted on his website. And it updated listeners about what he was going through, what he was eating, what he was feeling.

[Henry Worsley]

Good evening, everybody. Sun shone for most of the day whilst wave after Wave of low cloud cast intriguing bands of shadow and light that raced across the surface creating strips of light all running parallel to each other.

[Joanna Worsley]

He was incredibly good looking. And at that point, most of my friends were in the art world and in books or theater or film and we all thought that someone in the Special Forces was very, very glamorous.

[Narrator]

So Henry met his wife Joanne at a party in London in 1989. He had recently completed his selection course for the Special Air Service, or sas, a legendary elite commando unit.

[Joanna Worsley]

And actually, I like adventurous people. I think it's great talking to people who are adventurers.

[Narrator]

So the SAS has extreme endurance tests which you have to pass in order to qualify. Several people have died even trying to take that course. Henry was among the very few who passed it. And in many ways, he and Joanna were opposites. She hates the cold. She couldn't think of any more dreadful place in the world than Antarctica. Yet for all their differences, they shared a similar sensibility.

[Joanna Worsley]

He really was a true romantic. He loved poetry. He loved art. He did tapestry. He stitched the most wonderful tapestry. Two sledges going across the snow. He loved the history of all these old explorers and he glamorized their lives at his head.

[Henry Worsley]

We retraced our steps over crevasses, through soft snow, encountering blizzards till eventually, on.

[Narrator]

The first mast, Henry worshipped Ernest Shackleton who in many ways was a failure as an explorer. On his first expedition that he commanded himself, he set out to reach the south pole with three other men. They got within 97 miles nautical miles of the Pole. But he feared that if he kept going, his men who were already fading would not make it back.

[Henry Worsley]

Those 14 men who were my comrades, who, regardless of stealth.

[Narrator]

And so he made a decision that always astonished Henry Worsley. He decided to turn back.

[Henry Worsley]

And it has been through then that we have achieved the message.

[Narrator]

And on his other, most famous expedition Shackleton had wanted to walk across Antarctica. He thought it was the last great prize to be achieved. But before he even reached Antarctica, his ship, the Endurance, got frozen in the ice and Shackleton found him and all his men marooned on an ice floe more than 800 miles from the closest island with any contact with civilization. What made it so amazing was he was able to guide all the men in his immediate party and get them back all home alive.

[Henry Worsley]

I can only say, speaking here now, that they have been loyal to the very core throughout the trying times we've gone through. I was very interested as a child, photographs of the Endurance story. Absolutely captivated me. I started reading and the accounts that they wrote about those expeditions.

[Narrator]

Henry found out that one of his ancestors, Frank Worsley, had been the captain of the Endurance ship on the Endurance expedition.

[Henry Worsley]

So, yes, this all started at a very early age.

[Narrator]

He began to burn with this very peculiar ambition which very few share, which was to kind of suffer these miseries and become a polar explorer. And the motto that he lived by was Shackleton's family motto was, which was, by endurance, we conquer.

[Joanna Worsley]

I should have had warning bells when he came back from a trip to South Georgia just after I first met him and was incredibly excited because he had managed to sleep beside Shackleton's grave. And it wasn't until when he was about 40 that he started really talking about wanting to do an expedition and follow in Shackleton's footsteps.

[Narrator]

So by the time Henry was talking about doing his first expedition, he had two children, Max and Alicia. Initially, when he decided he wanted to do something that, you know how many people say suddenly, wait a second, I want to go walk to the South Pole. His kids were a little bit bewildered, but Joanna was very supportive.

[Joanna Worsley]

I thought it was a wonderful idea. I really did. Both of us were huge believers in trying to fulfill dreams. A lot of the time marriage stops you from fulfilling your own individual dreams because you feel you have to get permission from the other person. And I felt that through my twenties I had fulfilled a lot of my dreams. I'd had a lot of fun. And he went into the army when he was 18 and I felt that it was his turn really.

[Narrator]

So for his third trip, he wanted to walk across Antarctica to fulfill the goal that his hero, Shaktin was not able to achieve. But he wanted to do it alone.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, I'd say the best thing is the day is mine. Success or failure of this journey is completely up to me. At the moment I'm up at 7:30.

[Narrator]

On the trail at 9am Each day was similar. I mean, Henry would get up early in the morning, pack up his sled. This usually took about an hour. His harness would be connected to the sled and he would begin to haul it. Not unlike a mule.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, I've been skiing for 90 minutes and then taking a five minute break and then off again.

[Narrator]

And he would walk with his skis burning as much as 8,000 calories in a day.

[Henry Worsley]

I've been craving food. Fish, pie, brown bread, double cream, steak and chips, small chips, smoked salmon, baked potato, eggs, rice pudding, dairy, milk chocolate, tomatoes, bananas, apples.

[Narrator]

He would do this herculean task and challenge Day after day, there was something almost primal about it.

[Henry Worsley]

On pizza, just can't wait.

[Narrator]

His singular purpose became to just make his mileage. He had to achieve so many miles a day if he was to ultimately accomplish his goal.

[Henry Worsley]

9.4 nautical miles. Today a lot of it was hard. Evening everybody. So in some o' clock day, the 9.7 nautical miles or hard won, I traveled a bit longer today, just over 11 nautical miles. At this early stage, everybody day 21, 10.3 nautical miles was a disappointment. But 14 nautical miles is all I can do at the moment. In a 12 hour day he would.

[Narrator]

Trek for 14, 15, sometimes 16 hours across an alien landscape that's covered with a sheet of ice, its pocked with crevasses.

[Henry Worsley]

A white house with just enough visibility to see the horizon greeted me this morning. It was a very tough day with many pauses or intake of breath. Leaning forward on my ski sticks, head dropped, summoning everything. At 7pm I checked my mileage covered during the day and it was 11. At 8pm I checked again with 12 decimal 9. Not enough. So I continued until the GPS displayed 13 nautical miles. Today was a test. Perhaps tomorrow will be another good night.

[Narrator]

And at the end of the day when he was burrowed in his sleeping bag, he would record a dispatch an audio diary updating his growing number of listeners, including many students. Henry always called these students young explorers, right?

[Henry Worsley]

A few young explorer questions, good questions. Tonight Stuart Wilson wanted to know if I had the opportunity to ask Shackleton one question, what would it be? I think my question would be what have you learned about leadership? What kept drawing him to the Antarctic? Did he regret being away from his wife Emily and three children for so long?

[Joanna Worsley]

I talked to him a lot while he was out there on a satellite phone. He found it much harder than other expeditions that breaking ice is very hard work. And at least if you're with other people you can take turns to be at the front, whereas if you're the lead skier for a thousand miles, it's a great deal harder. You've found it cripplingly hard.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, good evening everybody. Location 90 degrees south when he got.

[Narrator]

To the South Pole, there's a research station there. But if he was to fulfill his ambition of doing this trip alone and unsupported, he couldn't drop off supplies, he couldn't get a hotmail, and the only thing he really allowed himself was he thought he'd give himself at least a day of rest in his tent.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, not much to report today as I spent most of it Asleep and I detected my body heading for hibernation. If all it best to get back into the routine and head off.

[Narrator]

He felt the constant strain of making his mileage so that he could reach the end point of the expedition before the end of the month of January. Because in February begins the winter season in Antarctica, where the temperature drops even further. It can reach -100 degrees Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit. Even ale shuts down then, and at that point there would be no exit.

[Henry Worsley]

I left at about 8pm this evening and only covered five miles.

[Narrator]

And he hoped that the northern journey, this last phase of his expedition, would be a little bit easier. At least he hoped in the first phase that after he reached something called the Titan Dome, which is this massive ice formation 10,000ft high, he would at least begin to descend and have the help of gravity pushing him to the finish.

[Henry Worsley]

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, serve your turn long after they are gone. And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, hold on. Many of you will of course, recognize those lines by Rudyard Kipling. I'm getting more feeble and more empty, but I still seem to have the will which says to my heart and nerves and sinews, hold on.

[Joanna Worsley]

I listened to his blogs every day and they were pretty good. They were pretty upbeat, but I was just very concerned. It was a thousand miles on his own. He was older. He was 55 when he set out instead of 40.

[Narrator]

She could hear him growing more tired and she wondered what she should do.

[Joanna Worsley]

He worried constantly, constantly that he was being delayed. I was in a terrible position as to whether to say, henry, stop. Just listen for a minute. You are not going to make the end. You cannot make the end or say you'll do it, darling. It's a really difficult one. I chose to say, I'm sure you'll be fine.

[Henry Worsley]

Well, I had a very interrupted night's sleep last night. Bad stomach, probably the weakest I've felt in the entire expedition.

[Narrator]

By now, his entire body was in agony. His back throbbed, all his muscles ached. His feet were bruised, his toes were discolored. He was suffering from the early signs of frostbite, especially in his thumb, which he struggled to move. He had lost more than 40 pounds. He was so tired that one day during a snack break, he fell asleep while sitting on his sled in the middle of a whiteout.

[Henry Worsley]

I decided to stop and rest up. Half risky. Well, I need the miles, but you have to listen to your Body Sometimes I've slept all day and feel much better. So the plan now is to move off tonight, walk through until tomorrow and bag 18 miles or so. Time to get back on the trail.

[Narrator]

He kept a diary, a personal diary. This one he didn't broadcast. One evening he wrote, legs are stick thin, thin and arms puny.

[Henry Worsley]

Andy, I'm Andrew and Henry, just to let you know, I'm putting in some extra hours at the moment so my briefs will come but they may be much shorter. It's now 9 o' clock and I'm being off another couple of hours.

[Joanna Worsley]

It was just really not right that there was something really not right about it. Then his voice, his despair, he cried quite a lot. He never cried.

[Narrator]

He kept thinking he would reach the top of the Titan dome and begin to descend. He just couldn't seem to reach the top. And so each day he would push longer and longer.

[Henry Worsley]

KTLS Day 66, 17 January 16 hours. Well, good evening everybody, It's a very late broadcast. It's now 1 o' clock in the morning. In order to keep track I must now do 16 nautical miles per day. This makes for a very long 16 hour day. If that's what I have to do to do it, I will. As of today the this Evening I got 142 nautical miles to the finish line.

[Narrator]

The next day, day 67. His journal entry is short and his writing is increasingly difficult to read. He wrote mixed bag, white out, soft snow. Painful. While afraid of stomach, worried about time and distance. On day 68 he didn't record a message for his listeners.

[Henry Worsley]

It's all become quite an ordeal at the moment. So I'm not doing any young explorers, no narrative. Could you just explain that time has been caught up? Thanks Andy.

[Narrator]

The next day on day 69 he scribbled in his diary. Awful. Had to stop after five hours totally exhausted, feeling terrible, very deplorable. Rested rest of day and into following morning. Just want it all to end in a good way.

[Joanna Worsley]

He was unable to move really at that stage and he had lost control of his bowels and his bladder. We had been on the phone non stop for two days, me very hysterical, begging him to pull out and him just asking me to be patient.

[Narrator]

Henry throughout his life, especially whenever he was in danger and he was in more danger now than he'd ever been in his life, he would always ask himself what would Shax do? What would Shackleton do? And he had always sought by endurance. We conquer was not the message of Shackleton that You can always prevail through force of mind. But the thing that set Shackleton apart from so many other explorers who went to their polar grave is that he acknowledged his human limitations and the limitations of his men. And he turned back. That was the thing about Shackleton. Henry was 900 miles into his thousand mile journey when he rang ale and called for the most expensive taxi ride in the world. Then he composed a final public message.

[Henry Worsley]

Greetings, Everybody. It's Friday 22nd January 2070, and my hero, Ernest Haggleson, took 95 miles. He said he'd shot his bolt. Well, today I have to inform you from sadness that I too have shot my bolt. My journey is at an end. I have run out of time. Physical endurance and a simple cheering ability and slide one ski in front of the other. I spent 70 days all alone in a place I love. I'll lick my wounds. They will heal over time and I will come to terms with disappointment. Signing off. Turn again all day later.

[Narrator]

Elie arrived later that day and Henry walked to the plane on his own volition. He was flown to Western Antarctica, the Elie base camp, and there he called Joanna.

[Joanna Worsley]

It was such a relief for me, I can't tell you. He was with doctors and he said to me, I'm fine. I'm going to stay here for a few days and just build up my strength. I'm having a cup of tea and a biscuit and I'm going to be fine.

[Narrator]

But his condition continued to deteriorate and he was flown overnight to a hospital in southern Chile, where they discovered he had peritonitis, which is an infection in the abdomen lining. When Joanna Hurdi had been taken to a hospital, she hurried to get on a plane. Shortly after she landed in Chile, she received an update that Henry's liver had failed. Shortly after that, she heard that his kidney had failed. And before she could get to the hospital, she learned that Henry had died. The news of Henry's death was greeted in England with an outpouring of emotion and he was healed as an inspiration and as a hero, a polar hero, much like the heroes that he had revered growing up. Hundreds of people went to Henry's funeral, including the top military brass as well as Prince William. In December 2017, nearly two years after Henry died, Joanna, Max and Alicia set off for the island of South Georgia, which was where Shackleton was buried and which Henry himself had visited many years ago. Joanna wore the same coat that Henry had worn on his last expedition and they carried with them Henry's ashes it.

[Joanna Worsley]

Was was a very special day. It's an extraordinary little bay. It has the most magical little Norwegian church. And we had a wonderful service there and we all poured whiskey onto Shackleton's grave.

[Narrator]

They then began to climb up an icy mountain slope and where the earth was flat, they knelt down and buried Henry's ashes.

[David Remnick]

Staff writer David Grann and we heard from Joanna Worsley. Joanna and Henry Worsley's son Max told her that he wanted one day to follow in his father's footsteps and go on an expedition to the Antarctic.

[Joanna Worsley]

I knew when Henry died that it would only be a matter of time before Max said he wanted to do one. And when he told me yes, I can't say my heart didn't sink slightly. But Henry's death has not made me lose that really strong feeling of people must fulfil dreams.

[David Remnick]

Thanks for joining us this week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And next time we'll take a look at the state of diplomacy with North Korea after the seeming calm of the Olympics. I hope you'll join us. And before we go, I want to say thank you and farewell to the Radio Hour's Michael Rayfield, a consummate sound guy with superhuman ears and a unique sense of humor. I'm gonna miss him.

[Joanna Worsley]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. The the New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.