Following the example set by James Cracknell and Ben Fogle in the recent BBC2 TV series ‘On Thin Ice’, Mark Starling, Safety, Health & Environmental Manager, Kier Partnership Homes is starting on an adventure to the magnetic North Pole in support of the COINS Foundation.

The expedition is unique in being the first British team to attempt the pole completely unsupported. The
team of twelve will leave Resolute Bay and begin theirjourney to the top of the world next spring. They will cover 350 nautical miles, a punishing regime averaging fifteen miles per day across the ice, pulling all their own supplies in pulks (sledges) behind them. More than twenty five days and nights will be spent on the ice in sub zero temperatures often falling as low as - 40°C.

Each day the team will need an intake of more than 48,000 calories and 80 litres of water, which they will melt each day from the snow to keep them hydrated.Arctic shock can affect people during acclimatisation, and thereafter all will have to learn to cope with the dangers of snow blindness, frostbite, crevasses, and polar bears.

Mark’s place has been sponsored by COINS and the Kier Group have given Mark five weeks leave of absence to train for and complete the expedition. This is an exciting union between COINS and Kier Group, with an objective to raise minimally £100,000 that will go directly to COINS Foundation projects.

Kier Group is a leading construction, development and service group specialising in building and civil engineering, support services, private house building, property development and the Private Finance Initiative.

If you would like to sponsor Mark in this epic adventure,you can at www.justgiving.com/markstarlingnorthpole.The monies will help build one hundred homes in Africa that in turn will provide shelter and a place to live for as many as six hundred people within a community.

Mark's Blog