Into the Abyss

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Benedict Allen is often referred to as 'a cat who has lost six of his nine lives'. Aged twenty-two, he set off into the Amazon, and, fleeing through the forest after an attack by gold-miners, he was forced to eat his dog to survive; since then he has been shot at, poisoned, and has had to sew up his own wound with a needle and thread from his boot-mending kit. In 2003 he trained a team of hardened 'Icedogs' and headed into the remotest corner of Siberia. Unknown to Allen, the Russian Arctic was about to face the worst winter in living memory; as problems began to pile up, he and his ten faithful dogs found themselves heading alone across tundra and pack ice and on a night of sub-zero temperatures they plummeted off a cliff. As he fell into the abyss, Allen asked himself; Why do explorers put themselves in such dangerous situations? And - once the worst possible situation occurs - how do explorers find the resources to survive? In answering these questions, Allen weaves a series of tales from his own experiences driving a dogsled across the ice-bridge linking Siberia with North America, as well as that of other explorers including Columbus and Cortez, Stanley and Livingston - and their modern counterparts Joe Simpson and Ranulph Fiennes.