But next week, three foolhardy Britons will line up alongside some of the toughest polar skiers in the world in a race to reach the South Pole.
Double Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell, television presenter Ben Fogle and newcomer, doctor Ed Coats, will set off on January 1 to try and beat five other teams to the winning post.
They will be pitted against hazards such as snow-blindness, blisters, mile-deep crevasses and frostbite as they trudge up to 20 miles a day in temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius.
Pulling 70kg sleds or pulks, they will have to cover the 430 nautical miles on ski and foot, as dogs are forbidden in Antarctica, a place described by those who have been there as a "continent of pain".
At the pole, where the altitude is 9,500 feet but feels 2,000 feet higher, dust hurts the eyes and frozen sinuses cause perpetual headaches.
When equipment fails, frozen fingers make it hard to carry out repairs.
The British trio, with little skiing experience before they started training 18 months ago, will try to avenge the defeat of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who was beaten to the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1911.
Named in the victor's honour, the Amundsen Omega3 South Pole race is expected to last a month and will see each competitor burn up to 10,000 calories a day, losing an average of three stone overall.
To reach the start line, Fogle had to overcome leishmaniasis, a flesh-eating bug which involved a month of debilitating chemotherapy and left him bed-ridden.
He said he had consulted his wife Marina before agreeing to go: "When doctors gave me the all-clear, I asked her permission to join the race.
"She gave it without hesitation saying she knew that the thought of going to the pole had got me through the treatment."
Although the temperature at the British Antarctic Station has risen three degrees in the last 50 years and the glaciers are melting, the central plateau remains as cold as ever.
Summer temperatures of 20-30C are reduced by another 20C by the windchill factor, while winds of 200mph have been recorded.
Cracknell, 36, Fogle, 35, and Coats, 28, are being sponsored by QinetiQ - a leading international defence and security technology company - and The Daily Telegraph.
Cracknell, the most outwardly competitive and whose wife Beverley is expecting their second child, has defended the race against environmentalists.
"For me, so long as we don't destroy the planet, what we are doing is OK," he said.
"In 2041, if oil exploration is allowed, the Antarctic may change beyond all recognition. Before then, people need to see it in order to understand the place.
"They won't if only explorers go there. Through following this race and seeing how three idiots cope, they will get a much better idea of what it's like."
Fitted with tracking devices, the team's progress will be updated every half an hour on The Daily Telegraph website.
The race organisers claim the task will be 90 per cent psychological as competitors battle the extreme conditions.
Nearly a century ago, Amundsen and his team made it to the pole and back safely; Scott's team famously did not.
Dr Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Henry Bowers, and Scott were found dead in their tent, 11 miles from their depot.
In the first race to the South Pole since then, it is not an adventure undertaken lightly.
Follow exclusive coverage of Team QinetiQ at telegraph.co.uk/southpole
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