Shackleton descendants start trek

The team hopes to complete Shackleton's trek to the pole

Three descendants of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team have set off in their attempt to complete the explorer's failed Antarctic expedition.

Lt Col Henry Worsley, 46, from Hereford, Will Gow, 35, from Kent, and Henry Adams, 33, from Suffolk, started the 900-mile, 80-day trek on Thursday.

They had reached the hut built by Shackleton's men at Cape Royds on the remote Ross Island earlier in the day.

Three others will join them 97 miles (156km) from the South Pole.

The team led by Lt Col Worsley, a descendant of Frank Worsley, Shackleton's skipper, includes Mr Gow, who is related to Shackleton by marriage and Mr Adams, a great-grandson of Jameson Boyd-Adams, Shackleton's number two on the unsuccessful expedition

Bad weather

In a message from Ross Island, Lt Col Worsley said: "It is hard to describe the feeling of finally getting here."

The team will take the same route as the 1908-09 Nimrod expedition.

Temperatures are expected to dip to -35C and winds will hit 50mph (80km/h) during the trip.

Bad weather stopped them starting their trek exactly 100 years after their predecessors, on 29 October.

Shackleton was forced to turn back on 9 January 1909 in the face of howling icy blizzards and dwindling rations.

Andrew Ledger, 23, from Derbyshire, Tim Fright, 24, from West Sussex and David Cornell, 38, from Hampshire, will join the trio 97 miles (156km) from the South Pole.

The expedition is being used to launch a £10m Shackleton Foundation, which will fund projects that embody the adventurer's spirit and hunger for "calculated risk".