South Pole trek for Murray relative, but mother’s horrified
ANDY MURRAY’S brotherin-law is setting out to become the youngest person to reach the South Pole solo, despite his mother being “horrified” at the prospect.
Lieutenant Scott Sears, of the First Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles, hopes to complete the 702-mile trek to the bottom of the world on Christmas Day to raise money for the Gurkha Welfare Trust.
Lt Sears, whose older sister Kim married Murray, the two-time Wimbledon champion, in 2015, is attempting to become the youngest person to walk to the South Pole unassisted and unsupported and, if successful, at 27 he will beat the record by two years.
But he revealed that not everyone is thrilled about his escapades.
“When I told my mother, she was horrified. But after that initial shock she was obviously very supportive,” he said.
“She is eternally suffering because of me. I thought I had managed to annoy her the most I possibly could when I joined the infantry and then I chuck this on her.” Lt Sears will fly to Chile on Wednesday, before heading to Hercules Inlet on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea a few days later. He said he will be “immensely proud” when two years of planning finally come to fruition.
Braving temperatures ranging between zero and minus 140F (minus 60C), as well as 100mph winds, he will walk and ski over crevasse fields, glaciers and the Antarctic plateau. He is hoping to raise more than £25,000 for the Gurkha Welfare Trust, which will be used to rebuild Nepalese schools destroyed by the earthquake in 2015.