A hundred years ago, when Robert Falcon Scott set out for Antarctica on his Terra Nova expedition, his two primary goals were scientific discovery and reaching the geographic South Pole. Arguably, though, Scott was really chasing what contemporary observers call a sufferfest. He set himself up for trouble: Scott brought Manchurian and Siberian ponies that quickly fell through the snow and ice; he planned, in part, for his crew to “man-haul,” meaning that the men would pull sleds full of gear, instead of relying on dogs. Even when Scott’s men faltered, they continued collecting specimens, including rocks. The expedition ended terribly; everybody who made the push to the pole died. Miserable, starving and frostbitten, one of Scott’s last four men killed himself by walking into a blizzard without even bothering to put on his boots.
一百年前，罗伯特·法尔康·司各特(Robert Falcon Scott)开始特拉诺瓦之旅，启程前往南极洲的时候，目标有两个：一是科学发现，二是达到地理意义上的南极点。然而我们可以说，司各特真的在追寻当代观察家所谓的“苦难迷恋”。他总是自找苦吃：出行时带了满族小马和西伯利亚小马，没多久它们就堕入了冰雪；安排了“人拉雪橇”，也就是让同行者全力拉动雪橇，而不是依赖于狗。甚至当司各特的随从人员挣扎前行时，依然要收集各种标本，包括岩石。这场探险的结果非常惨烈，这群拼命前往南极的人全都死了。司各特的最后四个同行者之一，因不堪悲惨、饥饿和冻伤，走进暴风雪自杀，连靴子都没穿。
In the taxonomy of travelers, the word “explorer” suggests a morally superior pioneer, a man or woman who braves the battle against nature to discover new terrain, expanding our species’ understanding of the world. “Adventurer,” by contrast, implies a self-indulgent adrenaline junkie, who scares loved ones by courting puerile risk. The former, obviously, is the far better title, but it’s tough to claim these days. The world is Google-mapped. Reaching the actual virgin territory of space or the deep ocean requires resources that few possess. In short, the noble fig leaf of terra incognita has fallen away and laid bare the peripatetic, outsize bravado of Scott’s kindred spirits. The resulting itineraries are pretty strange. We now have guys like Felix Baumgartner sky-diving from a balloon-borne capsule at 128,100 feet.
在旅行者的分类学中，“探索者”一词意味着道德高尚的先锋，是某个男人抑或女人，勇敢地与大自然搏斗，发现新的领地，拓展人类对世界的了解。与之相比，“冒险家”一词则暗指一个自我放纵的为肾上腺素驱使的瘾君子，总在追求幼稚的惊险，让亲人担惊受怕。显然，前者是个明显褒义的头衔，但近几年来，我们却很难这样区分。全世界都可以使用谷歌地图了。达到太空中真正的处女地，或者潜入深海，所需的资源太多，不是某个个体所能拥有的。简言之，未知领域尊贵的无花果叶已经随风飘逝，更凸显出浪迹天涯的司各特精神是何等的可贵。从那以后，人类的探险路线已经相当不同。现在，我们有了菲利克斯·鲍加特纳(Felix Baumgartner)这样的勇敢者，能在128100英尺的高空，从热气球的小舱里跳下去。
Baumgartner falls squarely — and for more than four minutes, breaking the speed of sound — into the adventurer camp. But then there’s Sarah Marquis, who perhaps should be seen as an explorer like Scott, born in the wrong age. She is 42 and Swiss, and has spent three of the past four years walking about 10,000 miles by herself, from Siberia through the Gobi Desert, China, Laos and Thailand, then taking a cargo boat to Brisbane, Australia, and walking across that continent. Along the way, like Scott, she has starved, she has frozen, she has (wo)man-hauled. She has pushed herself at great physical cost to places she wanted to love but ended up feeling, as Scott wrote of the South Pole in his journal: “Great God! This is an awful place.” Despite planning a ludicrous trip, and dying on it, Scott became beloved and, somewhat improbably, hugely respected. Marquis, meanwhile, can be confounding. “You tell people what you’re doing, and they say, ‘You’re crazy,’ ” Marquis told me. “It’s never: ‘Cool project, Sarah! Go for it.’ ” Perhaps this is because the territory Marquis explores is really internal — the nature of fear, the limits of stamina and self-reliance and the meaning of traveling in nature as a female human animal, alone.
鲍加特纳直接跳了下去，经历了超音速的4分多钟，跳入了冒险家的阵营。然而，我们又有了莎拉·马奎斯(Sarah Marquis)，她或许应该被视作一个司各特那样的探索者，却生不逢时。她42岁，瑞士人，在过去的四年中，用了三年时间，孤身徒步旅行了大约一万英里，从西伯利亚出发，穿越戈壁沙漠、中国、老挝和泰国，然后乘坐货船到了澳大利亚布里斯班，又徒步横跨了澳洲。一路上，她像司各特一样，捱过了饥饿和严寒，也曾经试过人拉雪橇。她强迫自己耗费极大的体力到达了她本想热爱却最终只能略一感受的地方，正如司各特在日记中对南极点的描述：“伟大的上帝啊！这真是个糟糕的地方。”尽管司各特筹划了那场荒谬的旅行并死在途中，但他却因此深受热爱，有时候难以置信地获得了极高的尊崇。同样，马奎斯也令人不解。“我跟人们说起我的所作所为，他们会说，‘你疯了。’”马奎斯告诉我，“从来没人说：‘真是个超酷的计划，莎拉！去做吧！’”也许这是因为马奎斯探索的领域本质上是内在的——她探究的是恐惧的本质、耐力和自我依赖的极限以及一个女性人类个体孤身一人在荒野中旅行的意义。
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