Focus: Great Scott! Whatever has happened to our spirit of adventure?

'Great God! This is an awful place..." Captain Robert Falcon Scott's verdict on the South Pole is shot through with disappointment and a sense of utter desolation at the frozen tip of the Earth. It was 17 January 1912; Scott had lost the race to the pole and feared, correctly, that he and his four companions would not survive the return march. How different that anguished diary entry sounds to the messages that bounced around the world by satellite from Antarctica last week as first a London finance director and then a young Scout leader rewrote the polar record book.

Youthful faces beamed out of our television screens from Antarctica, telling us excitedly that the temperature was minus 30C, while champagne corks popped in the homes of proud mothers and fathers in East Sussex and Nottinghamshire. For a nation reared on tales of historic failure – of which Scott is the apotheosis – it was all rather unexpected.

"Absolutely fantastic," enthused 23-year-old Andrew Cooney, live from the Pole on Friday morning. "It's just the fantastic experience of being here ... totally elated." Not quite the same tone as Scott of the Antarctic. But then Cooney's arrival had been cheered in by American construction workers who were expanding the scientific base at the pole, whereas Scott was confronted with the numbing reality that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him in the race to plant the first flag.

The South Pole has become a commercial circus in much the stamp of Everest. And while the stamina and fortitude of the polar trekkers and Everest-baggers – more than 50 summiteers in a single day last spring – is not in doubt, is it really an adventure in any meaningful sense of the word? Hauling a sledge over snow and ice for weeks on end is a tough game but today there is the comfort of knowing your guide can call up an air taxi if something goes wrong. Satellite communications have radically lessened the risk factor in polar journeys. There is no need to resolve, as Scott did, "to fight it out to the last biscuit".

A week ago Tom Avery, 27, who works for a ski company, became the youngest Briton to walk to the South Pole. Five days later along came Andrew Cooney from Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire, to take the world title – the youngest man ever to reach the South Pole on foot. Both were in parties with professional guides. Cooney's 730-mile hike from the Patriot Hills airstrip facing the Weddell Sea coast took 53 days.

Meanwhile, two men from Northern Ireland were attempting to break some kind of record by "sledging" on specially designed ski-buggies towed by kites; a British father and son are still hoping to become the first insulin-dependent diabetics to reach the pole on foot; and a polar guide is testing a fat-tyre titanium bicycle for a solo ride to you know where.

Adventure and physical endeavour in extreme environments are likely to take up a good deal of air time and many column inches in a year which sees the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest. Many books and documentaries are planned, along with celebrations in London and Kathmandu and commemorative expeditions up the mountain itself. Polar aficionados, too, are in the midst of anniversaries. Tom Avery and his companions were the "British Centenary Expedition", made in recognition of Scott's first unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole in 1902. Five years later Ernest Shackleton got to within 97 miles of it, then in 1910 Scott began his fateful race with Amundsen.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about modern polar hikes is how much money those taking part in them have raised for good causes. Avery and Woodhead were part of a group aiming to raise £500,000 for Aids charities and the Prince's Trust while Cooney hopes to collect £10,000 for Oesophageal Cancer Research and Patient Support. His father contracted the disease five years ago.

Technology has enabled us to tread in the footsteps of polar and mountaineering heroes without taking on as much risk. Adventure is, or was, defined as a hazardous undertaking in which the outcome is uncertain. But today the thermostat of tolerable hazard has been turned down and Westerners expect to be nannied.

Last autumn in Nepal I witnessed two young, highly intelligent trekkers express shock and anger that their Sherpa leader was not carrying a satellite phone to call for a helicopter. One of them was suffering from altitude sickness and the concern was understandable, if ironic. The pair had spent several thousand pounds to visit Everest Base Camp, yet they would not countenance the uncertainties that the 1953 pioneers took as given in mountaineering. Edmund Hillary realised that the only way to attempt Everest was "to modify the old standards of safety and justifiable risk". That was the approach of a real adventurer and in Tenzing Norgay he had a partner not only adventurous but with a desire for fame – a factor that also drove Scott.

The scary moments still happen, in quiet places beyond the range of mobile phones. Last summer in gathering darkness a friend and I were forced to retreat from near the top of a mountain called Lahit Kaya in central Turkey. We had not seen a soul for five days and the prospect of rescue was remote. Abseiling over cliffs and down chimneys choked with snow and loose rock was a tense business. When we reached the base of the mountain around midnight, the relief was explosive. It had been a bit of an adventure.

Thankfully, for those who think a brush with mortality is good for the soul, such capers are going on out of the limelight all the time: on rock and ice from Greenland to Patagonia; on white water torrents; in the skies; with attempts to parapente (a cross between a hang glider and a parachute) over the Himalaya; and in the deepest caves. Some 1,500 summits of more than 6,000 metres high remain unclimbed in the Himalaya. The snag is that Joe Public has not heard of them and so it is virtually impossible to raise sponsorship.

Last year, two English climbers, Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden, made a first ascent of the north face of Siguniang (6,250m). Fellow climbers salute them, but how many people have the faintest idea where Siguniang is? (Answer: the Qionglai range, Sichuan, China.)

To attract national media publicity requires the celebrity draw of Everest or either pole and preferably an attention grabbing gimmick of the youngest/oldest or "last great challenge" sort. Last week at the London Boat Show, "Bear" (his real name is Rupert) Grylls displayed the inflatable boat in which he and four crewmates intend to cross from Nova Scotia to Cape Wrath, Scotland, via the Arctic Circle. It is being sold as "the last great ocean adventure". Mr Grylls, 28, became the youngest Englishman to climb Everest in 1998. He includes in his achievements rowing 22 miles down the Thames naked in a tub. Now there's a thought for Mr Grylls: how about walking to the pole naked?

Polar exploration now ...

Air taxi to the Antarctic.

Kite or sail attached to body harness.

Lightweight sled moulded from polyethylene.

Polartech jacket, Neoprene mask, polypropylene gloves.

Digital video camera, minidisc recorder.

Vacuum-packed dried food.

Global positioning system.

Satellite tracking beacon linked to interactive internet map.

... and then

Ship through treacherous ice.

Ponies or huskies (until shot).

Heavy wooden sledges.

Oilskins, woolly jumpers, long- johns, furs.

Box camera, tripod,

photographic plates.

Salted meat (and husky).

Compass and sextant.

Diary (left in snow after death).