For everybody else

I was thinking long and hard about how this is not a typical adventure that falls in line with the other stories that we have read so far in this class.  To me, the greatest difference is the extreme access to technology, support, and supplies that this team was lucky enough to have.  Though it may have been slow coming, a rescue was technically possible if Liv or Ann were injured to the point of needing to abandon the mission.  It would have been obscenely expensive, no doubt, but money aside feasible.  I cannot help but to categorize this differently than Herzog's, or Blum's, or Krakauer's adventures.  The presence of a feasible safety net diminishes the impact of Liv and Ann's accomplishment to some extent.  However, this is from the selfish adventurer's perspective.

Though I always take sappy things like this with a grain of salt (I'm a biology student... There's no such thing as altruism), this journey was executed for everyone else who was involved in supporting the expedition.  Liv and Ann always refer back to all of the people who are so vital to the expedition from the millions of school children across the globe to the corporate sponsors sitting behind their desks.  Their access to technology allows them to communicate their progress and in turn make their adventure something for everyone else to experience.  Their satellite phone and distress beacon allows them to not only be connected to everyone else, but gives every else  to be trekking across Antarctica.