A tree surgeon based in Watford is taking part in a unique mission to help collect vital and ground-breaking environmental date in the Arctic.

Stuart Rance, 23, an employee at Glendale in Hilfield Lane, from Tring, is taking part in a project founded by one of the worlds most experienced and respected explorers, Jim McNeill, called Ice Warrior - The Quest for the Inaccessible Pole.

Mr McNeill is training ordinary people from all of walks of life to take on an 800 miles in 80 days expedition across one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet and be involved in vital scientific discovery.

Defined as the furthest point from land on the Arctic Ocean - and therefore its centre - the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility remains the last truly significant place in the polar regions yet to be reached by mankind and is more than 200 miles further than the geographic North Pole.

Mr Rance has always wanted to go to the Arctic and Antarctic and stumbled across Ice Warrior while looking for a new challenge.

He said: "I stumbled across Jim McNeal who is a big polar explorer and I noticed he had a site asking for ordinary people to sign up who wish to do a trial about going to the Arctic. I thought ‘doubt anything will come from it but I’ll sign up.

"Next thing I know I had Jim on the phone saying can I come on a selection course the following weekend.

"It was the last selection course as they have been running them all through year, so it was fate."

Mr Rance went on the selection course in Dartmoor and was told with nine other people and just their bags and water bottles to go to specific coordinates.

He said: "It was raining and a bit miserable but we cracked on. We didn’t stop walking until 4am so it was a lot of walking.

"We then got to the last checkpoint where they gave us a small tarp for all 10 of us to sleep under.

"All we had were the clothes we were in, our water bottles and bags.

"We slept for about 45 minutes until we had to get up and get going again. By this point we were a little hungry and tired - they didn’t let us eat."

The group walked for 12 hours the next day and once they got to the checkpoint they were allowed food and beds.

Mr Rance added: "We found out that what the instructors were doing was seeing what people’s characters were like under stress.

"I then had my interview and I go in. Out of around 500 applicant 28 of us got through.

"I’m really looking forward to the expedition. It’s amazing knowing I’m going somewhere where there have been many good and bad stories that have happened.

"I hope this will be the start of many challenges, depending if I come back with all my fingers and toes."

The Ice Warrior project will run from February to May 2016.