Google Earth is not a photograph, it's a 3d model with some photographs used as texture. You will also notice that Google Earth shows no clouds anywhere, and that is clearly not reality.
Most people when considering circumnavigation want to go east-West, but over the pole has been done.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transglobe_Expedition
Yes I know about overlaying on maps. Its done all the time in map making. Google earth has to do the same thing other wise its all snow and clouds. That is perfecting logical.
But the Arctic ocean is never free from ice like Greenland and Antarctica yet they portray it as such which in itself is very odd.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton trip needs more looking into.
I just looked at the route and something stuck me right away that is unusual.
They left Capetown South Africa on Dec 1979 and got to the south pole exactly one year latter Dec 17, 1980.
They were in Antarctica between January 1979 and April 1981, they traveled across the Antarctic via the South Pole on skidoo, making the fastest crossing of the continent.
Here is my issue. They had to spend a winter on Antarctic. It took them 12 months leaving in the middle of the summer and then one year later arriving at the south pole.
Then they got to Auckland in March 1981. Three months to get out almost the same distance as it was getting in.
12 months getting in and 3 months getting out while spending a winter on the Ice.
Most research buildings are on the coast with USA claiming they got one at the pole itself,
Amundsen–Scott Station.
We know from the claimed dates that the party didn't winter there.
Where did they spend it then?
You would have had to have a building with energy other wise you would die.
They claimed they only used a plane for support flying beside them but how can a plane fly in those temperature? We are told airplanes don't fly over Antarctica because its to cold and the fuel would freeze.
You can't just park a plane on the ice in those temperatures and then fire it back up a season later and fly away.
The expansion of the frozen liquids would rupture lines and tanks of liquid.
So are they claiming they used a skidoo and traveled for 15 months right through a Antarctica winter?
Wiki claims the coldest temperature recorded in Antarctica was -89.6°C at Vostok station in 1983. The average winter temperature at the South Pole is about -49°C. Your home freezer is only about -15°C. The wind chill factor means that it can feel much colder.
As i mentioned this claim needs to be look into much deeper then this.