PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

“The highest point of the trip was the beauty of Antarctica and the privilege of being ‘alone’ in the most spectacular landscape.”

open water) and after falling several times on the same shoulder, she lived on sodium diclofenac. In the medical bag I had anal- gesics, anti-infection and anti-inflammatory drugs, loperamide and glycerine suppositories for every eventuality of the bowel and cymalon (constipation and cystitis are hazards of polar travel but fortunately we didn’t succumb), dressings, tape and even a basic dental kit.

We worked out our diet carefully and planned on 4,800 calories per person per day at the start when it was warmer and we were fresh. As we climbed from sea level (the South Pole is at 9,500 feet) and it got colder (down to minus 30ºC before windchill), we increased our allowance to 6,000 calories per person per day. A nutritionalist advised us on the foods with the highest energy per gram because we were obsessed with the weight of everything. After all, the polar equation goes something like this: the heavier the weight you have to pull, the slower you go; then the longer it takes, the more food and fuel you need; and so the weight increases.......

We knew from the North that it was important to have food we liked. When you eat the same thing for breakfast, snacks and din- ner for 60 days, it can get very monotonous. Marks and Spencer sponsored our food, and a typical day was porridge or toffee and pecan crunch for breakfast with coffee or hot chocolate with lots of dried milk powder. Coffee can be frowned upon in these condi- tions but some habits are hard to shake! We skied for about 10 hours each day, in marches of one hour with breaks for 5-10 min- utes to snack and take on more calories. We weighed and mea- sured our snacks carefully before we left the UK. Each snack bag contained chocolate, nuts, shortbread, and a sliced up Mars bar (another sponsor). Towards the end, when we were very tired, I struggled not eat my entire chocolate ration for the day at the end of the first hour ‘trudging’.

We each carried two one-litre bottles of water with little cosies which we wrapped in our sleeping bags to stop them freezing. Two litres per person doesn’t sound much fluid for the amount of work we were doing, but there are two important issues here. Firstly, melting snow bricks for our water took about 6 hours every day which was a large proportion of our day. Antarctica is a very real desert, there is very little precipitiation, so the snow does not yield much water. More importantly, nobody became dehydrated (the reason why being another unsolved polar mystery) and often we didn’t finish our daily allowance.

At the end of the day we ate soup with butter and cheese and then a pasta or rice-based dehydrated hot meal with more butter and cheese. As I write this, it sounds very dull, but it’s difficult to emphasise how much you crave for calories. Our diet was sup- plemented with vitamin C and multivitamins and, without any alcohol either, some might argue that it was more balanced than my normal diet. Prince Charles was our Patron and he gave us Highgrove fudge and biscuits as a special treat for Christmas Day.

The injuries we had to contend with were varied but thankfully not life-threatening. They included blisters (multiple, some nasti- er than others), but we expected these after our experiences in the North and we were well prepared. We wore vapour barrier lin- ers to stop our sock system getting wet and freezing, unfortu- nately this caused the skin to get quite soft.

Burns are also a common polar problem – with five of us squashed into a tent with water boiling on three cookers balanced on the uneven surface of the snow. Ann received a large burn on the top of her foot which would have held some people up. But we had hydrocolloid burns dressings, and we cut up some camping mat like a huge corn plaster to alleviate the pressure from her boot. Caroline lost half a tooth on some frozen chocolate at the start which we filled with cavit. I didn’t expect it to last, but maybe it was my threat of superglue or extraction with a pair of pliers that kept it in. We all suffered with aches and pains, despite the fact we had shortened our ski poles to alleviate the work for our shoul- ders and upper traps. A rub at the end of the day in my “Shoulder Clinic” was much appreciated. I also got bad neural pain in my right arm and, however I adjusted my harness or skiing technique, it got worse and worse. I skied with one pole for three weeks and over 200 miles – physio, heal thyself…..

Zoë Hudson is a senior lecturer in physiotherapy at the University of East London. She and her team were the first women to get to both poles and their achievement is recognised in the Guinness Book of Records. To find out more about Zoë’s expedition read ‘South Pole 2000’ by Caroline Hamilton which is published by Virgin Books, price £16.99, ISBN 1-85227-828-5

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