Wendy Searle plots the route of her forthcoming solo Antarctica challenge


Left: Travellers tackle frozen Finsevann lake


In the wilds of western Norway, in a remote village half-buried in snow, dusk is decorating the crisp, white landscape with an otherworldly wash of blue. From the frozen Finsevann lake and the Hardangerjøkulen glacier beyond, to the spindrifts and snow banks piling up outside my hotel, Finse 1222, the world suddenly offers a new colour spectrum: lapis, cerulean, sapphire. This is the ‘blue hour’, the twilight period when the sun’s blue wavelengths dominate all others, and it’s a spectacular phenomenon most easily witnessed in frozen climes. For those of us newly arrived at this outpost from temperate UK latitudes, the transfiguration of the landscape has a quieting effect. We know that in just a few days, at the end of a course involving survival skills and ski touring, we’ll be pitching tents out in that subzero blue. A voice at my shoulder draws my attention from the hotel


window back into the cosy library. It reminds me I’m not going to be alone in this undertaking. Pouring Champagne into flutes and encouraging our group to take seats around the roaring fireplace is Louis Rudd, a record-breaking polar explorer and the newly appointed director of expeditions at Shackleton — the adventure-grade clothing company founded in the great explorer’s name and endorsed by his granddaughter, Alexandra Shackleton. At Louis’ side is Wendy Searle, our expedition manager,


the seventh woman in history to ski solo and unsupported from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole. Together, they curated and helped to launch Shackleton Challenges in 2022, a programme of skills training and seriously intrepid


expeditions that aims to equip novices and adventurers alike to survive in one of the most extreme places on the planet: Antarctica. “We chose Finse for our Level One Polar Skills Challenge


because it’s the spiritual heart of the exploration community,” Louis tells us. “To think that Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen trained here, maybe even planning their legendary expeditions in this very room, sends shivers down my spine.” Winter conditions in Finse are said to be as close as you can get to Antarctica without crossing the Southern Ocean. Since Finse 1222’s founding in 1909, it’s attracted a stream of illustrious adventurers, photos of whom decorate the foyer of this newly updated, Scandi-chic property. Our party is interrupted by the arrival of one of the


world’s most famous living polar explorers, Børge Ousland, the first person to cross Antarctica solo. The tall, quietly spoken Norwegian is on a skiing trip with his family. “Finse is a home-from-home for me; I’ve been coming here since I was a boy. In the summer, I fish for trout and dive with my little daughter off the jetty,” he says, hinting at the landscape now encased beneath winter’s heavy snows. Børge and Louis share their latest exploits. Louis has


recently returned from a 400-mile expedition in Antarctica that also included climbing the 16,050ft-high Mount Vinson and running the Antarctic Ice Marathon. Børge, meanwhile, is currently attempting to traverse the world’s 20 largest glaciers and has completed nine so far. They share a strange vocabulary forged by lives spent seeking the world’s


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