IMAGES: TOM WARY. WORDS: AMELIA DUGGAN
NORDICS
most extreme places: “remote base camps”; “logistics companies”; “expedition gear”; “polar topography”. The group listen intently, mouths slightly agape. Wendy shows her cross-country skis to Børge. They’re
the pair she’ll take to the South Pole in December when attempting to break the women’s speed record. They’re steel-edged, produced by Åsnes and have Børge’s face printed across the front, as part of a collaboration. He inscribes them with a Sharpie: ‘Travel light, think ahead and leave your fears behind’. “I think you can do it,” he says, handing them back with an encouraging nod.
Fortitudine vincimus Out on the frozen Finsevann lake, a blizzard has set in. Winds reaching 45mph howl around our convoy of ski- tourers, each kitted out in polar-grade jackets and pulling a plastic pulk (a low-slung Nordic sled) that’s carrying our camping equipment for the night ahead. Visibility is very low; with the horizon obscured, depth and distance evaporate. My world becomes small and somehow serene. I observe my breath and the varied textures of the icy terrain just visible at my feet. In the snow fields of Antarctica, sastrugi (wave-like drifts of snow carved by wind and erosion) can grow to a metre high or more. Here, they amount to undulating ripples — still enough to regularly trip me up. I concentrate on Louis’ outline ahead, placing my skis in his tracks and trying to match his pace. “It’s a very immersive, simple existence — it’s addictive,”
Wendy had told me during our training, describing her 42-day crossing of Antarctica, which she completed in January 2020. “The noise and politics of normal life fades away.” Holed up in the library, we’d covered the basics of navigation as well as avalanche training and rescue, and how to set up polar tents and cook on a primer stove. We also made a list of essential and inessential kit. “It’s all about weight,” said Wendy. “When packing for a polar trip, we’re looking at every gram. Cut the labels off your clothing, snip the tabs off zippers and saw the handle off your toothbrush. I cut off my long hair to save 30g on a comb!” Louis and Wendy were keen to talk about the rigours of
a fitness and nutrition regime, as well as the sponsorship needed to financially support a major polar expedition and the mental hardship involved in ‘soloing’. “They say that if you’re crossing Antarctica alone, the closest human might be on the International Space Station,” said Wendy. “Trusting my own judgement was the hardest thing and it took time. But I learnt I had reserves of endurance I never knew were there.” Now, her job with Shackleton Challenges is all about showing people the route to completing a similarly life-changing polar expedition. “If I can do it — a normal mother of four with a big dream, who couldn’t even ski when she started training — anyone can.” Wendy’s words ring in my ears as our group reach the sheltered plateau on which Louis wants us to camp.
The temperature is a biting -5C as we execute our set-up plan, pegging the tent in line with the howling wind, shovelling snow around the base for insulation and digging a trench beneath the canvas porch for cooking and urination. Once inside, we fire up the stove, heating snow to pour into our freeze-dried rations for dinner. I wolf down my hot salmon and broccoli risotto, followed by a mug of hot chocolate. Then it’s a quick scamper through the blizzard to the other tent, for a nightcap and the sharing of stories. Wendy shows us a tattoo on her arm, reading:
‘Fortitudine vincimus’. It’s the Shackleton family’s motto, meaning ‘By endurance we conquer’. Louis reveals he has the same words inked on him. The hardy spirit and dogged leadership of Sir Ernest Shackleton, whose ill-fated ship Endurance was finally discovered by archaeologists at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in March 2022, is something explorers aspire to. “There’s a famous saying by explorer Raymond Priestley, born out of the golden age of polar exploration,” says Louis. “‘For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.’ I think that says it all.” Back in my own tent, shared with Wendy, cocooned in a
duck-feather sleeping bag, I listen to the wind rage outside and try to stifle my fear. I think of the monuments to brave explorers dotted around the Finse 1222 hotel: the plinth memorialising Scott, buried in snow in the front courtyard; and the replica, down on the lakeshore, of Amundsen’s wooden Framheim hut, in which he and his men had overwintered on the Ross Ice Shelf before his successful quest for the South Pole. In the darkness, I ask Wendy what drives her to keep
exploring one of the world’s most inhospitable places. “There’s a magic that happens in the gap between your comfort zone and your ambition,” she says, quietly. “And I’m never alone out there. I always feel Antarctica is with me.”
HOW TO DO IT Shackleton Challenges vary in length and difficulty, with destinations including Norway, Iceland, the French Alps and Antarctica. On the six-day Finse Polar Skills Challenge (Level One), guests complete a 10-mile ski-tour through the wilderness of Western Norway and learn how to camp out in subzero temperatures as part of a small, expert-led group. The price of £6,495 includes expedition training, all meals, accommodation at Hotel Finse 1222, the use of polar camping and trekking equipment, a Shackleton jacket and domestic rail tickets for the ‘snowtrain’ to Finse (from Bergen or Oslo). International flights are not included. Trips are now available to book for March and April 2023.
shackleton.com For more on Wendy Searle and her imminent polar expedition, read our Meet the Adventurer interview on page 22.
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