🇦🇶 This is what happens when your friend’s friend mentions her PhD student is a polar explorer and you tell her to please drag the polar explorer to the ceilidh. Then spend all night grilling the polar explorer and at the end of the night ask if you can cross Antarctica too.

Ben Weber and I are crossing the Antarctic continent in November 2027.

Ben’s already been to the South Pole. In 58 days. Solo.
We’re going further.
I thought going to the South Pole would be cool. Ben persuaded me to go further. To the other side of Antarctica.
We don’t know of anyone who’s ever successfully done this route.
I obviously took zero persuasion.

From Berkner Island to the Ross Ice Shelf (the black dots on the map)

Here’s the numbers:

2,100km. 4 months.
• Down to -50°C. Cold that kills batteries. I asked Boston Dynamics if we could borrow some robot dogs to help carry the load… Too cold for robot dogs 🤖 🐕
• 80kg sleds
• 12 hours skiing / day
• 8,000 calories / day, aim to eat 6,000 (we’ve been told we’ll lose 10-30kg each)
• 3,000m altitude on the plateau
• Winds up to 200mph (327km/h strongest recorded)

There’ll be whiteouts, snowstorms, and storms. Hopefully we won’t be stuck too long in a tent until they pass. We’ll have to go over Sastrugi (big sharp ice formations).

And the bit I’m most scared of – crevasses. But we’ll be roped together over those and have lots of crevasse spotting and rescue training.

The training starts now

I’ve been training a lot this year (weighted vests, strength training). Week 1 of my polar training starts soon – Christmas Day I leave for Finnish Lapland.

Here’s our brand new LinkedIn page – Polar Dogs Antarctica Expedition – Give us a follow 🐕 ❤️

And- there will be an ask. We will be (soon!) looking for partners who want their products tested in the world’s harshest, windiest, coldest conditions. And brands that want to support adventure and some polar exploration. Always open — get in touch 🙂