Women Who Travel Podcast: A Solo Skiing Expedition Across Antarctica

LA: For each trip, Preet hired an Antarctica-based transport and logistics company, and she kept in contact with them every 24 hours.

PC: They’re called Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, and they basically run this logistics company in Antarctica, and they have a base there for three months of the year, basically. So from November to January, which is the summer seasons in Antarctica, they will drop me off in a good weather window, and then they’re the ones that will pick me up as well. I remember hugging Rob Smith, who was one of the people to pick me up, who’s one of the guys for the logistics company, giving him a hug and just bursting into tears.

LA: Just having that human touch.

PC: And I think I remember saying “It was so hard” over and over again.

LA: It must have been weird to be surrounded by people.

PC: So it was three people there to pick me up. Helped with everything, literally bending down to take my skis off. Someone was there to help me get my jacket on, then they had their tents up. So I then went and sat in Rob’s tent, and he made me a hot chocolate because they’d asked me a few days on the satellite phone what I wanted, and basically I was starving. I was like, “Carbs.”

LA: Give me a burger.

PC: A cheese and salami sandwich, cans of coke, a hot chocolate, Snickers. So he was just feeding me. He gave me pain relief, which was one of the things I wanted. And so I don’t know how long we sat for, but it must’ve been maybe an hour, maybe a bit more. And we got in the Twin Otter, the small plane, and I remember it stopped to refuel a place.

And at that place there’s a little port cabin where there’s a toilet where you can sit on a seat, and obviously I haven’t sat down to a toilet for 70 days, and I needed to go, but my exhaustion was more that I didn’t want to leave the warm plane, so I just stayed in.

And then we landed back in the base camp, and I was just so hungry. I cannot explain how hungry I was. So I said I wanted to go to cook house. I went in, and that was like, “Oh, there was actually loads of people,” and people started clapping, and I was quite emotional. It was quite overwhelming.

LA: After the break, how professional and personal travel forged the way for Preet’s later solo trips.

Now more from Preet on her many travels. You really have ended up being out in these sort of frozen terrains. What so attracted you to adventuring in these spaces and how did you get there?

PC: I didn’t even like the cold.

LA: I mean, we’re both from England, so we’re not used to extremes.