Felicity Aston, her International Team of Women Explorers and WINGS Flag #15 Arrive at the Geographic South Pole!

The Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition made history on December 29th as they arrived at the Geographic South Pole at 2309 (Antarctic time) on 29 December 2009 (0209 GMT on 30 November) after 38 days and 495 nautical miles skiing across one of the most hostile places on earth.  Expedition leader and WINGS Flag Carrier Felicity Aston shares the teams excitement in her celebratory podcast...

Visit the Kaspersky Commonwealth Expdedition website for team updates, blogs, photo's and more.

December 30, 2009

Felicity's PodCast in writing:

"Hello this is Felicity reporting that at 23:09 on the 29th of December the Kaspersky Labs Commonwealth Antarctica Expedition arrived at the Geographic South Pole. We're all standing around the mirrorball that sits at the South Pole and surrounded by the flags of all the Antarctic Treaty Nations with the South Pole base in the background and standing next to me is Era Al-Sufri the first Bruneian ever to ski to the South Pole. Next to her is Stephanie Solomonides, the first Cypriot ever to ski to the South Pole. Next to her is Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, the first Indian woman to ski all the way to the South Pole. Next to her is Sophia Pang the first woman from Singapore to ski to the South Pole. Next to her is Kylie Wakelin, the first woman from New Zealand to ski to the South Pole. Next to her is Helen Turton who has fulfilled a long-held ambition to ski to the South Pole and I've also fulfilled an ambition to take a team of inspirational women all the way to the South Pole.

I'm incredibly proud of the team and I think the feeling that we're all feeling right now is that if we can do this then you can do anything that you like to and that's the message that we really want to send to everyone. There's so many people that we need to thank for being able to stand here right now. First of all our friends, family and partners who've put up with so much disruption in their lives to let us do this and then there's all the volunteers who have given so generously of their time and their energy to help us organise this. And finally of course to our wonderful sponsors Kaspersky Labs who has made this dream possible for us. Thank you to all of you.

We can't wait to get home and share all our stories with you all and we're going to be doing that over the next couple of weeks but first of all we're all off to get a good sleep and to have something really good to eat. Love to everyone at home. We're all incredibly happy and we're standing here, 7 women at the bottom of the planet with a biggest smiles on our faces right now. Thanks to everybody out there for supporting us and getting us here. Thank you. Bye."

Photo by Robert Hollingworth 

December 14, 2009

What have you been up to over the last three weeks? Getting your Christmas presents? Wrapping things up at work? Well, it's Day 22 now down south and the girls have spent those days with a single objective: reaching the South Pole. Their surroundings still inspire but it's not all fine and dandy and pleasant as Steph (Cyprus) explains:

Stephanie (Cyprus)'s PodCast:

Link to Podcast 
Check the teams progress!

Steph's PodCast in writing:

"Hi everyone, this is Steph. I'm calling from literally the middle of nowhere.

I'm standing outside, it's just about bed time and everyone's getting ready to go to bed, have a sleep and get ready for tomorrow. It's just unbelievable. I mean, we're on day 22. I'm just awestruck by this place. The emptiness, the nothingness. I'm outside the tent and I can see 360 degrees of white. Not flat, not really, we've got a couple of hills coming up towards the south. It's unbelievable, it's such a privilege to be here.I can't wait to come back and see everyone and show you photos and tell you about it. It's absolutely brilliant.

Obviously, not everything is fine and dandy and pleasant. It is a very hard experience. I've had my first cold injury, I've had chillblains on my leg. But hopefully it's nothing serious, as long as I look after them and they're not in the wind. They can turn to frost bite apparently if they become a full open wounds which is fairly scary. But you know, at least it's not frost bite, or frost nip.

Apart from that, you know, things are getting tough. We're getting in the mileage, I'm feeling the weight of my pulk from resupply. We're climbing up a lot of hills. We're gaining altitude, so the temperature is relatively colder. It's getting colder as we get along. But you know all is good.

I can't wait to speak to the family on Christmas Day, which should be a great experience. One of the oddest things about being on this expedition is being so cut off from the world outside. I have no idea what the current affairs are. I have no idea what's going on in the world and that's such a weird feeling, so isolated. But I'm looking for a good catch up. I'm looking forward to a good catch up on Christmas Day, so that should be good.

Miss everyone. Hope everyone is well, and still hoping I make it to the South Pole in one piece without any major injuries. So lots of love, speak again. Bye."

Photo by Robert Hollingworth

5 December 2009

The tension is tangible even over the distorted tones of a satellite phone. The team are but a few Antarctic inches from their re-supply cache at the Thiel Mountains where new food and clean clothes await. Felicity (UK), WINGS flag carrier, offers the update:

Follow the team's progress live!

 "Hello everyone, it's Felicity, and doing an update for day 14, and we've had a couple of days of change really here in the Antarctic. Up until now we've been heading southwest every day, almost parallel to the Pensacola Mountains. Which we have been able to see in the distance. But yesterday we quite literally turned a corner. Our one and only change in direction that will have the entire expedition. But we turned to the left, and we're now heading exactly south direct for the South Pole.

So the change in the direction has made a bit of a difference to what we're experiencing every day. Most importantly the position of the sun. We got quite used to the sun being in one place in the morning, and then working it's way around us to be in another place in the evening, but now it's all changed and the sun's in a different place in the morning, which is a little bit different.

But the sun today has very short rainbows either side of the sun, which are called 'Sun Dogs', and they're just like rainbows but they're caused by ice being in the air rather than water. But it was really pretty, so it was lovely to be skiing along watching the Sun Dogs either side of the sun as it changed.

It's been different weather as well the last couple of days. Been quite cloudy, so there isn't any shadows on the snow, which has made it quite difficult because you can't see where all the lumps and bumps are. It's called flat light and it just makes everything look completely white rather than being able to see the sastrugi. We've actually been tripping over them and not been able to see them ahead of us. So it's making it a little bit harder.

It's also been snowing a bit which is surprisingly uncommon considering we're in the Antarctic. So we're actually quite privileged to be getting so much snow. It snows settling on the ground and forming sort of thick layers, and as we walk across it the snow's settling with a big kind of "Voomph!" noise, and it feels like the snow underneath you is sort of dropping away. It was a little bit unnerving because at the moment we're scouting around the edge of a known crevasse are. So every time the snow settles and we hear this Voomph noise I think everybody's heart sort of misses a beat. But now that we know what it is we're prepared for it and we're sort of getting used to it I think.

Tomorrow is an exciting day because we're due to arrive at our resupply which is at a place called Thiels, and it's very exciting because it means clean underwear, more food, and a few special treats that we packed for ourselves when we packed the resupply back in Patriot Hills. So I think everyone's going to be racing tomorrow because we all want to get there as quick as possible. So we're looking forward to that. But we'll let you know how we get on and speak to you again tomorrow. Lots of love to everyone at home. Bye."

Photo by Robert Hollingworth

 

30 November 2009

Learn more about how the team works to protect itself from the dangers of the cold as Steph (Cyprus) shares her experiences.   

 Check the team's progress

"Hi everyone, this is Steph. I hope everyone's well. We're definitely doing well down our end. The Antarctic has been very good to us. The weather's still holding up. We've got sun all day.

It's been really windy though lately and we're getting this really icy cold wind from the south and I'm finding it very very hard to keep myself out of trouble and when I mean trouble, I mean getting frostbite for example. I have unfortunately very, very sweaty hands and this is really bad when, when you're in an environment like Antarctica because as soon as you've got any sort of dampness on your hands or any of your clothing, it turns immediately into ice and this could drastically drop your body temperature and eventually cause injury.

So I've been having a very hard time trying to keep my hands out of trouble. Fortunately, each day I've I've been coming out alright. Each day's been a new a new method of trial, of hit and miss on how to keep my hands out of trouble. At the moment what I'm doing is, I'm using a different pair of liner gloves which are the really thin layer that you put on your hands just before you put on your big mitts. Every break, which is every one and a half hours, I change the pair to keep my hands dry when we stop and we're eating and having a drink.

It seems to be working well - touch wood - for the moment so I'm hoping to keep that up. Might be an issue when I start having more breaks, as I'm running out of liner gloves but I think it's all good for the moment.

Apart from that, I think we're all well. The team's still waking up in the morning with a smile, that must mean something. And me, I'm good as well, apart from this msassive fear of frost bite and I'm enjoying it as well.

I hope you're all coming back to the website and enjoying our updates every day. I'm not sure who's on tomorrow but I'm sure it's going to be very, very intersting. Lots of love to everyone. Bye!"

 

28 November 2009

The weather's fine and the skiing's good but what lies ahead? Find out from Helen (UK) in today's PodCast.

Check the team's progress

Helen (UK)'s PodCast:

 

Link to Podcast

Helen's PodCast in writing:

"Hi this is Helen from the UK speaking on behalf of the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctica Expedition.

We have had another really good day on the ice today. The weather has been fantastic and it's really holding up well. You wouldn't have thought this was Antarctica really, by the gorgeous sunshine that we're having but we don't want to make you think that we're having an easy time. 

It's not all smooth and plain sailing across nice smooth snow. If you imagine Antarctica is about the size of one and a third times the area of Europe and about 99 percent of it is covered in snow. But it's all very sort of up and down, it's a little bit like skiing over the top of a frozen meringue.

All of the the waves of snow are whipped up by the strong winds that come, especially in the winter time here, and form what are called sastrugi. these winds grow and point towards the direction of due south but at the moment the bearing that we're following from our Messner Start towards our first navigation point isn't actually taking us in a due south direction. So, all throughout the day we end up cutting across these sastrugi waves and sometimes the pulks (sledges) just glide across the top of the ice and sometimes they get stuck in the ruts and we really have to pull and use the strength in our backs to get the pulks moving again.

As I say, it would seem like a dream world here and it's certainly easier going at the moment than we expect the sastrugi to be later on in the journey. We have seen some satellite imagery of sections of our route to come later on between 86 and 87 degrees South provided by Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions, the logistics company that is providing us with help for this expedition. The images of the sastrugi were so large that they showed up on these satellite images. We're expecting these waves to appear almost the height of ourselves so I think we need to sharpen our knives and really strengthen our muscles to be able to pull the pulks through.

But this is certainly good practice and it's not hindered our progress today. We've done another 12.8 nautical miles on our distance and we're all chuffed to bits with that.

So it's good night now from our tents. It's nice and cosy in here, the sun's shining and we'll speak to you again tomorrow."

 

Photo by Robert Hollingworth

5 Continents. 6 Faiths. 7 Languages. 8 Women. 1 daring ambition .....

"The wind that is causing the team such problems with their tents is also the very reason why they have landed at Patriot Hills.

In a few locations in Antarctica , prevailing wind and terrain combine to produce an area of glacier that is free from snow. Snowfall is not able to accumulate here as it is regularly blown away leaving a slippery, hard, blue ice surface which makes for a good landing strip.

Following experimental landings by Giles Kershaw and Charles Swithinbank in the 1980s, these blue ice areas have been used as runways for wheeled aircraft, allowing easy intercontinental travel by large jets, such as the Ilyushin that brought the team from Punta Arenas, Chile.

So whilst the winds may be testing, if we didn't have them then the team wouldn't have been able to fly there in the first place!"

Along with his wife Sarah he runs arctic holiday company: The Polar People. 

Photos by Robert Hollingworth
 

18 NOVEMBER 2009

The team's fight back appears to have worked. Their tents have been repaired and they've managed to get a day's skiing in. We have an update from Kylie (New Zealand) as well as updates from Reena (India) in both English and Hindi - Tim (UK Support).

Hear podcasts from other team members....

Kylie's PodCast in writing:
"Hello, this is Kyle from New Zealand on the 17/11/09 at 7:30pm.

Our coordinates today are: South 80 degrees, 19.559 minutes; West 081 degrees, 04.751 minutes. The distance covered today was 2.28 nautical miles.

We're on our training camp and this is our second night out. The tents are holding up after their expensive repairs. It's been white oute our conditions today. Very poor visibility, no definition but everybody has been doing really well - towing the sleds with their reasonably light loads. Everyone has had a few whoop-dees and a few small skates here and there because we've been skiing over some sastrugi - wind affected snow and ice. Everyone's doing really well actually. Just generally windy, quite cool.

We've skied for 5 hours today and had a rest of about an hour throughout the day. We are camped to the west of Patriot Hills. The morale is really good and everyone's in good spirits. We're about "eight out of ten". Had we covered a bit more ground today, this might be a bit further up the scale. All good. Over and out."

NOVEMBER 13, 2009 Update

Era's PodCast in writing:

"Hi today is the 13th of November and the time is 11:50am in Patriot Hills Antarctica. It's Era here from Brunei and we are currently located at Patriot Hills. We came in yesterday on the Ilyushin and we had a lie-in to recover from the day. Our health and morale is good. From 1-10, it's about maybe 8 or even 9 because the weather has been really good. It has got clear visibility and the sun is out and it's quite warm..."

NOVEMBER 12, 2009  UPDATE...

The Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition team members begin their glorious expedition to the South Pole today!  Marking the 60th aniversary of the Commonwealth, the Kaspersky Commonwealth Expedition aims to demonstrate the potential of greater intercultural understanding and exchange, while at the same time highlighting the achievements of women across the world. Today the team set off for their base camp in Antarctica where they will stay for a week acclimatising to the harsh conditions and completing their pre-expedition preparations. The team spent their previous week in Punta Arenas, Chile. They have now left South America aboard a specially equipped aircraft bound for Antarctica. The 4 ½ hour flight is only undertaken a few times each year during the short austral summer and the team are on the very first flight to be attempted this season.

The flight over the Southern Ocean to the remotest continent on Earth depends entirely upon the weather conditions. At any point the aircraft may be forced to return to South America by deteriorating weather conditions. Only when the team have passed the PNR (Point of No Return) will they know that they will definitely reach their destination.

The aircraft will convey the members of the Kaspersky Lab’s Commonwealth Antarcti Expedition to Patriot Hills, the only commercial base camp in Antarctica. Lying in the lee of a range of mountains which includes Antarctica’s tallest peak, Mt Vinson, Patriot Hills is situated near a vast area of naturally occurring blue ice. This ice is used as a runway.

Once at Patriot Hills the team will spend a week acclimatising to average temperatures of between -20C and -40C. They will also have to contend with 24-hour daylight, dazzling scenery that is so bright that it can cause blindness and the constant threat of serious sunburn due to the lack of Ozone above Antarctica.

The Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition will see women from eight Commonwealth countries – Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus, Ghana, India, Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom – brave blizzards, crevasses and temperatures below minus 40° as they ski 900 kilometres over approximately 40 days to the Geographic South Pole. On reaching their target, the team members from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana and Jamaica will be the first people from their respective nations, male or female, to ski to the South Pole. Those from India, New Zealand and Singapore will be the first women from their nations to make this symbolic and prestigious journey.

“Only a great team is capable of performing the great deeds”, said the representatives of Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. “Together with Kaspersky Lab we make an outstanding team and we believe our expedition will become one of the most eminent historical events ever! From the bottom of our hearts we’d like to thank Kaspersky Lab for being with us on the turning point of our lives and sharing our spirit of adventure!”

THE TEAM....

The team members from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana and Jamaica will be the first person from their nation to ski to the South Pole. Those from India, Singapore and New Zealand will be the first women from their country to do so.

Fantastic as these achievements will be, the expedition is about much more than national and global records. The team members will return to their home countries as role models to inspire others, particularly women, to reach beyond the expectation of others and follow their own path.

Representing a Commonwealth of 52 nations and 2 billion people around the globe, the expedition team is a diverse group of real women selected from over 800 applicants. Before joining the expedition many of the team members had never been in sub-zero temperatures, put on a pair of skis or spent the night in a tent - a fact which makes the challenge they are undertaking even more remarkable.

The 900km journey from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole will take around 40 days. The team will survive on lightweight dehydrated rations and melted snow. They will sleep in tents on the ice at night and pull sledges containing all the food, fuel and equipment they will need. Travelling without a guide, the team will need to rely on each other to navigate themselves safely to the bottom of the world.

The team expects to arrive at the South Pole around New Year's Day 2010.