#28: Euphoria and Terror – Crossing Antarctica with Felicity Aston MBE

“I just think back to that first time I got a proper look at
Antarctica: There was something about the simplicity and the
beauty and the perfectness of it all that made me want to scoop
it all up and somehow contain it in me.” 


That's a quote from our guest, Polar explorer, Antarctic
scientist, author, speaker and expedition leader Felicity Aston
MBE. And that is exactly what she did: She preserved Antarctica
(and the polar regions) within herself. She spent a continuous
period of two and a half years (including two consecutive
winters) at Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula.
These first experiences in Antarctica then led to numerous
expeditions to remote places around the world (but particularly
to the Polar Regions): She led record-breaking international
teams to the North and South Poles, worked on a nuclear-powered
icebreaker at the North Pole, led the first British Women’s
crossing of Greenland, skied along a frozen river in Siberia,
traversed the winter ice of Lake Baikal, raced in the Canadian
Arctic, drove 35,000km across Eurasia to the coldest inhabited
place in the world … and in 2012 she became the first woman to
ski alone across Antarctica. It was a journey of 1744 km that
took her 59 days to complete. With this, she set a world record.
And she was not only the first woman to master this tour, but
also the first person – male or female – to do so alone and with
her own muscle power. 


Felicity reports on her experiences in four books and regularly
produces articles for various publications in the UK and abroad.
She has been elected Fellow of both the Royal Geographical
Society in London and The Explorers Club in New York, and
received many more awards.


In this episode, she talks about the challenges she had to face
during her Antarctic crossing – and the beauty of it all!


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