I was reading an article about a group of 8 women who planned to ski to the south pole next winter (summer in the southern hemisphere) completely unassisted. The article seemed to imply that some of the women have little or no experience with snow and ice.
Of course, memories of Jack London stories spring into my mind. Not to mention John Krakauer.
My question is this: Is this a difficult or dangerous trip? Can a well equipped person, reasonably healthy, with a few months of training, ski to the South Pole with little or no risk? Or is this madness?
I don’t know how cold it gets there in the Antarctic summer, but at a certain coldness ice and snow changes its characteristics so that you can no longer glide in it but rather it will stick and it would be like skiiing over concrete.
I think you’d be OK if you had an experienced guide or two along. They’d know any necessary techniques, be able to select the right equipment and could spot any danger on the way. I know that there have been plenty of expeditions over the decades where relatively inexperienced scientists were escorted safely by the right guides.
A friend of mine has done a couple of year-round stints at the South Pole and they only fly people in during summer when it’s nice and toasty warm.
A few years ago he landed during a record high temp for that day. It was -30C and he got frostbite on the inside of his mouth because he wasn’t wearing a mask while schlepping his bags off the plane and into the base.
So to answer your question, “cold”. He did mention the 300 club, where you go through a 300 degree temperature change (steam room to very chilly outside, while nude).
You can’t go through a 300 degree temperature swing. Even if the steam room is 120F, you’d have to go out into -180F. It doesn’t get that cold anywhere on earth. Maybe he meant 200 degrees, but even that is a stretch.
The sauna at my gym has a thermometer near the ceiling that reads 190°F. This cite states that the “UL Safety Standard (UL 875) requires the maximum sauna temperature in the U.S. not to exceed 195°F,” so this tends to support the validity of the reading for the sauna at my gym.
The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -129°F in Antarctica in 1983.
Anyway, with a sauna at 195°F, and the lowest temperature ever recorded, this gives a change in temperature of 324°F.
Phfft, UL standard–I’ve been in a dry sauna at 230 °F in northern MN. Drenched in sweat in less than 60 seconds. And breathing through your nose after smacking your face in touch football–every broken mucous membrane feels like a red hot needle. After three minutes, you run out to the lake to cool off. Do that seven times, and you sleep, as in deep, all-the-way-through-the-night-without-waking-up-once. Hmm, I miss those days…
They’re not skiing to the South Pole, they’re cross country skiing to the South Pole. There’s a difference. Skiing is a blast; cross country skiing sucks.
There are so many hazards, there would have to be guides, sat-phones, luck and all other forms of good spirits around them. It is a dangerous trip for sure. What Ludovic said is true too - the snow ceases to be snow and turns into a sandy hard ice that feels like concrete. It blows around dunes of snowy ice - exactly like the sahara, but with snow. I think they could do it.
Apparently there’s now a Mcmurdo-South Pole Highway. It’s an ice road intended for tracked vehicles, and it’s 900 miles long. I suppose it can be used for skiing, and is reasonably easy and safe.
A friend of mine skied to the South Pole (and North Pole). It’s a strenuous trip, and you need to be in good shape and be able to deal with cold. But there’s really no technically difficult parts of the trip. She’s an excellent athlete but didn’t know much about skiing.
When you get to the South Pole you can go in McMurdo but you can’t order food or use the showers, just water and use the rest rooms. They were picked up by plane the later in the day they got there.