For many people, Antarctica is the ultimate travel destination, with stepping foot on the White Continent the culmination of a life-long dream. But for others, that first step is just one in a long series of marches that can take you all the way to the South Pole and beyond. Preet Chandi MBE – or Polar Preet as she is known on social media – is one such person. A former British army captain, in January 2023, she recorded the longest ever solo and unsupported polar expedition, as well as breaking a number of records, including the fastest female trek to the South.
Having just announced plans to become the first woman to trek unsupported to the North Pole, we talked about what drives her to take these polar adventures, why mental toughness is just as important as physical endurance – and how trekking in Antarctica can be like trying to eat your way out of a giant marshmallow.
Why did you want to walk to the South Pole? For lots of people that sounds like a terrifying thing to do!
My strength has always been mental resilience. One of my earliest memories is of playing tennis as a child and realising I didn’t always have to hit the ball as hard, I could just go for the next ball and the one after that and eventually my opponent would get tired and they’d miss. All you need to do is last longer. I have to work on the physical side of things, but mentally, I’ve always been able to keep going.
I had done a handful of marathons, and even an ultra-marathon, when I read about the Marathon de Sables endurance race across the Sahara. It sounds insane, but I thought yeah, I could do that!
I think the more we do, the more we realise we’re capable of. My army boss Colonel Khan knew I was looking for something big to really push my boundaries and inspire others to do the same. He mentioned Antarctica to me, but I didn’t know anything about it at all – except that I’d tried skiing and was terrible at it! I didn’t have any experience, but I’ve never seen that as a negative. Everybody starts without enough experience: you go out and learn.
How do you prepare for an expedition like walking to the South Pole?
I trained in Norway, Greenland and Iceland – training is expensive for an expedition like this!
I did a lot of strength and conditioning in the gym, as well as outside work like dragging tyres or just carrying weights on my back out in the hills. You have to be really consistent in building up your strength and endurance, but mentally I don’t think I was prepared. How do you prepare for something like this?
There’s also what I call the “admin side” of things – how quickly you get your tent up when the conditions are hard and windy, how quickly you can put your stove on with gloves on – the things that don’t fit into being used to the cold or the physical training. Your admin needs to be really good, as it’ll help you deal with difficult situations.
Can you describe what sort of kit you need to trek completely unsupported?
I have my sled attached to me by a harness with shoulder straps and a waist strap, which is then attached to a rope and bungee.
You need to have your sled packing as simple as possible, so I start with the fuel and food packed in bags for ten days at a time. When I camp, I put up the tent and grab the fuel and food. Then my sleeping system comes in the tent as well. I also have an ‘everything’ bag, which has my medical kit and things like that.
I have two sleeping mats and a sleeping bag. I have sleeping socks in there and a different jumper, but I always sleep in the same gear that I’m skiing in – plus an eye mask because of the 24-hour daylight.
Managing your layers is really important because the weather can change so quickly. If you’re cold you can put on an extra layer, but if you’re sweating you don’t want to try to tough it because your sweat will freeze on you.
For water, I have a Nalgene bottle, but it would often freeze halfway through the day, so I’d switch to Thermos bottles so that I could always drink.
You mentioned the challenges of mentally preparing yourself for an expedition like this. How does that play out when you’re actually in Antarctica?
When I was dropped off on my first trip, it was amazing – a beautiful white vastness. The weather was good and you could do a full 360 and see for miles. The sun is out and you walk into your shadow. That’s an incredible feeling. They’re the best hours of my day, you just can’t beat it.
But when the wind picks up, you quickly realise how good your admin is. Generally, the direction of travel you walk in – towards the Pole – means that the wind is coming directly at you. Everything is harder, and the wind chill just makes it colder. Putting your tent up can be exhausting.
It was hardest when it was cloudy because you can’t see the contrast on the ground. In Antarctica, you get things called sastrugi – this is where the ice has been shaped by blizzards. They can be quite big and hard to navigate around, but when you can’t see the contrast, you end up tripping over a lot because you can’t see how deep they are.
Finally, you get “white outs” when you just cannot see anything in front of you at all. I had ribbons tied to the ends of my ski poles and sometimes they were all I could see. It was like being in a big marshmallow you can’t eat your way out of.
Mentally, sometimes it was like being in a prison. Your darkest, deepest thoughts come to you, and you have to find a way through it. On my first trip in particular, I’m not sure I did – I just went through the motions of what I needed to do, putting one foot in front of the other. Even on ultramarathons where you’re running solo, there are still checkpoints with other people along the way, but in Antarctica you really are on your own. It’s a place where you can really get found out.
You have a support team and a satellite phone so you can check in every day for safety. How does that help?
Every day I would catch up with Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions (ALE) at Union Glacier. If I don’t check in they’ll come looking for me based on my last GPS location, which means you’re being responsible for their safety as well. You can’t be reckless.
On my first expedition, I was two days away from the Pole and started hallucinating without realising it. I wasn’t sleeping enough and it caught up with me. There was a little old lady and a dog with me and I couldn’t figure out if I was in a dream, but I knew something wasn’t right. I couldn’t go more than 15 minutes without stopping. I’d emptied my cup.
I spoke to the doctor and he told me to rest. I stayed in my tent for nearly a day and I was fine after that. I got to the Pole and there isn’t really anyone there – just a couple of people from the logistics company. I thought it was going to be huge, but it was beautifully understated and calm. It was really nice to have that. They flew me back to Union Glacier and I stayed there for a week, eating all the food I wanted and doing interviews before I flew to Punta Arenas. The best advice I had from a friend was to check myself into a really fancy hotel – I think I stood under its shower for an hour!
On your second expedition you didn’t manage to cross the Antarctic continent, but still set a record for the longest unsupported trek there. What did missing that goal teach you?
That trip was brutal, and I made some mistakes early on which I suffered for later. I was so scared of failing that I ignored a storm warning and just kept pushing forward, which resulted in me hurting my neck. Then a couple of weeks in, I injured my left calf. It was painful but I was more annoyed with the extra admin it created.
My hours were all over the place and I wasn’t hitting the mileage. I made it to the Pole in 56 days – on the first trip it was 40. I needed to rest but I couldn’t let myself because I was so far behind. I tried skiing for 24 hours a day – two hours of skiing and then a break. And in those two hours, I was falling over a dozen times or just moving in slow motion. I started rationing my food. It was pretty horrendous.
ALE were watching my distances and worked out how far I could get, so they eventually sent a plane to pick me up. I felt like I’d failed. I didn’t enjoy any of that trip at all.
But now when I look back on it, I say it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s the one I talk about the most. That trip taught me more about myself than anything in my life.
I’d never been in a place where I didn’t know if I could keep going. I felt like I had nothing left in me and I’d not been in that position before. It was extraordinary.
I didn’t enjoy any of the 70 days, but would I do it again with the same result? Yes.
Finally, tell us about your plans for the North Pole.
I’m hoping to go solo and unsupported to the North Pole, which is much harder than Antarctica because it’s all sea ice.
It hasn’t been done in a long time, and no woman has ever done it solo, because it’s incredibly challenging. There’s a high chance of failure but I’m a lot more comfortable with that now, having been through a big failure on my second expedition. It’s always worth pushing your boundaries. That’s how you succeed. You can’t fail unless you try.
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Preet Chandi’s GoFundMe for her North Pole expedition is noew live.
