BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Reaching the end of the Earth has become almost routine these days: One hundred years after Norway's Roald Amundsen beat Britain's R.F. Scott to the South Pole, more than 30 teams are trying for it this year.
In this photo taken on Sept. 24, 2010 provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, British adventurer Felicity Aston skis across Iceland during a pre-expedition training trip. (AP-Yonhap News)
Some will kite-sail over the vast Antarctic ice and snow. Others will drive in from the coast. A wealthy handful will be dropped off one degree north of the South Pole, for relatively leisurely guided treks of about 70 miles to the pole.
But Felicity Aston has been there, done that. Weather and her own considerable stamina permitting, the 33-year-old British adventurer will only pause at the pole long enough to pick up more food and fuel. Her plan is to keep on skiing, by herself, all the way to the other side of the frozen continent _ and become the first person using only muscle power to cross Antarctica alone.
If she manages to complete this journey of more than 1,000 miles (1,700 kilometers) in late January, she would also set a record for the longest solo polar expedition by a woman, at about 70 days.
``This is my first solo expedition, the first time I will have spent this length of time without company,'' she said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. ``It's part of the challenge of the expedition, to see how I'll cope with it.''
Aston spoke from Punta Arenas, Chile, where she boarded a charter flight Friday after losing a precious week waiting for weather to break. From a base in Antarctica, she'll then take a second plane to her starting point at the foot of the Leverett Glacier, where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the rocky coast.
She tweeted from the base camp early Saturday: ``at the basecamp on union glacier in my tent. first night on the ice. great to be here.''
In the days before she left Chile, she was ``channeling down,'' getting her mind set on what would be a grueling routine.
``Your life reduces to eating, sleeping and skiing. It's a form of meditation. You get into a rhythm, and all you can hear is your own breathing, your own heartbeat, the sound of your clothes and your skis. It's kind of an altered state,'' she said. ``A trip like this is all about keeping going _ the stamina, endurance, keeping going day after day after day.''
Aston, whose trek is sponsored by the Russian software company Kaspersky Lab and makers of the equipment she is using, has plenty of experience in long-endurance expeditions. She spent nearly three years as a meteorologist with the British Antarctic Survey, and in 2009 led an all-woman group from the coast to the South Pole. Her long list of travel adventures includes skiing across the Canadian Arctic, crossing the Greenland ice sheet and trekking over Siberia's frozen Lake Baikal. She's also run across Morocco's Sahara Desert and tracked jaguars in Paraguay.
``I've been preparing for 10 years and only now do I feel capable of this. Every trip teaches you something: how tough you are, what your personal limits are, how to wrap up a blister better, how not to get sick,'' she said. ``Particularly on the psychological side, each journey I've had has taught me something about how to feel better about a situation, how to react, how to behave.''
The 5-foot-11 (1.80-meter) Aston weighs around 170 pounds (77 kilos) and she'll be hauling up to 187 pounds (85 kilos) of gear on a sledge. It includes freeze-dried food, fuel and a camp stove for melting snow. She's also bringing along a solar recharger and two MP3 players _ one has music donated by her friends, everything from peaceful ska tunes to heavy metal and ``fluffy pop songs;'' the other has mostly audio books from her father on ``the whole of British history ... 300 hours of it!''
Antarctic Treaty rules require private support teams to be able to pull people out in a pinch, and Aston is carrying two Iridium satellite phones and a GPS beacon to keep in touch with hers.
``She has to have the beacon, because it's so easy for a solo person to get in trouble,'' said David Rootes, a veteran polar guide who runs Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions. The company is supporting most of this year's trips, making about 20 flights into Antarctica and moving about 500 people around the continent in all. Most are traveling in groups, hoping to make it in time for a polar party on Dec. 13, (South Pole time), the centennial of Amundsen's achievement.
``What Felicity is doing is not routine at all,'' Rootes said. ``Until she hits the pole, she's really out of contact with anybody at all.''
Rootes met Aston years ago at a Royal Geographic Society function in London, and has followed her exploits in the clubby world of adventurers ever since.
``She's a very substantial woman. You have to have a hell of a lot of drive and single-mindedness to do this, because everything in the world will get in the way to stop you,'' he said.
Once Aston sets off, climbing thousands of feet (meters) in altitude through the Transantarctic Mountains and onto the continent's vast central plateau, she'll be utterly alone, with no other living thing in sight. Then, she'll have to push through fierce headwinds for more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) as she follows a route along 132 West Longitude to the pole.
Her way out _ skiing along the 80 West Longitude line to the company's base camp on Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf _ would presumably be easier.
``The West Winds, quite notorious. That's the bit I'm most worried about in terms of weather, but once I'm past the pole, I've got the wind at my back,'' she said. ``So in the scheme of things, it works out pretty good this way!''
英여성, 스키 타고 홀로 남극횡단 도전
남극대륙 정복 100주년을 맞아 영 국의 한 여성 탐험가가 스키와 썰매만 이용한 단독 남극횡단에 나서면서 눈길을 끌 고 있다.
영국 탐험가인 펠리시티 애스턴(33)씨는 19일(현지시간) 칠레 푼타 아레나스에 서 전세기를 타고 남극대륙 베이스캠프에 도착했다.
애스턴씨는 이곳에서 비행기를 갈아타고 레버릿 빙하까지 이동한 뒤 스키와 썰 매만을 이용해 혼자 남극을 횡단하는 길고 외로운 여정을 시작한다.
영국 남극 자연환경 연구소(BAS)에서 3년간 일했던 애스턴씨는 이미 캐나다 북 극해와 그린란드 빙하 탐험에 성공하는가 하면 2009년에는 싱가포르와 뉴질랜드 등 영연방 국가 여성 7명으로 구성된 탐험대를 이끌고 남극점을 정복했던 '베테랑'이다 .
하지만 홀로 남극대륙 횡단에 나선 것은 이번이 처음이다.
몸무게 77kg의 애스턴씨는 식량과 연료, 눈을 녹일 때 쓸 스토브 등 85kg의 짐 을 실은 썰매를 끌고 1천700km를 스키로 이동해 남극대륙을 횡단할 계획이다.
예정대로라면 약 70일 후인 내년 1월말께 긴 여정을 끝내게 된다.
애스턴씨는 "모든 여행은 자신의 한계가 어디까지인지, 자신이 얼마나 강한지, 상황을 어떻게 긍정적으로 바라봐야 하는지 등 많은 것을 가르쳐준다"며 "10년간 준 비해왔고, 이제는 '할 수 있다'는 자신감이 생겼다"고 말했다.
