All throughout history, people have trekked across Antarctica on foot, by snowmobile, by dog sled, and in groups.
A lot of factors play into what people need to do for their trips. Conditioning your body and making sure you have the proper equipment are among the many lists of things. I find it amazing that people choose to cross the coldest place on the planet in groups or by themselves.
One woman is making the cross all by herself, and she’s documenting it on her website and Instagram. She’s also raising money for her exploration and grants she gives to people.
Preet Chandi is an explorer to her bones.
“At age 19, I joined the Army Reserves, where I was eventually commissioned in 2012,” she shared.
“I went to University to study Physiotherapy and graduated in 2012, I was the first person in my family to get a degree, and it remains one of my greatest achievements. My appetite for greater and greater challenges started to grow, starting with my first half marathon at 20-years-old.”
“After completing my first marathon, I decided to try an ultra marathon. Dusk to Dawn (50 miles in the Peak District) left me feeling very achy and sick, but I had already caught the bug. The scale of my adventures started to grow, and my definition of what is normal changed.”
Just looking at the pictures of her journey and her experiences thus far, I’m a little jealous. I’ve never had the explorer gene in me.
I’m the type of person that is happy staying at home and spending time cuddling under a blanket with my boyfriend and our pets, just crocheting and watching movies. I, of course, love going on hikes in our state parks and going camping occasionally, but home is where I am the happiest.
Preet goes on to share how she joined the Regular Army and talks about going to Nepal, Kenya, and South Sudan on peacekeeping tours with the UN as the task-force physiotherapist.
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She organized a lot of different trainings, all while planning her next adventure. She went on hiking and climbing trips in Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Bolivia, Peru, Iceland, and a couple of other places as well.
She has spent her entire adult life thus far as someone who looks for the next adventure, and her family is in full support of her travels.
Her Instagram updates are pretty cool, too, I have to say.
“Phase 2: day 26. Hi everyone. Another decent day, mainly because I had good visibility,” she wrote in one post.
“The days are busy, it feels so nice to get into the tent at the end of the day. You can’t really switch off. I have to melt snow so I can have my dinner, make my check-in call and all my other tent admin, and then go to sleep before doing it all again tomorrow.”
“I am Punjabi and have a very big family, this is a shout-out to some of the younger members of the family. This post goes out to Ammie, Eisha, and the young ones in New Zealand, Jeevan, Isla, Akash, Lottie, and Paneet.”
That was her update as of December 9th, around 9 am Wisconsin time. It’s so cool how consistent she is with her updates to social media.
She’s not just making sure that people know how she’s doing, which is good to do, but I think it might be a way for her to feel a little human contact while she’s crossing the continent.
One of my main questions about why Preet is choosing to do this extremely cold thing is, why? Why would someone cross the coldest place on Earth by themselves? Well, she goes on to explain it a little bit on her website.
“Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest and windiest continent on Earth,” she said. “Nobody lives there permanently. When I reached the South Pole earlier this year, I said on my blog post, ‘I don’t want to just break the glass ceiling. I want to smash it into a million pieces.’ I was told no on many occasions, called stubborn or rebellious because I wanted to do things that were out of the norm and push my boundaries.”
“I want to encourage others to push their boundaries, it is amazing how much your world opens up when you start to do so. No boundary or barrier is too small, and I want to continue to smash that glass ceiling.”
“I became the first woman of colour to do a solo expedition in Antarctica earlier this year. There are still only a few female adventurers that have completed a solo, unsupported trek in Antarctica. Let’s continue to make history.”
Preet is honestly so inspiring. To push the boundaries of what is expected is an amazing way to show people, young and old, that anything is possible and that once you set your mind to something, anything is possible.
You can check out her website here and her Instagram here.
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