After many months of traveling by ski, bike, sail, and swimming, I was finally in South America and started to plan for Antarctica.
I had been through hell with problems all over my back, but every problem had a solution, and I decided that all the problems in the world were not going to stop me.
Somewhere in the northern part of South America, I got reports from BBC, CNN and specialists in polar weather conditions that the biggest crack ever measured had been found in Antarctica (film clip or report). If this was going to block my way, it was not really clear. If there was a way around it, it was not really clear either; people don’t really travel around in the area a lot.
So what if a sailboat lets me and my partner Harald off on the ice and we get stuck? How do we get out? How do we survive? There were a lot of questions but not so many answers. I also got the information that big icebergs were floating around outside Antarctica. One was as large as Berlin, but those are easy to spot. The biggest problems are the small ones that can sink a ship in a minute. The captain I was talking to didn’t want to cross at that time to that area because of safety and insurance problems.
So my only solution was to get a lift with a military plane packed with scientists and then ski 2400 km from the coastline on the other side of Antarctica, in Dronning Maud land, close to the Russian base Novo. Close to departure, my partner Harald broke his shoulder, and I was in the middle of a very difficult situation: Should I stop or continue?
“My dentist is free. He is good at skiing and kite”, Harald said, and a few weeks later, we were in Antarctica, me and Haralds dentist. So there I was. Ready to ski in the worst possible conditions over the most hostile place on Earth with a guy I had just met.
Fortunately, we got along well, and there were no bigger arguments. After only two days on the kite, Knut got a hole in his fuel bottle, lost a week of fuel and destroyed a week of food. It could have happened to anybody, but now it happened to Knut, which affects the situation out on the ice. Since we started to ski at sea level, we had to ski uphill for 17 days until we reached about 3500 meters, where the winds were stronger. Dragging a 120 kilo sled uphill with my wounded knee it was a challenge.
After a few weeks, we got into one of the worst storms I had ever experienced. 40 m/s for 4 days in the tent was scary for both of us. If the tent had broken, we would not have survived, so we had to go out and check the tent frequently. A few weeks later, the kite lifted me up in the air and threw me down on the blue ice. One of my ribs broke, and another one was injured. Kiting became harder and harder since the harness pushed the ribs hard. Knuts’ toes started to freeze, and we had to make more frequent stops.
Mine started as well, and I did not have any feeling in my toes for almost two weeks.
Before starting an expedition, you plan for extra days and bring extra supplies for emergencies. The food that was lost in the beginning was our backup. We only had 10 days of back up, and with the lost fuel and the 4-day storm, there was no more time.
We had to move. The winds dropped and we were running out of time. Knut was faster with his kite since his ribs were ok, and I was faster with the snow sail, so sometimes I took more weight from him so he could keep up with me, and sometimes he had to drag me in my hands so the harness did not press the broken rib. In the last stretch, we had to work as a team to be able to make it to the South Pole in time.
Reaching the South Pole was mind-blowing. We reached the pole on the 18th of January, on the exact day Scott reached the pole 100 years earlier. Funny, since I started on the 6th of April, the same day Robert Peary reached the South Pole.
I believe the biggest exploration we do is within ourselves. Every time we take a risk, every time we dare to do something, we grow as humans and we help the process of evolution take a leap forward.
