A few speed record attempts have passed the halfway point and are on track to succeed. Other skiers on the Hercules Inlet, Messner Start, and Berkner Island routes are increasing their daily distance — but the holiday week has them daydreaming of better food. The Constellation Inlet to Mt. Vinson Summit expedition has begun.
Crossings
American Ashkay Nanavati hasn’t posted an audio message since ExplorersWeb’s last update a week ago. The skier is attempting a 2,736km full crossing of the Antarctic continent and is now 47 days and 699km deep into the solo, unsupported effort. In our last update, we mentioned that Nanavati had increased his daily average to 14.5km, a trend he needed to continue for his expedition to succeed.
Nanavati has done just that in the last week, edging his average daily distance up to 14.9km. Nanavati will cross the 84th parallel this week.
Nanavati’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
South Korean Youngmi Kim is nearing the South Pole and resupply on her supported inland crossing. Fresh supplies will make the sled heavy again at first, but skiing downhill away from the Pole is easier than skiing uphill toward it.
Kim’s updates have been workmanlike in the last week — chronicles of hauling, sleeping, and eating. Relative inexperience led to equipment issues early in her journey, but she seems to have settled in at this point. She’s covered 1,098km in 49 days so far.
Youngmi Kim’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Hercules Inlet to the South Pole
At the end of day 12, Norwegian Arne-Kristian (AK) Teigland remains slightly ahead of Frenchman Vincent Colliard’s speed record from last season. Teigland is attempting to ski the 1,130km Hercules Inlet to South Pole route in under 22 days, 6 hours, and 8 minutes. He has to average a formidable 54km per day.
Last week, Tiegland’s tracker didn’t show the total distance traveled, but now it does. He’s averaging 47.6km per day. Colliard picked up the pace as he approached the South Pole, and Tiegland will need to do the same.
Teigland reported headwinds in a recent update but also noted a recent flattening of the terrain as “delicious.”
Teigland’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Norwegian Kristin Harila is also obviously going for a record, in her case, Preet Chandi’s 31-day, 13-hour, 19-minute effort from last year. Harila needs to average 36km/day to do it. Her total distance traveled has also reappeared on her tracking map, meaning we now have a better idea of how she’s doing. She’s exactly on pace — averaging just over 36km/day. Seventeen days and 618km in, she’s over the halfway point.
Harila’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Back pain slowed Harila down in the first week and a half. On December 25, she made her first update in five days and didn’t mention any pain but noted she’d skied over 45km per day during that period. Maybe the injury has finally cleared up?
Hege Victoria, also from Norway and also going for the women’s speed record, is keeping her distances more tightly under wraps, which is not unusual for a record attempt. Her last update was five days ago, at the end of day nine.
“Have been two pretty demanding days with whiteout, I don’t see the difference between ground and sky, I walk completely blind, and with lots of sastrugi,” she reported. “A few miles behind Preet, but there’s a long way to go. This is only camp 9, so hoping for blue skies and sunshine so I can see where I’m going.”
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Satish Gogineni continues to pick up his pace, taking advantage of clear weather and a windless day to put in 29km on day 33, his best effort so far. Also settling in and finding his glide, Gogineni said he “didn’t even push it” to log the kilometers.
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Danish skier Rasmus Kragh has continued to increase his speed and is now averaging just under 18km per day. At the end of day 35, he’d covered 627km. In his recent posts, the skier has obsessed over food and noted his increasing difficulty with self-discipline around his supplies.
Kragh’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Catherine Buford of the UK is halfway between the 85th and 86th parallels at the end of day 35. She’s skied 635km so far, averaging 18km per day, also an increase. Like almost every other skier this week, Buford mentioned daydreaming about Christmas food as the holiday rolled around.
“I’m having to distract myself about that,” she said, sounding (understandably) a tad morose in her audio update.
Buford’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
With youth and plenty of skiing experience on her side, Norwegian Karen Kylleso has increased her daily average from 18km to 19.5km over the last week. She’ll cross the 86th parallel today and has skied 681km so far. Her text updates almost always just say, “Had a nice day on the trip,” then end with a smiley face.
Kylleso’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Messner Start to South Pole
Ali Riza Bilal of Turkey had equipment difficulties during the first half of his expedition, but that was finally solved a week and a half ago when Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions left him a replacement ski binding at a fuel depot. But the binding issues slowed him down, and his daily average for the 911km Messner Start to South Pole journey is hovering at 17.5km as of day 35. He also has some nagging ankle pain left over from the malfunction.
Still, since fixing his equipment, he’s picked up his pace, consistently hitting 20km+ in the last week.
Bilal’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Englishman John Huntington has increased his daily average to 18.5km and is now 650km into the route.
“For the first day of Christmas…loads of hills and sastrugi,” the skier noted wryly on December 25. Those are two things Ali Riza Bilal also commented on in his updates. The two skiers are in roughly similar locations, so that tracks.
Huntington’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Berkner Island to South Pole
English skier Frederick Fennessy is 959km into his 1,400km Berkner Island to South Pole journey, well over the halfway mark. A consistent skier, Fennessy never logs a day below 20km and has inched his average up to 23km per day.
Fennessy is a week into a “relentless” sastrugi field. “Every time I see it thinning out, it just comes back with a vengeance,” he noted.
Fennessy’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
Constellation Inlet to Mt. Vinson Summit
James McAlloon and Robert Smith’s Constellation Inlet to Mt. Vinson summit expedition has begun. The journey is a hybrid effort, combining a 400km ski to the base of Vinson with a climb to the top of the mountain. McAloon and Smith expect the ski portion to take 20 days, with the 4,892m ascent of vision comprising five to 10 days.
The skiers reported mild weather and no wind in the early days of the expedition but haven’t updated in five days. As of day six, they’d covered 143km, so an average of 24km per day.
Mcalloon’s tracker. Photo: Screenshot
