A British Sikh Army officer and physiotherapist has set a brand new international report for the longest solo, unsupported, and unassisted polar excursion via way of means of a female. Captain Harpreet Chandi, called Polar Preet having already finished a hiking undertaking to turn out to be the primary Indian-beginning female to set the report of a solo unsupported trek to the South Pole, travelled 1,397 km throughout Antarctica in temperatures as bloodless as minus 50 tiers Celsius. The preceding report become 1,381 km, set via way of means of Anja Blacha in 2020.
“It become very bloodless and windy however I saved my breaks very brief so I did not get too bloodless,” Chandi wrote on Thursday in a weblog she has been preserving at the same time as on her new polar excursion.
“I did not allow myself forestall in advance aleven though due to the fact I desired to get the miles in,” she said.However, Chandi is dissatisfied that she does now no longer have sufficient to fulfill her unique purpose of turning into the primary female to move Antarctica solo and unsupported.
“I’m quite gutted that I do not have the time to finish the crossing. I understand that I actually have performed a massive journey, it is simply tough at the same time as I’m at the ice and I understand it is now no longer that some distance away,” she said.
The 33-12 months-antique from Derby in jap England, operating at a local rehabilitation unit in Buckinghamshire, has been pulling a sledge with all her package and struggling with underneath freezing temperatures on her new journey given that November 2022.
The University of Derbyshire, which conferred her with an honorary degree, congratulated the trekker for breaking the “report for the longest solo, unsupported, and unassisted polar excursion via way of means of any female in history”.
It become round 3 years in the past while she become gaining knowledge of approximately Antarctica that she determined she desired to do a crossing of the continent.
But she did now no longer installed her software into the Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE), which handles the permissions for such expeditions, at once due to the fact she desired to accumulate a few experience.
Her software become finished early final 12 months and it’s been all approximately getting ready for her new aim after finishing Phase 1 together along with her South Pole excursion in 2021. On her cutting-edge mission, she has been taking note of voice notes to preserve her motivated.
“I listened to youth reminiscences from my brothers, my mum telling me how excited she become approximately having a child lady and the way the midwife commented that she had in no way visible an Asian female so enthusiastic about having a lady. And sooner or later listening to my niece say it is the maximum remarkable factor she has visible everyone do in her complete existence and it is even extra remarkable due to the fact it is her phuwa (auntie) doing it. It’s so treasured to hear,” she writes on her weblog this week.
Chandi has usually been eager to push the human frame to its limits and sees her adventures as a part of this wider mission. As an “staying power athlete”, she has run marathons and ultra-marathons and, as a British Army officer, finished massive scale sporting activities and deployments in Nepal, Kenya and a United Nations peacekeeping excursion of South Sudan.