Trekking Solo to the North and South Poles with Preet Chandi

0:01In 2021, adventurer Preet Chandi travelled to Antarctica for the first time. Her goal? To ski to the South Pole. A small plane dropped her off and she was left on the ice alone with a 192-pound sled. I 100 % remember that plane going, just like watching it go off. And then you do a 360 and there's nothing. And it's just, you know, it's this huge white desert you can see for miles ahead. It's amazing. You feel tiny. Very, very tiny. Preet's first expedition to the South Pole kick-started her career as a polar explorer. For many years, she served as a medical officer in the British military. The skills she learned in her work carried over to her adventures on the ice.

0:52At just 37 years old, Preet has already become one of the most accomplished polar explorers of our generation. She's completed three expeditions to Antarctica, and each time she's set a new Guinness World Record. Currently, Preet is training for a groundbreaking trip to the North Pole, which she hopes to set off for this spring.

1:17Preet Chandi, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. Our team is so excited to have you on. I mean, they even said this girl is the definition of badass. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, for people who don't know who you are, just tell us a little bit about how you introduce yourself. That's funny, actually. So I left the British Army about a year ago. And now when people ask me what I do, sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm not like working too much at the moment, but I am. And I guess I'm an adventurer. It's just getting used to saying it. So yes, I'm an adventurer. And I have managed to put my foot into a world that I really didn't know much about when I was younger, which is pretty incredible.

1:58So what made you get interested in this like extreme Arctic adventure? Yeah, so I ran my first half marathon when I was at university and then I decided to do a full marathon. And then I found this ultra marathon and it was 50 miles overnight on Halloween. And I remember having this like big backpack with sandwiches and things. and I walk into, you know, like the check-in room and I felt so unprepared because everyone's got these tiny little backpacks and I quickly like threw some of my sandwiches out, did the event. I was pretty much the last person in. I was sick on route a couple of times, but I just did 50 miles and that feeling, those rewards have never left me.

2:48And I was, I think I was looking for something if I'm honest, but I was looking for something big. I wanted something big that would not just push my own boundaries, but inspire other people to push theirs too. So I was speaking to one of my old bosses one day and he said, what about Antarctica? And I said, not a chance. You know, he's just mentioned a place that I know absolutely nothing about. I like genuinely, other than the fact that it's cold, I don't think I could have told you anything about Antarctica. but it stayed in my mind for about a year just you know at the back of my mind and um I I then entered this other event called Marathon de Sables it's 156 miles in the Sahara Desert and it was labeled like you know one of the toughest races in the world and in my mind for some reason I thought if I can do that if I can do MDS I'm going to go to Antarctica now bear in mind they're both deserts so obviously a very different temperature but both deserts so I Literally went onto Google and typed in, how do you get to Antarctica?

3:54And I found the logistics company, you know, decided that I wanted to do a solo trip and started doing some research and decided that I wanted to be the first woman ever to ski solo and unsupported across the landmass of Antarctica. Because why not dream big, right? And it started from there. I just want to tell you that my team makes so much fun of me because every time we have to record a script with Antarctica, I like cannot say it. It's not an easy word to say. Okay, so what year was it that you decided to actually type into Google, how do you get to Antarctica? End of 2019. It's one thing to decide to go to the South Pole, but you decide to do it and be the first woman to do it unsupported and solo.

4:44Why? I I'm an I'm an ambitious person I am and I wanted to I think I wanted to prove something if I'm honest with you um I have been told a lot that I couldn't do a lot of things you know and I went and did them anyway you know I was told I wasn't smart enough to get into university I actually went and graduated so I think part of it was I wanted to you know push my own boundaries I I want to, you know, inspire people. But I also, I think I had something to prove, if I'm honest. I think I wanted to prove to myself and others that if I can go and do something like this, then anyone can go and do anything.

5:25Okay, so step one was like typing into Google how to do this. Step two, what did that look like? Step two is where can I train? Well, find money and train. So I have put it on my website, on social media that, you know, I want to be the first female to do a solo unsupported land crossing in Antarctica. And then I need to train. So I was sent these training courses and it was called a polar expedition training course in Norway, which is perfect. I took two weeks of annual leave from work. I borrowed a load of kit from anybody I could. So I went on this course and I thought, great, this is a really good baseline for me, you know, because I wanted to learn like what kind of clothing do you wear, like putting a tent up in the snow, being able to navigate in the snow.

6:18Before Preet could trek across Antarctica, the logistics company she hired needed proof that she was ready for the expedition. In order to build experience, she signed up to cross Greenland. Preet hired a guide and spent her life savings to make this trip happen. Ultimately, due to bad weather, she and her guide failed to complete the crossing. Preet returned to the UK defeated, massively in debt, and feeling like her dream might never become a reality.

6:50I can't imagine spending my life savings and then failing. That would be absolutely brutal. I'm curious, how much did that trip to Greenland cost? Would you mind being transparent about that? Because I think people are clueless. So no, no, of course not. Yeah. So overall, this trip, well, not the extraction. So it was about 15 ,000 pounds that I had to pay. And then we got stuck on the ice and then had to be extracted by helicopter. And I didn't realize that I had to then pay that extraction cost. and it just honestly it got worse and worse so I get back get back to the UK and I remember feeling quite empty if I'm honest with you and I was actually supposed to do the London marathon virtually the next day and I remember my partner saying to me you know you don't have to do it and and I actually did the next day and I did it like you know walking slash hobbling slash very slowly jogging it took like over seven hours and I think the reason that I did it is I wanted to show myself when I was feeling like this could I give more and the answer was yes because I wasn't feeling good I was feeling like I didn't have much left in me but I could give more and and that it helped a little bit if I'm honest with you it took me um also after that so this is August 2020 it took me over a year to pay off um the helicopter cost um the extraction cost so I just really appreciate you speaking about the money part because I think people have no idea how much this kind of stuff costs like we know that Everest is absurdly expensive but it's often like rich guys that are doing it but if you're someone like you know you or I that has like a regular job or you were just in the army and you're just making kind of regular pay it's really expensive and then there are these unexpected costs of extraction and emergency I've been on a surf trip where someone had to get extracted and it was so expensive it was a lot of money and it really hurt and that wasn't something I even told you know family or friends really at the time because I didn't want I didn't really want anyone to be say well why did you even you know what I mean like what a silly idea but I would say looking back those lows and those failures taught me quite a lot about myself and they helped me, I think more than actually any of my successes did.

9:16Once she returned from the Greenland expedition, Preet applied to make a thousand mile land crossing of Antarctica. But the logistics company rejected it, saying she still didn't have enough experience. So she settled for a slightly shorter trip, a 700 mile trek to the South Pole. After more than a year of preparation and fundraising, Preet flew to Chile and then to a base camp in Antarctica. On November 7th, 2021, she took a small plane to the edge of the landmass and set off on her first solo Antarctic expedition.

9:53What was it like, like the very first day, just hearing all that silence, I'm guessing? yes I 100 % remember that plane going just like watching it go off and then you do a 360 and there's nothing I remember the first five or six days I had I had decent weather and that helps because it's it's stunning it really is beautiful and and it's funny because before that the longest I've ever been alone was probably less than 48 hours so this is already the longest time I've ever been just alone but you know I've got good weather so it's calm it's not too windy the sun was out and I remember thinking oh this is you know this is pretty amazing and then after about five days the weather turns and I think when anything gets physically harder it gets mentally harder as well and then all of a sudden it's you know it's a bit more of a struggle and you're having a little bit of a mental battle as well as physical because yes you're dragging a sled and it's hard but mentally it's just something else you know there's there's nothing really on the horizon so it's not like you you're climbing up a mountain and you're like oh that's my summit or you can see a point where you're like I'm going to go to that point because often it just looks the same do you have any really memorable days either beautiful or awe-evoking or just terrible that you could share on that first journey?

11:22Yes, yeah, I do. So I am a couple of days away from the pole and I wasn't very sensible with my hours. You know, I wasn't that far away from something called the female speed record. And that wasn't a goal of mine at the start of this trip. But because I was close, I started pushing it a little bit more and more. And then I get to this day. And I see this sun has like this halo effect, which is beautiful. And I see people coming out of the sun. And I thought, nobody told me that this happens. And I thought it's an effect of the sun, right? Like this is something that happens. And for some reason, for me, it looked like it was old school.

12:08Maybe they were on like in Victorian dress. And I remember sticking my pole out to see if anybody would grab it and they didn't. and then suddenly there was this little old lady and this dog with me and they kept trying to get me to climb up this mountain and no matter what we did I just couldn't get to the top and eventually I thought to myself I must be dreaming and I just can't wake up and I remember like tapping myself and saying it's not me I'm not the problem and eventually I put the tent up and I got my satellite iPhone out and I called my partner and I called the logistics company. And that day I'd done like 18 hours.

12:54I'd hardly moved. I think I was going backwards on myself and I don't know, doing loops. And basically I was so sleep deprived, I started hallucinating. And then the next day, so I then slept and the next day I was going into the pole and I couldn't ski for probably 10 minutes without having to have a break and I felt like I just used everything I had and I was really annoyed at myself then because I'd pushed myself so hard that I didn't have anything left and yeah eventually I get to the South Pole but that last day was a really really long day but I always remember just seeing people come out of the sun and thinking oh nobody told me this happens thinking that, you know, this is what everybody sees and it's an effect of the sun and I'm not hallucinating.

13:47Wow, that's kind of scary. I'm glad you were able to sleep. What were some of the most stunning moments that really made you excited to actually keep going? When I started that trip, it was just unbelievable. Like I've never seen anything like it. You know, it's just like I said when the sun is out it's just it's beautiful and in the morning one of the first things I do when I wake up is just quickly open up the zipper of the tent to see what it looks like outside and it's like I said you just you feel tiny in this huge huge vast place where you cannot see anybody at all it's really incredible

14:38In December of 2021, Preet Chondi became the first woman of color to complete a solo, unsupported expedition to the South Pole. After 40 days, 7 hours, and 3 minutes alone on the ice, she was exhausted and hungry. But she also felt empowered, and she wondered what else was possible.

14:59Did you feel like a badass once you'd done it? you're like okay I just did this thing I think it took me a while to feel that way because you you get in and I think my first trip one person met me at the end uh who worked for the company who has the role of South Pole manager which is a pretty cool title to have and and don't get me wrong it's amazing right but there's also a tiny bit of an anti-climax so I remember feeling more emotional the day before thinking about it like thinking about what that moment means as a British Punjabi woman as a British Indian woman as somebody who who didn't know anything about this didn't believe in herself all of those things that that was emotional and then when I got there and it would have been about half two half three in the morning 24 hours of daylight so it's still light um I think I was like okay cool you know so so you get there I touched the pole I stood around I had some photos uh and then I went back to the the the camp the smaller camp where uh I had some hot food and I I was definitely on send like I'm talking loads and then um I I stayed up until probably like half five half six and then went to sleep in the tent and then would have got up for breakfast and I remember getting a message on my in-reach device from my partner on the 5th of January telling me that I was on the front page of the times and I was like whoa and then I flew from there to the to the main camp and my partner said you know people want to do some interviews and I ended up doing like 10 interviews a day and I remember saying to him that you need to give me like some time off because I need I want to sit down and chill out and have lunch and dinner and stuff and then after the week I flew back into Punta Arena Chile and I remember getting internet for the first time as well and that was overwhelming um having internet and you know getting sucked into like scrolling and social media and things again um and then coming back home um and actually in debt as well so in debt and then coming back home I was doing a lot of interviews and then the army had organized for me to do four months of school talks in the UK and I was doing four or five talks a day in different regions of the UK and don't get me wrong I love talking to young people but I remember thinking there's something wrong with me and I didn't know what it was and I think the combination of being in debt from the trip and just not having a, I felt like a minute to breathe.

17:42I was really struggling.

17:48Re-entering society after 40 days alone on the ice was a shock to Preet's system. The interviews and speaking engagements were constant. Beyond the public excitement, she also had to return to her full-time job on top of trying to recover physically and manage the financial strain of the expedition. But there were some bright moments during this time. The British military gave Preet a medal for her expedition, and she married her longtime partner. Over time, she stabilized financially, and once again felt the pull of the ice. For her second expedition, Preet set an even more ambitious goal, to become the first woman to complete a solo, unsupported land crossing of the continent, trekking from one coast of Antarctica to the other, passing the South Pole along the way.

18:39Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan.

18:47So that second trip, you do it in 2022? Second trip is 2022, yes. And was that any different? That was a nightmare. So this trip, this is the one I've been planning, right? I know. So this is the crossing. So this is the one from the beginning that I wanted to do. So the solo unsupported crossing of a landmass. And I thought, you're in a good position here. I've been to Antarctica. I've done 700 mile solo. And, you know, and I hadn't picked the biggest trip ever. I'd picked something that I thought was achievable, that I thought, you know, I could achieve. and I had off the back of the first trip there was a reasonable amount of media for this trip I would say and then I managed to get enough sponsorship to to do the trip and this logistics company it works for the summer season so that's November to January so I was very keen to get started because I didn't have that much time to do the trip we get to Antarctica again I've been there before had a quick turnaround because I wanted to get started they dropped me at my start point and my fuel had leaked and I remember thinking like what are you doing um so you know I quickly emptied that bag and what I should have done is then put my tent up just sorted my life out started the next day but I didn't and I think the reason I didn't is I was terrified of failing on this trip I was like no you have to start you do not have much time so I started um this trip from the get-go not like the first trip which you know I had good weather at the start I had some rough weather at the start of this trip but I again I know I know better I'm a physiotherapist I know that you know I should have a certain amount of sleep and I I know that I can't push so hard at the start of these trips because it's too much it'll exhaust you uh but that's exactly what I did.

20:48I was skiing 13 hours, sleeping five hours, skiing 12 hours, sleeping three hours, like it was so silly. And I actually injured my neck a couple of days in because I was pushing through some pretty rough weather, winds were at me and it was a strain, so like a musculoskeletal strain. And, you know, one thing that would probably help something like that is to rest. and obviously I can't rest because I don't only have so much time so I didn't rest and that neck pain became quite a problem so I started taking I only take so much pain relief but I started taking the pain relief early on in the trip so then I had to start rationing my pain relief again not an issue I thought I'd have a couple of weeks in I then notice a like a bruise on my left cough and I started to get an injury called polar thigh um so the cold and the wind has got through my layers and started to break down my skin uh so then I had to manage that as well so I still have the the scar on my leg and um I'm I'm not hitting the mileage on this trip at all and you know I said to myself eventually I'd get back into the routine of doing like 12 hours and eight hours asleep but I never did um it took me how many days I think was it 50 about over 50 days to get to the south pole which is when I then take the turn that I didn't take the year before to keep going and I'm not in a good way like I started doing 24 hours of skiing a day I would ski for 24 hours then I'd sleep 24 hours um my neck was so bad that I was having to use my ski poles to physically lift it up and it just got worse and worse like the whole trip I have this voice in my head telling me that I'm failing and terrified of what other people are saying and then the mistakes were unreal like my stove was running so low but I was so exhausted I just didn't fix it like I didn't take it apart put it back together um the last like 12 hours I was looking for my she-wee to go for a wee and obviously it's so much easier to stand and go for a wee and I just couldn't find it in the same zip pocket where it always is um and eventually I had to unzip and squat which was so much harder and I remember looking for it when I'd finished and it was there in the same pocket it always is I mean there were so many things um I just you know I I had this message inside my tent saying remember to enjoy it and I can tell you right now I did not enjoy any of those 70 days it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and it was hard from the start and it just got worse every single day of it and then about a week before the end they call me on the sat phone and they said to me that obviously they're watching you know my pace and where I am um that I'm not going to make the end so they will get the plane to a point where they think I can make.

23:55But I was broken at the end of that trip and probably for a little while afterwards.

24:05On that expedition, Preet lost 45 pounds over 70 days. Although she didn't complete her original goal of crossing the continent, she still set a world record for the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski expedition. The achievement brought a wave of positive press, but one article cut through all the praise. A journalist dismissed her as arrogant and obsessed with chasing records. The words landed harder than she expected. She left her Guinness plaques boxed up for months, unable to look at them. Eventually, Preet underwent surgery for her leg injury, and she took medical leave, an unexpected pause that became a welcome reset.

24:49She told herself she wouldn't return to Antarctica the following season. But her resolve didn't last long. Just a few months later, she set her sights on the record for being the fastest woman to ski to the South Pole. I remember thinking to myself, I wonder if I could get the speed record. I decided to take a career break from the army which I applied for so I'm on a sabbatical um I didn't tell many people my social media just went quiet and uh and I went and I got the speed record and um and I think the thing that I was so I got it in uh 31 days so I beat it by over a day and the thing that I was really proud of is I did it in the same year so I finished my trip that I failed on the 23rd of January 2023 and I got the record the speed record on the 28th of December 2023 and I stood there at the South Pole knowing I got the record with you know one or two people knowing like not many people knowing it's not in the world and it was beautiful it really was and and I think the only reason I got that was because of the failure of my second trip

26:08after breaking the speed record pree came up with a new wild idea which he's preparing for right now this spring pree will attempt to become the first woman to trek solo from canada to the north pole okay so now you've done these amazing things you have these records now you decide you want to go to the North Pole, which is your next big wild ideas. You've already done these wild ideas. You've crushed it. Like you don't have to do anything else in your life. You're amazing. Why do you want to go to the North Pole? And, and just for those of us who don't know, you know, the landscape of the North Pole versus Antarctica and the South Pole, tell me a little bit about the difference and why you want to do this.

26:55Yeah, of course. So I didn't really know the difference. I thought, oh, I've been to South by, I wonder if I could go to the North Pole, thinking they might be quite similar, but actually quite different. So Antarctica's on land. The North Pole is in the middle of the sea, the geographic North Pole. So it's shifting, it's moving. And when I do my expedition, I will be on sea ice. Now, my aim is to start from Canada and the sea ice has basically been shifting that way. So the first hundred or so miles, I'll be climbing over big blocks of ice with my two sleds. So I'll have one sled go back to the other one.

27:35It will be about 130 kilos in total. And once I'm past those sections, they will literally be sections of open water where I have to put on an immersion suit, get into the water, swim across to the other side, get out using ice picks and then drag my sleds, which float after me. On top of that, I have to carry a firearm because there are polar bears. And this is just, you know, I started looking into it. I was like, whoa, it is. Antarctica seems like a walk in the park in comparison. It's unbelievable. Nobody's done a solo trip for 10 years. Like the logistics are insanely complicated. It's really hard for me to try to find someone even to drop me off at the start line.

28:16Never mind someone to be able to get me, you know, however far I make it. no female has ever done it solo so if I am successful I'd be the first woman in history to ski solo to the north and south poles now I do want to say that there's probably a five percent chance of me actually making it like this trip is it's so so challenging not just physically mentally all of that even just getting to the start line and it's way more expensive than my Antarctic trip and this is everybody I've spoken to has told me that there's nowhere else in the world that compares to the start of that trip I've been told the first two weeks of that trip is harder than anything I think I'll ever face in my life if I'm honest with you but you cannot fail unless you try you're the most badass person I've ever interviewed can you explain to me what it's like when you fall in the water and then you try to get back out yeah so I have an immersion suit which is buoyant um so the aim is i'll go in and you know and i won't be getting cold the water won't be getting through but before like it's never going to be the same so before i get into the water i have to look to make sure one i can see an exit and make sure i'm confident i can get out if i um look at a bit of water and it looks like i can't get out the other side i do not get into the water and what I probably will do is travel east and west to see if I can find a better crossing or the other thing I can do is camp my tent overnight um on the edge and hope it changes in the morning because you have to remember I'm on sea ice so it's shifting it's moving it's changing um every day so so and also it's not going to be just water there could be blocks of ice in my way So it's not as simple as, oh, I'll just swim across.

30:08Preet, you are an incredible woman. So when are you planning to start this expedition? Early March, touching all the words that I get enough funding to start. And yeah, like I said, logistics is complicated. So really, I'm really working hard on trying to get somebody to agree to drop me off at the start point. But you know what? Won't give up. So hopefully we'll get there.

30:35Preeti's hoping to depart for the North Pole this March. She's currently raising funds for her trip. You can find the link to her GoFundMe on her Instagram profile, PolarPreet. That's P-O-L-A-R-P-R-E-E-T. You can also connect with her there and keep up with her latest adventures.

30:56Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce-Knitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mosla and Joe Crosby. Thanks again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.