NATALIE PREPARES FOR ANTARCTIC WORLD FIRST
WHEN Army doctor Major Natalie Taylor was 19 she fulfilled her long-held ambition to complete a mara- thon.
Now she is set to take on a challenge of a different scale – by preparing to join the first all-female team to ski across Antarctica.
If they make it the achievement will be a world first.
“We’ll be the first military female expedition and the first female expedition to use muscle power alone,” the 32-year-old said.
“There has been a female team before which used kites as well but we are not using those.
“We are training hard and doing lots of weights and other training.”
More than 200 women applied for places on the team, which has been narrowed down to just five.
“We have got six months now,” the GP said. “We have got to fatten up before we can go.”
That is because they will be consuming 5,000 calories a day but burning 6,000 on the 1,700km journey.
“I’m one of the expedition leaders,” Major Taylor said. “My colleague Nic Wetherill came up with the idea when she was inspired by a talk she heard.”
With just two fresh supply points en route the group will carry enough to survive for 600km at a time.
“I’m very excited now – we have done two years of training,” Major Taylor said. “We have done a lot in Norway in the cold and we are definitely ready.”
The mission, called Antarctica Ice Maiden, will begin at the base of the Leverett Glacier at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf and from there they will travel 500km to the South Pole.
After getting supplies they will head to the Thiel Mountains. The final 1,700km leg will see them head to Hercules Inlet, where they will descend to the Ronne Ice Shelf.
A major concern is frostbite. “We’ll be using the buddy-buddy system, looking at each other’s faces,” Major Taylor, who lives in Chepstow, said.
“We’ll be doing that to make sure we have not got skin exposed.” But that’s not their only worry. “There are risks from crevasses and big holes in the ground,” Major Taylor said. “We’ll have good mapping and we’ll be avoiding them.
“There are risks like falling over and breaking a bone and there is also the risk of medical injury – someone might get dehydrated or get a chest infection.
“I’m a GP so it is about identifying things early. We’ll carry a medical kit.
“If something turns out to be just a matter of needing rest we’ll just have to stop and have a day in the tents.”
The adventure will start when they fly to Chile in October.
“We have done everything we can but you cannot eliminate all risk,” Major Taylor said.
“We have had really good training in Norway, the team did amazingly, and it proved to us that we are ready for this physically and mentally.”
Major Taylor has already planned the “long shower” she will have on her return.
“This is definitely a challenge on a different scale.”
She said her family have been “really understanding” about her expedition.
A lot of her time at home has involved trudging around country lanes dragging a tyre.
“I’m deploying to Afghanistan in a couple of weeks,” Major Taylor said. “There is already a tyre out there waiting for me.”