Ice in her veins

When many teenagers aren’t allowed to walk to school, 16-year-old Jade Hameister has become the youngest person to cross the North and South Poles.

Try to imagine a cold so intense that, if you throw a cup of tea in the air, the liquid will have frozen before it hits the ground. A cold so fierce it freezes everything: your sweat, your breath, the cheese and sausages you planned to eat for lunch, your toothpaste and your pigtails.

That was the minus-50-degree cold that 16-year-old Jade Hameister dealt with every day for 37 days as she became the first-ever woman to travel a new route from the coast to the South Pole, unsupported and unassisted. Dressed in six layers of thermals, fleeces, shell and down jackets, she pushed into 40-knot headwinds, lugging a 100kg sled behind her.

Some days progress was snail-like, with Jade zigzagging up walls of snow and ice that staggered even her experienced polar guide, Eric Phillips. She frequently fell and face-planted. Every time she stopped, howling winds left her covered in snowdrift. There was no respite. In the early days, she’d climb into her tent at day’s end, sob her heart out, then get on with the four-hour job of thawing blocks of ice to provide drinking water and attempting to dry her clothes while snowstorms raged outside.

However bad the conditions, though – and Eric said they were the worst he’d ever seen – they had to keep pushing on. Everything was rationed. They had enough fuel and food for 37 days. If they fell behind, they’d run out.

Jade Hameister was 13 when she started dreaming about completing the Polar Trifecta. She went on to ski 11 days through the North Pole in 2016, crossed Greenland over 27 days last year and now has completed the toughest of the three, a previously untried, untested crossing to the South Pole, making her the youngest person ever to complete the Polar Hat Trick. The South Pole, however, tested her in a way the two previous trips didn’t, but in the process taught her to master her mind and dig deep for the positives. When her thoughts drifted home to summer on the beach and the family Christmas she was missing, she reminded herself it was unlikely she’d ever get a more memorable Christmas than the one she spent sitting in a tent on the South Pole, celebrating with Milo and TimTams.

“Struggle is important,” she says. “It’s how we learn and grow. Not enough people accept the pain and struggle they have in their life.”

Such thoughts seem very profound for a teenager. Her dad, Paul, who accompanied her on all the expeditions, thinks it’s a good lesson learned. “I believe people who are good at life are good at managing their way through tough times.

“That’s not the main reason I’ve supported these trips, but it’s a terrific byproduct, although challenging as a parent, because your instinct is to protect them from pain and suffering.” He remembers one particularly difficult day, dragging sleds up a long, steep icy headwall and watching Jade reach the top and triumphantly yell: “Come at me, world!”

He grins. “I thought: ‘Yeah. I’ve done my job as a parent.’”

After achieving such a life-changing goal, she confesses to a sense of grief, a “now-what?” reckoning. But there is plenty to keep her occupied, including a book deal with Pan McMillan and a National Geographic documentary due for release later this year. And it’s head down to finish Year 12.