Army captain breaks world record with solo polar trek
A BRITISH Army captain has broken the world record for the longest solo and unsupported polar expedition by a woman.
In January, Captain Harpreet Chandi, 33, became the first woman of colour to complete an unsupported trek to the South Pole.
She then decided to make history once more by attempting the Antarctica challenge, crossing from one coast to the other. She has so far travelled 868 miles across Antarctica in temperatures as cold as -50C (-58F).
Felicity Aston, another explorer, completed a solo crossing with resupplies in 2012, but no woman has completed the challenge without resupplies.
Capt Chandi, an army physio from Derby, did not complete her original aim of becoming the first woman to cross Antarctica solo and unsupported.
An Army source said: “She is still going but won’t complete the coast to coast due to bad conditions. She has covered more distance than any woman previously.”
On her website Polar Preet, she wrote that she was “pretty gutted” that she could not complete the crossing.
In January last year, she became the first woman of colour to complete an unsupported trek to the South Pole.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph before she set off, she said: “It’s opened up a lot of different kinds of opportunities and almost a different world really, and I find the more and more that I’ve pushed my boundaries, I’m pushed out of my comfort zone.”
‘I find the more and more that I’ve pushed my boundaries, I’m pushed out of my comfort zone’