Play Book Tag discussion

I am always fascinated by people who want to conquer the Polar regions, so I was anxious to read Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman To Ski Solo Across The Southern Ice.

In 2012, physicist and meteorologist, Felicity Aston, took two months off from all human contact to ski across the entire continent of Antarctica alone. She wanted to become the first woman, and only the third person in history, to accomplish this. Making it more difficult, she wanted to do it strictly by cross country skiing. The only other people to do this were two Norwegian men, each of whom employed either parasails or kites.

Over the course of her 1084 miles of solitude, Aston struggles with hallucinations and debilitating self-doubt as she races against the clock to reach her destination before winter would make her completion impossible. Readers witness months of enduring extreme isolation, gale-force winds in sub-freezing temperatures, and arduous climbing over icy mountains while risking the possibility of falling into a crevass and being lost forever.

This memoir is filled with stories that explain why she wanted to make this journey. Her resilience, her toughness and her willingness to open up about how difficult this journey was made this why I enjoyed this book so much. My only criticism is that, at times, it did start to feel repetitive.

Felicity Ashton does a wonderful job of recounting the beauty of Antarctica, the impact it had on her psyche and the often harrowing experience of being so alone. If you are interested in extreme adventure memoirs, you should read this fascinating book.