Shackleton Traverse 22’. Crossing South Georgia.

‘I know,’ said Stephen, ‘let’s take the route that Shackleton should have gone. I’ve not done it but I’m sure it’ll be much easier and even more beautiful.’

And so it was. After two years of waiting because of Covid, we were finally off. Kenneth and Marianna landed us expertly through the surf on King Haakon Bay beach, we loaded up our sledges, stuck skins to our skis and made our way slowly but surely up into the frozen mountains.

The wind was harsh to begin with, but by day two it dropped almost entirely, leaving us with hot sun and cloudless blue skies for the whole of our journey. A journey which took us through the most breathtakingly beautiful scenery. Everywhere we looked there were brown jagged mountains, covered in snow and ice, and glaciers sweeping down to the sea. Blue ice, grey ice, white ice - as the light changed through the day, everything looked different.

Up and up we went, sometimes gradually over a glacial plateau, other times hauling our sledges over seemingly impossibly steep cols. But however hard it was, always Stephen and Skip had a solution, my favourite being an impromptu human funicular to get our sledges up and over the steepest ridge.

And then finally we got to ski down. Over 6km of sparkling snow, at a perfect gradient, all the way down another glacier to Fortuna Bay. Where we camped one last time, and watched penguins trundle back and forth outside our tent. We fell asleep to the sound of snorting elephant seals, and with fur seals for further company.

Whether this was a better route than Shackleton’s, I’ll never know. What I do know is it was absolutely brilliant and we had the most amazing time. We got to Stromness and I didn’t want it to end. I wished we could have turned around and done it all again.

Pictures by Caroline Hamilton

Caroline Hamilton