The Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition was a Commonwealth of Nations expedition in which seven women from six Commonwealth member countries skied to the South Pole in 2009 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth. [1] [2] They had been selected among over 800 candidates. [3]
It took the expedition 38 days to reach the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, skiing six to ten hours a day, covering an average of 24 km a day. In total, they covered 904 km. They reached their destination on December 29. [4] [5]
The team took a day off on Christmas Day. Team leader Felicity Aston, of the United Kingdom, explained: "Half of the team don’t usually celebrate Christmas so the others are having great fun teaching them Christmas songs and explaining why they have to hang their smelly socks outside the tent on Christmas Eve". [6]
The expedition marked several firsts. Era Al-Sufri, Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, Sophia Pang, Stephanie Solomonides and Kylie Wakelin were, respectively, the first Bruneian woman, the first Indian woman, the first Singaporean woman, the first Cypriot and the first New Zealand woman to ski to the South Pole. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
United Kingdom - Felicity Aston (expedition leader) [13] [14] 
Brunei - Era Al-Sufri 
India - Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu 
Singapore - Sophia Pang 
Cyprus - Stephanie Solomonides United Kingdom - Helen Turton (replaced Barbara Yanney)
New Zealand - Kylie Wakelin 
Ann Bancroft is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to finish a number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.
Børge Ousland is a Norwegian polar explorer. He was the first person to cross Antarctica solo.
Richard Weber, is a Canadian Arctic and polar adventurer. From 1978 to 2006, he organized and led more than 45 Arctic expeditions. Richard is the only person to have completed six full North Pole expeditions.
Liv Ragnheim Arnesen is a Norwegian educator, cross-country skier, adventurer, guide, and motivational speaker. Arnesen led the first unsupported women’s crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992. In 1994, she made international headlines becoming the first woman in the world to ski solo and unsupported to the South pole. – a 50-day expedition of 745 miles (1,200 km).
Hannah McKeand is an English polar explorer. In 2006 she set the record for the fastest journey to the South Pole a 600-nautical-mile (1,100 km) journey she completed solo and in just 39 days, 9 hours and 33 minutes. The record was broken in 2008 by Todd Carmichael of Spokane, Washington, United States. In March 2008 she attempted to reach the North Pole alone and unsupported but had to abandon the trip after falling through the ice and badly damaging her shoulder and back. McKeand is a public speaker and polar consultant.
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Earth from the North Pole, at a distance of 12,430 miles in all directions. It is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface.
Thomas Avery, FRGS is a British explorer, author and motivational speaker. He made record-breaking journeys to the South Pole in 2002 and to the North Pole in 2005. He is one of fewer than ten people throughout history to have completed the Polar Trilogy; full length expeditions to the South Pole and North Pole and a coast to coast crossing of Greenland. Avery and his teammates hold two Guinness World Records; the fastest surface journey to the North Pole and the fastest coast-to-coast crossing of Greenland. He is also the youngest Briton to have reached both the North and South Poles on foot.
Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu is the first Indian woman to ski from coast of Antarctica to South Pole covering a distance of 900 kilometers.
Najibah Eradah, also known as Brunei’s Polar Girl, is a teacher and environmentalist, who is the first Bruneian to have reached the South Pole.
Felicity Ann Dawn Aston is a British explorer, author and former climate scientist.
Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu is an Indian mountaineer who has climbed Mount Everest seven times.
Linda Beilharz, OAM, is an Australian adventurer who is the first Australian woman to successfully trek the South and North poles. She completed the North Pole expedition with her husband Rob Rigato and Canadian explorer Sarah McNair-Landry in April 2010. while the South Pole trek was completed in December 2004, she became the first Australian woman to ski 1,100 km from the edge of the Antarctic to the South Pole. Beilharz and Rigato have also completed a 35-day crossing across the Greenland Icecap in April 2007, and the South Patagonia icecap in 2012, after an earlier unsuccessful attempt in 2009. New Zealander, Kerryn Wratt was the third member of the successful 2012 crossing.
This is a Timeline ofwomen in Antarctica. This article describes many of the firsts and accomplishments that women from various countries have accomplished in different fields of endeavor on the continent of Antarctica.
Jade Hameister is an Australian woman who, at age 16, became the youngest person in history to pull off the "polar hat-trick", ski to the North and South Poles, and cross the second largest polar icecap on the planet: Greenland. Hameister travelled over 1,300 km on these three missions, which totalled almost four months on ice.
Sophia Pang is a Singaporean adventurer. She is the first woman from Singapore to reach the South Pole.
Harpreet Kaur Chandi is a British physiotherapist and British Army medical officer who completed a solo expedition across Antarctica to the South Pole, finishing on 3 January 2022. In January 2023, she recorded the longest ever solo and unsupported polar expedition.
Stephanie Solomonides is an explorer, who is the first person from Cyprus to reach both the North and the South Poles. She became the first Cypriot to reach the South Pole on 29 December 2009 as part of the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition. She, like the seven women who were with her, was chosen from among 800 candidates from the member states of the Commonwealth of Nations.
