Every Step - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 7

This wasn't a recent idea; the concept had been in my head
so long that I couldn't remember exactly where it had first
come from.
During the previous thirty-eight days the team had travelled
in single file, taking turns to navigate from the front of the
line. When it was my turn to lead I'd often pretended that the
women behind me had disappeared and that I was out there
alone. I'd look around at the white expanse and try to imagine
what it would feel like to have that empty landscape to myself,
to have no voices around me, no sense of movement apart
from my own.
The notion of being alone in Antarctica both thrilled and
appalled me. Back at home in the UK I would sometimes
dream about it and wake up in my bed shaking with terror at
the thought. Even as I reassured myself that it wasn't real and
as the relief calmed my fast-beating heart, a part of me knew
with some dread that this idea wasn't going away. Now that
the proposition of crossing Antarctica by myself had taken
hold, my choices were to see it through or to live with regret
for the rest of my life. It was bizarre how a plan that caused
me so much fear could become such an unshakeable ambition.
My instinctive response was to shrink away from the idea and
yet I wanted to make this journey with every fibre of my being.
I examined my own motives to try and understand why
this journey more than any other had captivated me. Past
expeditions had pushed me in a variety of ways: physically,
emotionally, as a person and as a leader; but, to date, I didn't
feel that I had found my limits. I knew I still had more to
give and it seemed that going alone was an obvious way to
challenge myself more than I ever had before. There was
something about the completeness of crossing the continent,