Ice Warrior
Firstly, Pauline wants to extend to ALL her sponsors, a very heart-felt thanks for their extremely generous donations and faith they have shown.
For a while now we have been following New Business Manager Pauline Southam’s journey as she prepared for her High Arctic Experience. The physical and mental groundwork has been spread over months and months. And even the name of the challenge has changed!!
Pauline originally started this journey shortly after her 50th birthday. “Do you have what it takes? Do you want to achieve something extraordinary?” is the slogan from an Ice Warrior flyer which Pauline received in a goodie bag from a Sparks event.
Not one to say no to a challenge, Pauline set out to apply and prepare for the selection weekend which was only 2 weeks away! The selection weekend was all very secretive. Exhilaratingly tiring and not to mention extremely tough the weekend was a great success and Pauline passed the selection process.
It didn’t stop there things were going to get tougher!
In September 2008 Pauline and the then All Female Team headed to Wales. Here they gained the knowledge of rope work, bouldering and mountaineering, together with navigation and camp craft.
Pauline has even found herself training at West Ham United Football club and she even spent the day with the Wasps Rugby Club pulling tyres, the boys didn’t know what had hit them!
If training with some of England’s finest sportsmen wasn’t enough Pauline then headed to Geilo, 800 meters above sea level and half way between Oslo and Bergen. With temperatures between +5 and -20 degrees Celsius this would be the biggest test so far for Pauline. The “cold weather training” ranged from exercises such as submersion into streams – to get the experience the feeling of how it feels if the ice breaks away! - And staying outside in only base layers!
Not for the faint hearted or those who prefer tropical weather!
A lot has challenged Pauline not only the tough physical challenges but for a moment the trek looked unlikely to happen. The original team that was the first All Female Team to trek to the Geomagnetic North Pole had changed status and Pauline then became part of a natural science team that was heading to High Arctic Canada for counting and monitoring of Polar Bears, for the Nordic Polar Institution and to help with scientific research.
The training was still intense for this as the conditions were exactly the same. Although Pauline had hoped to be part of the First all Female team to trek to the Geomagnetic North Pole, this new challenge was just as big an ambition and being able to help with scientific research was fulfilling for Pauline.
The expedition team left Heathrow for their ‘terra firma’ stopover, Resolute Bay, on 8th May – after kit checks and waiting for good weather conditions, they headed out on to the sea ice on Monday 11th May, returning to terra firma on Friday 22nd May. Pauline confirms that they only managed to get on to land to camp for 4 of the 12 nights in the field – the rest she was on sea ice!!!!!
“Either way I was over the moon to be given the chance to trek to the Arctic, not an opportunity many get, it was still hard work and being there to see what I did was a truly memorable and exhausting experience.”
You will appreciate that Pauline is busy catching up on Chainbow work, but just as soon as the photos are available, we will make space on our website and you will all be directed to them in the next newsletter, together with a write-up of the actual trip.
What’s next for Pauline now that the trek is over? She does have something bubbling away…………watch this space.
A presentation of pictures from the treck can be downloaded here
For more information on Ice Warrior please visit http://www.ice-warrior.com/iwaw.htm
