A very exciting adventure is afoot — convenient pun! — in Antarctica. It is mid-summer there and, for the first time in history, the icy landscape of the frozen continent is ringing with the laughter of a bunch of women adventurers. A group of seven women is attempting to do what no all-woman team has ever done before — ski the 900-km distance from the edge of the continent to the South Pole.

The seven women are from different nations — the UK, India, Cyprus, Ghana, Singapore, New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam. The team, under the banner of the Kaspersky Commonwealth Expedition, plans to reach the South Pole on New Year’s Day to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth on January 1, 1950. Kaspersky Lab, an information technology firm, has sponsored the expedition.

India is represented by Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, a 39-year-old mountaineer and outdoor activity instructor in India for the National Outdoor Leadership School, US. She has climbed in Alaska and in the Himalayas, including achieving the first ascent of Argan Kangri (6,789 m) in the Karakoram range in Ladakh. She was chosen through an extremely arduous selection process – about 100 Indian applicants were shortlisted to 10 interviewees, from among whom, two were chosen for the final selection camp in Norway. Dharmshaktu was selected over the other candidates and then underwent training in Norway and New Zealand.

Like the representatives from New Zealand and Singapore, Dharmshaktu will be the first woman from her country to ski to the South Pole. Even more awe-inspiring, the representatives from Cyprus, Ghana and Brunei Darussalam will be the first from their nations to attempt it. An eighth member, from Jamaica, was forced to drop out in the early stages of the expedition after suffering frostbite.

The team, which is at the halfway point of its 40-day journey at the time of writing, is relaying news of its progress to families, friends, and supporters through podcasts and tweets. The members are also describing their feelings at the awesome vistas that are opening up before them during this once-in-a-lifetime experience. They are exuberant in their podcasts but, for those of us following the team’s progress, there is much to read between the lines that are indicative of just how hard the going is.

Despite it being the peak of summer, the temperatures are –27 degrees Celsius at times. The team is pulling their rations, tents, portable toilets, medical supplies, communication equipment and other gear on sleds, which weigh over 80 kg. They are covering around 20-25 nautical miles a day, skiing from 9 in the morning to 7 in the evening through Antarctica’s 24-hour daylight season. At the time of writing, they were at an altitude of 4,495 feet.

Living on freeze-dried meals and sleeping four to a tent for such a long period is not easy. Adding to the hardship is loss of appetite and sore feet. The team is resupplying from caches dropped for them at specified locations and their joy over a change of food and underwear when they reach a cache is at once heart-rending and amusing! Through it all, their podcasts are introducing us to a new vocabulary – that of Antarctica, with references to pulks (sleds), sastrugi (waves of snow) and nunataks (exposed sections of rock).