38-year-old Reena Kaushal, is part of an eight woman team attempting to ski to the South Pole to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth grouping of 53 nations.
An enterprising Indian skier, Reena Kaushal today set out from her base camp on Antarctica on an adventure to become the first Indian woman to ski to the South Pole.
38-year-old Kaushal an outdoor instructor from Darjeeling, but settled in Delhi is part of an eight woman team attempting to ski to the South Pole to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth grouping of 53 nations.
Skiing eight to 10 hours a day, Kaushal along with her compatriots from seven other countries expects to cover 800 kms across the frozen southern continent to the pole in about 40 days. Each of the women skier is towing a sledge with food and gear weighing some 80 kgs.
The skiers expect to face blinding blizzards, jet speed winds blowing in excess of 130 kms an hour, hidden crevasses and temperatures that plunged to minus 40 degrees Celsius. According to the team leader
"During their 40-day ordeal the skiers will ski past the polar ice cap's mountain passes and fields, they will experience daylight for 24-hour," said team leader, Briton Felicity Aston.They hope to reach the South Pole by the new year's day on January 1, the date the Commonwealth came into existence in 1950.
Besides India, the expedition comprises women from seven other countries: Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore and Britain. Reena is no no stranger to snows having scaled seven high Himalayan peaks including Nun and Stok Kangri in Ladakh and other peaks in Garhwal Himalayas.
"I want that by my experience more Indian woman would take up careers s in outdoor industry," Reena said. Her husband Luv Raj Singh Dharamshaktu is an Everester.
The team had a champagne beginning with their new tents getting ripped apart in jet speed winds at Patriot Hills base camp in an area of Antarctica overseen by Argentina. Team members don't expect to see their next hot shower until early 2010.
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