Antarctic Expedition – Day 11: I wake up under a white blanket! No wind, but tons of snow and almost zero visibility.

In Antarctica you never get out of the tent before the sun hits it. In Camp 1, we’re pretty sheltered, so we don’t exit until about 10am.

At 11:00am, we get the forecast: it’s -40°C 🥶 at the upper camp and -55°C at the top…tomorrow shows strong winds and a huge storm 😱!

Huge storm = winds of 50-60 km/h with peaks at 80 km/h, zero visibility and polar cold. In anticipation, we start building a second wall to double the protection around the tents, and we lengthen these walls to fully surround all the tents.

It’s a titanic job: cutting hundreds of ice blocks, then transporting them and assembling walls. Two of the team went down to get supplies, so in the end there were just three of us on this colossal job.

After 8 hours of non-stop work, we’re still far from the mark despite working at a mad pace to beat the storm!

I realize I don’t have enough electrolytes because I didn’t plan for this long (eek), so I’m going to have to ration myself.

I admit I’m a little scared because our tent suffered a lot the first night and I just discovered that the canvas is torn on the top. Not sure how to fix the thing to make it hold!

As the hours go by, we see the climbers who went up to High Camp yesterday, coming down and continuing towards Base Camp. I meet 2 Canadians who got stuck for 5 days at High Camp, and then tried to climb but the weather was too severe. They came down with frostbite!

We are going to be alone here. So far everyone has returned & descended, except us 5. Still, I love the experience! Of course, this isn’t Club Med or anything 😉 but I admit I love these expeditions, all the unknowns (weather, conditions, challenges, adventures…). I love persevering and pushing beyond my perceived limits: in short, practicing what I preach as a coach is my passion!

I couldn’t help but give you a 5-min workout at Camp 1 😉

And for now, a warm sleep and mental prep for tomorrow…we’re expecting – 37°C!

Your Q&A: “Who do you share your tent with?”

With Vanessa Archontidou, founder of awomancanbe.org and European Climate Pact Ambassador. “I want to raise awareness around global warming because Antarctica is so badly affected and if Antarctica melts we are screwed.”
We share our face & sun cream and our wipes to lighten our bags. You can follow her on her two IG accounts @awomancanbe and @vanessaarchontidou.

Antarctic Expedition – Follow My Trail

As with every expedition, you can follow me via my GPS tracker by clicking on this link: Tracking Valérie.

You can also send me messages from this webpage and kick my ass if I don’t go fast enough! To learn more about my expedition to Antarctica, check out my full blog post: Antarctica Expedition: My craziest adventure to date!

More info on my Instagram account & stories

You can also find more information, ask questions and support me via my Instagram account @valerieorsoni.

Forzaaa!

Valerie Orsoni
Your LeBootCamp Coach