The Road To The Pole

You can’t just decide to ski solo to the South Pole. Somebody has to let you. This week I’m opening a document most people don’t know exists: the experience criteria for a solo expedition in Antarctica, the list ALE uses to decide who gets approved. The entrance exam.

What’s on the list, and how the last three years suddenly make a lot more sense when you read it. The polar course in Svalbard, the 12 days on the ice, Greenland’s 29 days and 553 kilometres, and the solo requirement that Norway in February answers. Then Iceland in 2028, a shorter Antarctic trip in 2029, and the full submission by 30 April 2030. Every rung on the ladder is a line item.

The document also says mental toughness is just as important as physical ability. I’d go further than that, and I explain why.

Whatever your big thing is, there’s a version of this document for it, written or unwritten. Get the list early, turn it into a ladder, and ask which line item is next instead of whether you’re good enough.

If you want to be part of this journey, as a sponsor, a partner, or just someone following along, get in touch at [email protected] or find our more on my website.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

No wins this week. Not one. Emails out, nothing back. Messages sent, silence. Then something from a completely different part of life took my knees out, and for about a day it felt like none of it was going to work.

This episode is about doubt. What it asks that fear doesn’t, how it climbs over the wall into everything else, and what actually happened on the deck outside my office when the only thought left was, now what?

It’s raw and it’s honest, but it is not negative. I refuse to go negative. It’s about hanging on, the one container doubt couldn’t get into, and the strange, almost stupid faith that gets you to the next session when there’s no evidence yet that you should.

The asks go out again on Monday. The tyre is on the hill at six.

If you want to be part of this journey, as a sponsor, a partner, or just someone following along, get in touch at [email protected].

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

There’s an old Japanese word I keep coming back to, and it explains more about this whole road than anything else I’ve found: misogi.

It started as a Shinto purification ritual, standing under an icy waterfall in the middle of winter to cleanse body, mind and spirit. The modern version travelled a strange road to get to us: from a Harvard-trained doctor called Marcus Elliott and his sports science lab P3, through NBA player Kyle Korver carrying rocks along the ocean floor, into Michael Easter’s book The Comfort Crisis, and onto every stage in America through Jesse Itzler and his one-liner: do one thing a year so hard it has an impact on the other 364 days.

Two rules. It has to be hard enough that you have roughly a fifty percent chance of failing. And you can’t die.

In this episode: the full history of the idea, the three reasons it actually works, why I’ve been doing misogis for three years without knowing the word, and how I’ve built my calendar around it. Once a year, the big thing. Once a quarter, a smaller thing. Once a month, one day that’s deliberately yours.

Norway in February is my next one. Yours doesn’t need ice in it.

If you know what your misogi is, or you want help finding it, email me one line: [email protected]. I read everything.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

In November, James Benson-King will stand on the edge of Antarctica with a bicycle and a sled carrying everything he needs for two months, attempting to become the first person ever to cycle solo and unsupported to the South Pole.

The road to that start line is not what you’d expect. A kid pulled out of every sport because of a heart condition. A Vice President at JP Morgan by twenty-eight. Then thirty-two thousand kilometres from Alaska to Argentina, a Guinness World Record across India, and a last-minute cruise, paid for with the last of his savings, to see the continent that wouldn’t leave him alone after that.

We get into the why behind these things, fear and what actually scares him about this one, the difference between suffering and chosen hardship, how he prepares his mind without ever sitting down to “prepare his mind”, and the part nobody talks about: what it takes to get an expedition like this to a start line in the first place.

I’m building toward the same continent for 2030, on skis instead of a bike.

This one isn’t curiosity.

It’s recognition.

Follow James’s journey:

* Website: https://www.jamesbensonking.com/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbensonking/

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jamesbensonking

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

On the 28th of August, in a tent on the banks of the Mara River, I said it on this show: training for my February expedition to northern Norway starts on the 8th of September. It did.

This one is about the training itself. What preparing for a solo Arctic expedition actually looks like from Johannesburg, where there’s no snow, no ice, and the closest thing to a sled is a tyre on a rope. I’ve broken the block into four parts and I walk through why each one is there: strength and strength endurance, VO2 max and the Norwegian 4x4, rucking with a 20kg vest (Jackson the Boston terrier out front), and dragging tyres up Northcliff hill. All of it aimed at two things at the same time: February, and being 50. Lifespan, healthspan, and the one I keep coming back to, performance span.

And the reason it’s all four and not one: cold attacks every system at once, so the training has to build every system at once. A hot Tuesday in a Joburg park is still polar training.

Honest part. February isn’t fully confirmed yet. I’m training anyway, same as I did before Greenland, because effort creates certainty, not the other way round.

Every session now goes onto my training log at gerryvanderwalt.com/training. The sessions, the data, a running tally. Feelings lie about progress. The log doesn’t.

Coming up on the show: sports nutritionists, exercise scientists, and people from the adventure, expedition and mountaineering worlds. People who have stood in the places this road leads to.

Questions on the training? I’d love to hear from you: [email protected], or @gerryvanderwalt on all the socials.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

Recorded in my tent on the banks of the Mara River, where I’m hosting a family on a photographic safari through Kenya. In between the fires at 5am, the game viewing and the laughter, I still have to do the work. The work pays the bills, and it’s funding my Norway training expedition in February.

This week that work looked like about 50 emails out to brands, sponsors and corporates, and a whole lot of silence and noes coming back. So this episode is about what a no actually is. Not a verdict, just information. Why silence is worse than a no. The ten-second move most people never make when a door closes. And then the one email that came back, from an Arctic brand I’ve used for years, that said yes, we’re in.

One yes doesn’t pay for February. What it does is prove the ratio exists, and it makes the next ask easier.

Norway training starts on the 8th. The countdown is real.

If this one gave you something, follow the show and send it to someone who’s been getting noes.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

There were quite a few mornings in Greenland when the alarm went off and everything in me said not yet. Tired, feet shouting, cold outside. Nobody would have blamed me for staying in the bag. But that’s exactly what makes it commitment and not performance.

This episode is about the distinction that runs under everything I do as a coach and everything on this road: interested people act when it suits them, when conditions are right, when motivation shows up. Committed people act regardless of how they feel that day. It’s binary. There’s no “sort of committed”, and almost nobody ever checks which side they’re actually on.

I get into why the ice strips the philosophy out of it, you ski or you don’t, there is no motivated version of you at minus 20. Why commitment isn’t built during the thing but on ordinary Wednesdays, dragging tyres up a hill in Johannesburg traffic fumes. The tells I see in coaching clients: waiting to feel ready, clearing the diary first, renegotiating with themselves every single morning. Feelings as information, they get a voice in the meeting but never the chair. The counterfeit to watch for: an announcement is the most interested act there is, unless the training starts the next morning. And the deepest tell of all: interested people try to do committed things. Committed people become the kind of person for whom the thing is simply what they do.

My invitation: name one thing and give it a date. You don’t need a South Pole. A 5km with a date beats a maybe-marathon one day. Then tell me what it is: [email protected], or find me on Instagram.

And keep me accountable. Training for my 20-day solo in northern Norway starts on 8 September.

The full road: gerryvanderwalt.com/road-to-the-south-pole

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

My first guest on the show. Akshay Nanavati is a former US Marine who came home from Iraq with PTSD, heavy drinking, and one morning found himself on the verge of ending his life. Out of that he built Fearvana, the idea that fear and struggle aren’t the opposite of peace, they’re an access point to it. Then he went and lived it: ultramarathons, 24 hours on a stair climber, and 60 days completely alone in Antarctica, dragging a 190kg sled on the first ever attempt to ski coast to coast without dogs or kites. A route nobody had even tried. The company running Antarctic logistics told him anyone attempting it would probably fail. His gut ended the expedition on day 60, the same condition that killed Henry Worsley. His mind never did.

We get into the machinery of that mind. Resistance and clinging as the two sources of all unnecessary suffering. The apex moment, why the worst moment of a journey matters more than the summit. The only two things you can ever control. Ten days alone in a pitch-black room to become the person Antarctica required. Raising $1.1 million and what you owe the people who backed you when it ends early. And the question I’ve been carrying for years: what does Berkner Island, the beach where my own 2030 attempt begins, not tell you until you’re standing on it? He’s stood on it.

Find Akshay’s book Fearvana on Amazon and follow him at @fearvana. His new book, The Work is the Win, is on the way.

The full road: gerryvanderwalt.com/road-to-the-south-pole

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

On the evening of 14 May, with camp just up on the Greenland ice cap, I realised I couldn’t stand on my right foot. Marty and Stephen helped me to the tent. We talked about how bad it was, what drugs I had, and I kept a brave face on. That night I was petrified.

This episode is the other side of the ledger. You’ve had the crossing and the why. This one names the fears on this road, one at a time. The foot, and whether it holds through four more years of training and three more expeditions. The solitude, because 20 days alone in Finnmarksvidda in February is where I find out what happens when the noise is gone and the dark voices come in. The money, because the whole road costs somewhere around $350,000 and that number keeps me awake. Failing in public, with the claim already out there. And the people at home, who watch you sign a contract that mentions death more times than anything you’ve ever put a pen to.

Why say any of it out loud? Because pretending fear isn’t there is how fear wins. And because fear is information, not instruction. There’s no bow on this one. I’ll probably be scared until I ski into the Pole in 2030, and that’s the point.

The full road: gerryvanderwalt.com/road-to-the-south-pole

Excited for some interviews with amagin polar adventurers! One has skied the exact piece of Antarctica I’m aiming for. The other is one of the most accomplished polar explorers alive. Coming soon.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com

In 1923 a New York Times reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Everest. He gave the most famous answer in exploration: “Because it’s there.” A year later the mountain kept him.

That answer never worked for me. This episode is my attempt at a real one.

Someone recently asked if I found the answers I was looking for in Greenland. I was never looking for answers. I was looking for better questions, because that’s how we get better. So this one digs into the stack that sits under this whole road: the promise I made myself about turning 50 and not going backwards. Wanting something you can’t buy off a brochure. A lifetime of competing, and finally finding an arena where I can compete flat out and nobody has to lose. How a big goal with a date on it turns the noise down on everything else. The people who started walking the dog again because a guy was dragging tyres up a hill. And underneath all of it, the one that resists explanation: something in me simply knows I need to do this.

The full road: gerryvanderwalt.com/road-to-the-south-pole

Next episode: the part I’m scared of.

Do good work.

G.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerryvanderwalt.substack.com