In the whirling noise of our advancing technological age, we are
seemingly never alone, never out-of-touch with the barrage of electronic
data and information.
Felicity Aston, physicist and meteorologist, took two months off from
all human contact as she became the first woman -- and only the third
person in history - to ski across the entire continent of Antarctica
alone. She did it, too, with the simple apparatus of cross-country,
without the aids used by her prededecessors - two Norwegian men - each
of whom employed either parasails or kites.
Aston's journey across the ice at the bottom of the world asked of her
the extremes in terms of mental and physical bravery, as she faced the
risks of unseen cracks buried in the snow so large they might engulf her
and hypothermia due to brutalizing weather. She had to deal, too, with
her emotional vulnerability in face of the constant bombardment of
hallucinations brought on by the vast sea of whiteness, the lack of
stimulation to her senses as she faced what is tantamount to a form of
solitary confinement.
Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Felicity Aston's Alone in Antarctica becomes
an inspirational saga of one woman's battle through fear and loneliness
as she honestly confronts both the physical challenges of her adventure,
as well as her own human vulnerabilities.
