Kite-skiing Antarctica with Explorer Justin Packshaw

0:00This episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from Nerdwollip. So we've all got them, haven't we? That one friend who always finds the best travel deals, who always picks the right cars for points, and who somehow ends up in first class, while you're back in the middle seat in coach. Well, Smart Travel is like that friend, but in podcast form, they cover all things travel finance, like how to book busy season trips without that busy season sticker shock that we all hate, how to avoid paying for upgrades you won't use, and how travel advisors can snag secret perks you didn't even know how to ask for. How useful is all of that. So travel smarter and spend less with help from Nerdwollip. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts. Armchair Explorer is a part of the Voicecape podcast network. Check out all of their shows from around the world at Voicecape.com.

1:26Famously died attempting to be the first person to do so. He answered because it's there. That perhaps more than anything else sums up the human spirit of adventure to reach beyond our grasp, to push our limits, and take the harder road, is what defines us as a species, and what has carried us so far. But it's not for everyone, and fair enough, if I'm honest, I don't think I have ever pushed myself truly to my limits. I've scared myself silly, run out on dodgy crags. I've hiked in all sorts of storm and slept in worse, but I don't think I've ever truly pushed myself to the edge. And I'm not sure I could, and I'm not sure I want to either. The Explorer Justin Paxil, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He's one of those people who comes alive at the limit. He seeks it out and breaks it time and time again.

2:28And that's the story we're going to hear about today, as he kite skis across the hearts of Antarctica. Yes, kite skiing Antarctica. How cool is that? Are you ready? Let's go. This is a good old-fashioned adventure yarn, but it's more than that, too. It's also a story about science, psychology, morals, and climate change. It's about how we cope with the most extreme physical challenges, imaginable, and ultimately how that defines us as humans. If you're curious about the southern end of the world, or if you just want to listen to a proper expedition story from the warmth and comfort of your home, I don't blame you. You're going to have fun on this one. But before we get into it, some background, you can learn more about Justin's expedition to kite ski Antarctica at Chasing the Light 2021.com.

3:30And you can get a full list of Justin's many other adventures on his website at JustinPakshow.com. You can also check out his pictures and follow along with all the latest adventures on Instagram at JustinPakshow. And if you're interested in skiing or other wintry adventures, we have a bunch of cool episodes about that. So listen at the end for that list. But first, welcome to armchair explorer where the world's greatest adventures tell their best stories from the road. My name's Aaron Miller. I'm a travel writer and your host. And whether you've been listening for years, or this is your first episode with us, welcome, I am so happy that you're here. If you like travel, adventure, and opening your eyes to this amazing world around us, I think we're going to get along just fine. Anyway, hit me up and let me know what you are dreaming about doing this winter at armchair explorer podcast on Instagram. Let's talk some crazy travel expeditions, kite skiing, and all the rest, because we're about to go to Antarctica and have some fun.

4:33But before we do, if you enjoy this show, please help spread the word. Tell one friend about one episode you loved, share an episode on Instagram, or maybe make a giant hot air balloon with our logo on it and fly it above your house. Whatever works for you, it makes a huge difference. So thank you for anything you can do. But don't worry about that right now, because it's time to get our gear on and head out into the cold. Justin Packshaw is almost too good to be true. A manifestation of the classical explorers of old in the flesh. What I speak with him over a video call, his silver hair glints off the warm lighting of his study, which, of course, is filled water sealing with adventure books. Growing up on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta, Justin jokes that he could sail before he could walk. As a young man, he quickly became a world-renowned sailor,

5:34competing in races like the Americas Cup, and the wet bread round the world race, where he circumnavigated the globe. At age 20, he joined the British Army and led a distinguished career there for 10 years. But his real love was travel, adventure, the pursuit of the seemingly impossible and pushing his limit. So in the years following, his military service, Justin began adventuring in earnest from crossing Mongolia on horseback to motorbiking across East Africa, a summiting Mount Everest, and get this jet skiing, the coast of Nigeria. He actually did that, and in doing so, he became an established explorer, founding expedition companies and guiding people to the ends of the earth. And while his other adventures challenged him, hiking Everest is no work in the park. Let's face it, the places that enthralled him the most were the frigid extremities of the planet, the north and south poles.

6:36When you're down there, because it's so difficult for humans to live, it's just not, there is nothing endearing about it from an aspect of us living harmoniously and happening. The aspect of that challenge is phenomenal. I mean, it's really phenomenal. And to see the majesty and strength of Mother Nature in its raw sense, that is where you will see it. You really do realize how powerful that aspect of weather and climates. And also, I think because so few people relatively have been there, there's that sort of wanderlust, and it's a sort of hybrid man is and technology that we can actually go and do things there. And I think there's an extraordinary feeling of either being at the top or bottom, the geographic north or south pole. When you think the whole world is above you, and it is spinning around that axis. And there is an actual point where that is happening.

7:38And that's amazing. And I think for many, I think people who like to go and challenge themselves, it is an extraordinary place to be able to go and do that. Because nothing is easy. I mean, it really isn't easy. And you need to really know what you're doing to do it effectively if you're doing that. And then coupled with that, I was always fascinated. As many others are, with sort of old school explorers. I mean, if you think just over 100 years ago, no one had been to the north pole, the south pole, top of Everest, the moon, I mean, Peary went to the north pole in 1909, Aminston, obviously, to the south pole in 1911. We didn't get to the top of Everest till 1953. Robin Knox Johnson didn't sail around the world until 1967. So it's all in our lifetime. These sort of, you know, really extraordinary comparisons. And that kind of fueled in me something, you know,

8:39that aspect of wanting to go and see and be curious and kind of experience. For years, he enjoyed life as an entrepreneur and an expedition leader. On many of his trips, he took wounded veterans to the poles, raising millions of pounds for charitable causes. But then decades into his career, he had an experience that shifted something deep inside him. A few years ago, I was in the high Arctic. I was heading to the north pole and I realized that first time I'd been there was about 30 years before and there was a physical difference. You could actually visibly see the difference. And in the grand scheme of how old our world is and its present state, that's a really quite frightening thing. And so I decided that maybe I might have some relevance because I have been to the fall callments and I was a soldier and represented my country at a sailing.

9:41And so I thought I'm going to do a few trips around science and research. Antarctica's one and a half times the size of North America. So it's a big piece of land. On top of the landmass, it's a five kilometer piece of ice which represents 90% of the world's fresh water. So you know, it's a particular ecosystem is something that we have to really sort of look after. The ice sheets on Antarctica is the world's largest reflector of the sun. If it melts, it will add at least a meter to the sea level around the globe in our lifetimes. By the time Justin was witnessing these changes in person, there were numerous scientists interested in monitoring those conditions in Antarctica. But it was precisely those conditions which prevented significant fieldwork and research being done. There with the wind and the cold and the poor visibility

10:41is almost impossible to operate data collecting satellites. And most scientists don't have the time or resources to live in such an inhospitable environment to conduct that research themselves. But Justin did have some of those resources. So he began having conversations he met with NASA, the European Space Agency, Stanford University in California, the Central University of Florida, and more. He had an ambitious proposal. And always being quite intrigued by trying to do a full crossing of Antarctica. And what most people do is if they're doing a crossing, they go from the wedelsea south pole across to the Ross Sea. So they go up the peninsula and then they do a dog leg when they... But I was quite intrigued by going from one side of Antarctica right the way through the middle, which has been done by some amazing people, the blogels and my corn to name a couple of lunar gel nets. But I mean, it's a very small handful.

11:43The journey Justin was proposing was over 2,000 kilometers long, about 1,250 miles through the frozen and little documented hearts of the continent. It would take anywhere from 60 to 80 days. But beyond that, Justin also had the idea to do the journey unsupported. That meant there would be no check-ins, no refills, no supporting teams following him or meeting him to help resupply. It would just be Justin and his partner, propelling themselves through sheer willpower. So I went with a fantastic individual, called Jenny Face and Childs, who's a doctor and he's also in the military. He's 20-something years younger than me though. And I thought that as we were in support of it, it would be fascinating to look at our physiology and psychology throughout that journey of we were trying to do about 2,500 kilometers. And the reason being that the next piece of exploration that we all have

12:47is space and people are going to go to Mars and things, which will happen hopefully in our lifetime. That basically means they're going to spend a lot of time in a tin can without very much to do. There are very few environments where you can actually test that. Antarctica is one of the best. As petri dishes go, it's fantastic. You know, when you're actually on the plateau, it's a pristine environment, there isn't a living entity. So we started coming up with this idea and it sort of got quite a lot of traction, quite quickly. And I think I'm right in saying that Jamie and I were the most highly tested individuals on the planet for a year. We basically had lots of smart technology around us, Garland stuff, smart watches. We gave blood, pee, poo, and saliva every week through a year. And then when we weren't on the trip, we did a full medical and blood draw every six weeks.

13:48So all of that data is being crunched as we speak. In our push to become an interplanetary species, we are preparing to subject ourselves to more extreme environments than anything we've ever experienced before. In many ways, there's no way to know how our bodies will react to certain pressures and changes until we're there. But this expedition offered an invaluable close second. Scientists, doctors, and researchers were eager to analyze the effects of such extreme activity and isolation on the human body. They measured sleep levels, stress levels, recovery, heart rate, blood pressure, microbiology, and more. They even looked at how sight worked in a barren landscape, an attempt to better understand a situation from 1971 when two astronauts on the moon decided not to investigate a large crater, believing it to be far away when it was actually very, very close by.

14:50So all of this data they were hoping would be helpful for the several moon and Mars excursions planned later in the decade. The measurements began five months before their journey, then concluded five months after they returned. And then alongside that, we did a big study on our psychology, you know, how we were on the trip. And again, Antarctica is extremely strange, because there's no contrast there. When you're on the plateau, it's just white. And it's a very bizarre phenomenon of that, because normally, you've got X amount of other things in your mind. You know, I need to go and pick up this. I need to give it my kids or that or whatever it might be. And a lot of those images are, they start with, you view something, and it sort of sends you down to the process. But if you take all of that out, and then you also take out the fact that there is no, there's no distractions, there's no phones, there's no anything.

15:52So your life becomes very, very narrow and quite simplistic. And the only thing you have to entertain yourself is your mind. So the psychological aspects of doing a long, quite, quite audacious and hard trip are fantastic. They were also collecting data on the environment and conjunction with climate researchers, gathering information on everything from weather to wind speed, temperature, snowfall, snow depth, radiation levels, and UV levels. The project necessitated all sorts of supplies, from the warmest parkers in the world to a laptop for data input, not to mention food, fuel, comms, devices, and more. When they started, their sledges each clocked in at 220 kilograms, almost 500 pounds, and to carry all of that heft, Justin and Jamie decided to use a rather unique method of transportation. We were kite skiing, so we were man-hauling up to the plateau, up to about 11,000 feet,

16:59and then we were kite skiing. And kite skiing is a phenomenal new way of traveling. If you're man-hauling on a good day, you might do 20 nautical miles, and that's a slip. Kiting, you know, people are doing 200 ks a day. The most we did was nearly 100 ks. I mean, that's a huge amount of distance. If you've never heard of kite skiing, don't worry, I don't think many people have, but you probably have heard of kite surfing, and it's basically that on skis. So rather than using only your own manpower to propel yourself forward, as you would in cross-country skiing, for example, you're hooked into an enormous powerful kite which drags you along at eye-watering speeds. Sounds awesome, right? Well, as Justin was about to find out, it's also bloody hard. They pack their bags, flew to Antarctica, unloaded ridiculous sized kites and bulging sledges, and set foot on the ice.

17:59There is that sort of old-school little boy aspect of holy moly. This is a beautiful adventure, and you know, we are so lucky to be able to start this. But I suppose interwoven in that is trepidation. You realize, you know, it's a huge undertaking, and that reality, when you start suddenly, you need a bit of that. You need that sort of the romanticism, some goes away, and you're back on the sort of like, okay, so now we need to bring our A-game. We got up onto the plateau, which took us a handful of days, and we were sort of getting ready to kite, and then we got to go through the terrible storm for about 12 days. I mean, I've been in quite a lot of storms there, but this one came in and was just relentless. I reckon we had winds of over 150 miles now, and if you think that I mean, obviously you can't go out in that, but you're in just a standard cut, what not standard, they are special teds, but they're just two

19:00pieces of nylon. I mean, they're not thick, they're not insulated. You can't help but think, you know, if something went wrong, it would be quite an exercise if something did go wrong, and you have to always keep your tent into the prevailing wind. And luckily, there tends to be a prevailing wind, but over 12 days, it will shift by 5-10 degrees, 15 degrees, and it happened with us, and at one stage, you know, our whole tent was buckling. So we realized we had to move it, so we had to go out, so we had our crampons and ice axes, and kind of just basically lashed ourselves in as we moved our tent back. They spent 12 days in the tent, winds screaming past and rippling the nylon walls, entertaining themselves with backhammin, trying to rest in the eerie gray light of the storm. They had to conserve their fuel for cooking, so the temperatures inside the tent were virtually

20:01identical to those outside. Antarctica is a place of contrast. I mean, when it's beautiful, it's stupendous. I mean, it really is, and the vastness of it, it's so unusual. And however, the other side of the coin is when the environment around it is angry, it's a very, very frightening place to be. But there's a sort of, strangely, there's a great beauty in power when you see, you know, I've heard people say this about, you know, hurricanes, and as a predominantly, I'm a sailor, and I sail through pretty much everything, and although it is frightening, of course it's frightening, but it's also quite magnificent to see how strong and how versatile, I suppose, this whole system is that we fight ourselves living with it. After nearly two full weeks, the storm finally abated enough for them to pack up and begin their

21:05adventure in earnest, but it didn't take long for more obstacles to begin rearing their icy heads. Because we had so much weight, you'd always have to use a slightly bigger kite than you would if you were just kiteing by yourself. And they're quite unruly beast kites, and they're fine when they're, you know, under control and they're happy, but the terrain was so bad. I mean, we were at the shop, actually, the ones who got more and more into the interior. The sort of the interior of Antarctica has, it's like being in a bay and I look quite a windy day and the sea's quite rough, and you just freeze that, and that's what the sort of majority of the surface of Antarctica is, and it's called Sastrugi. There tends to be a prevailing wind, it's very, very hard ice. I've never witnessed anything quite like it. It was like tungsten, and it can be up to about three or four feet, and to ski over, it's quite difficult, and so you're pulsed either turning over, and so

22:05occasionally your kite would get out of control, and then all hell would break loose. And we worked out the easiest thing for us to do was to, once we started, just keep going, because every time we put our kite stand something, they'd get tangled, and you'd spend half-mad trying to untangle them and stuff. So we just thought, look, we'd just go, we break camp, and we'd start in the morning, and we'd go for between six and eight hours, we'd just kite. One day, Justin and Jamie finished kiting for the day, looked at each other and could only laugh with amazement. They'd spent eight hours kiting in temperatures of 60 below. To put that in perspective, the average freezer is about 15 degrees below, and in addition to the bone-chilling temperatures, the visibility with blowing snow and wind was often near zero. We skied in a white apple knot. Kiting's funny, because you can quite easily get half a k or a k ahead of your teammate, or behind your teammate, and you have to be

23:13a bit careful, because you know, it's not that easy to follow someone's tracks, and you're on hard ice. And if you can't see them, you can quite easily get separated. And we got so good at it, that we could almost kite in a pretty much total white hat, and whoever was behind would ski, with his skis, you know, a foot from the back of the person who was leading sledge. But even the most skilled athletes for sometimes, and Justin met with a fall that could have been deadly, not even halfway through their trip. On about day 17, we got off super windy day, and I went off and I had a cyclone with my kite, and it took me off the ground, I slammed into my shoulder, which I dislocated, and I cracked my clavicle. So that wasn't great, but again, we were in the middle of nowhere, and either we stopped,

24:17which we could have done, I guess. Or you just sort of go on sort of, yeah, I think it's all right, Jamie's a doctor, and a very, very fine one at that. And we sort of, you know, he looks at it and said, yeah, you've definitely dislocated it, and luckily to come in, got to come out and then to slam back in. And so we sort of just carried on, and I was sort of all right, but when I came back here, I didn't know I'd scratched my tail. As soon as we came back, we had to go and have a big check up for this testing we were doing, and we were completely MRI'd. And my dog was like, something very, very wrong with your shoulder. Is it all right? I said, yeah, I think so, but Jamie thinks I dislocated it, and this is what his prognosis was, and he said, he must spot on, and that's exactly what you did. So basically I guided for 40 days with a strong dodgy shoulder. But he had no choice. The only way out was through. And beyond his own survival instinct, Justin was driven by the knowledge that the pushing of his limits, his ability to adapt and

25:23persevere would be instrumental for the future of exploration. On NASA's Behavioral Health Research website, there's a heading that reads, future deep space exploration missions will require a small team of astronauts to live and work in a confined environment, the size of a studio apartment for up to two and a half years. I can't even really wrap my mind around how that would feel considering I go stir crazy after just a few hours indoors. And with zero real-time communication and support from Earth-based teams, those astronauts will need to be trained on applying coping mechanisms, treatment strategies, and assessment tools to themselves. Justin's research on endurance, looking for not only his physical, but crucially his psychological breaking point was helping to create those tools, and that knowledge pushed him onwards.

26:23Justin and Jamie continued, taking their journey one day at a time and slowly improving his kaiters over long, arduous stretches of ice. At that time of year, the sun and Antarctica shines nearly 24 hours a day, washing each morning afternoon and night with a cold bright glow. It felt like they were skiing on the moon, bumping through vast, uninterrupted stretches of pure whiteness. And then one day, their contacts at NASA alerted them that there would be a solar eclipse visible overhead. The first change in landscape and scenery they had witnessed in weeks. It was very surreal, actually. I mean, totally surreal. It happened. We watched it marvels, got back in our tent, and tried to go back to seed for a bit. We woke up and you know, got rise later and we were like, can you dream it? Or was that real? But again, I think, you know,

27:23as with all these things, we tend to sort of miss a lot of stuff just because we're busy. And I have been so lucky to have seen beautiful, beautiful things which are just in front of your nose. But because there's no light pollution, you know, on Everest, you know, we climbed or some of the other mansions I've climbed, you tend to climb for the summit and light, but they're early in the morning and you look down and there are stars below you. Well, that's it. Woman, you know, you've got, you can see the curvature. And then in the high Arctic, the amazing infractions of light with the auroras, and they're just fantastic. And also fluorine, thorny, and wildlife. And but again, you see it, you're more receptive in a strange way when you're out of your sort of comfort butt. And it midst the days of harsh, screaming winds. They did encounter the occasional stretch of gentle powdery snow where they would fly across the landscape with the sun warming their

28:25faces, gliding as if they were waitless. But the weather, especially in Antarctica, is a flighty mistress and things never stayed calm for long. We had lots of, you know, I got a little bit of frostbite in my fingers. Our feet got really, I mean, if you saw pictures of our feet, you'd be quite horrified. I mean, there's not very much you can do with that kind of cold. You can't warm your boots. And so if your boots are being sat in minus 30 for 10 hours before you get going, when you put them on in the morning, they're just blocks of ice, you just sort of have to get on with it. So yes, it's not for the faint hearted, that's for sure. I mean, you kind of need to sort of slightly go again, you know, this is just a sort of relentless conveyor belt of cold and everything that cold comes with cold. But they were stranded halfway across the world's loneliest continent. They had no choice but to continue to keep pushing.

29:34Each morning, like it was groundhog day, they pulled on their boots, unfurled their kites and headed into the screaming winds. The days like the landscape blurred into a monotony of kiting, day-to-gathering, physical testing, ration monitoring, equipment repair, and rest. At one point, the only marker of passing time was the arrival of Christmas day. We had a wee talk of whiskey, and fun enough, we had no wind. So we weren't minouski, and then we suddenly felt a tiny little, the tent was our sort of brometer, and it just little bit of movement in our tent. So we thought, come on, let's try. So we went kiting for about four hours, and we did something like 8Ks or something. We had lots of hard work trying to do it, and we got back, set up our tent again, and carried on sort of, you know, being Christmasy like. And then about six to wind go down again, and we kited till about midnight and did another 40ks. But at that point, they had to take advantage of any window of good weather, even on Christmas.

30:36Those 12 days trapped in their tent at the beginning of the journey had burned through too many of their carefully rationed supplies. They had already had to alter their route, cutting out a planned detour to the pole of inaccessibility. What kind of name is that, by the way? And they were anxious to ensure that their supplies would see them through to the other side. It was a daily concern. I'll never forget when we hit the halfway point. So we'd done sort of, you know, 1,500 kilometers ish, and you think, Christ, that's amazing. Like 30 days in, and we've done, you know, gone from sea level up onto the plateau, and then we've done a big chunk. There's something incredibly satisfying about marking and map, and then looking at map, and feeling it, and going, my God, you know, we're a third of the way or a quarter with, you know, so we did that. And when we were halfway, we were like, we sort of looked at each other, and went, my God, you know, we might actually do this. I mean, we're halfway through, and then you just keep etching away, and when we were about 400 kilometers from the end, and we were getting

31:43quite light on stuff, but we just thought, yeah, we could, you know, if the conditions were right, we could just power through, you know, we could literally power through. So you definitely get a sense of power that comes from seeing the end, but they couldn't let their excitement turn them careless. They knew by then that if conditions were favorable one day, they were bound to change, probably sooner rather than later. We were about 80km from the finish, and we thought we'd power through, but the conditions weren't great, and the wind, we were having to tack into the wind, and so we just thought, let's spend a night here and we're powering the morning. And anyway, so we started off, and we got to about 35km when the wind just went completely the wrong way. So we were like so close, and we had to stop again, so we were 35km away. And the next day was blowing in absolutely hootly, but the wind was in the right direction. We were like, this

32:45hell of high water is not going to stop us, so off we went. And again, the visibility wasn't very good, and at the South Pole, there is a big US base there called the Athens and Scott base. So we skied in, and the visibility was absolutely terrible, and it was proper storm, and we got to the mess tent, and we tied it right up to the door, and so we got this kite, so hammering away at Muffins. And someone comes out of the door and he's completely covered, huge parkour, and he sort of sees us, and he goes, oh, uh, which, what are you doing? And we're, you know, getting some of us, you're not quiet. And we're in a 60 days, we're rugged, you know, our kit is full of gaffer tape, you know, everything rips, and you know, we're literally like hobos. Anyway, he's like, Justin, and I go, yeah, and then about 15 minutes later, we're sat inside this mess hall with three steaks, five eggs, chips, and we're just like, Jamie and I are looking at each other again. Again, very good for you, I think, you know,

33:52you really appreciate everything. It makes you appreciate everything, you know, getting into a hot bath when you come back, having a, you know, nice glass of wine or some, you know, everything, just you would suddenly color trees and stuff that we take for granted every day. I think anything in the outdoors just makes you a slightly more compassionate person around how lucky we are. Maybe that is why adventure is addictive, not just because of what it gives us in the moments, or even those intangible boosts in our mental health that have been so well documented and come after. Perhaps we also push beyond our limits, we also risk it all so that we can return and remember everything we have to live for. After enjoying one of the most satisfying meals of their lives,

34:52Justin and Jamie were able to sleep indoors for the first time in months. They had done it, they'd navigated through the terrifying and unknown hearts of the least explored continent and they had finished just in time. So when we actually finished on day 59, we had half of one man ration left and we had a quarter of a liter of fuel. The highlight I think is always if you get to the end and you got 10 toes, 10 fingers, Jamie and I, you know, looked at each other and we'd had a love affair. I mean, I don't mean that. We just relied on each other and the whole thing was a sort of amazingly fun adventure. It's worth times. And I think that, you know, you can do that. You can do that even when you're doing things which are really difficult. I think that's one of the highlights. I think the aspect of understanding

35:54have versatile and adapted the human ears. It's remarkable actually. It is remarkable what we can achieve. And on many of my other trips, I've taken wounded soldiers to both the North and South Ball. It's ridiculously humble. When you see people who should struggle much more than able-bodied people do, just like hot knife through butter, get on with stuff and do it with a twinkle in their eye and it's humour. And I've got millions of stories of exemplary behaviour which makes you sit up and go, stop whining. So yeah, I think that's another aspect which is really good on if you push yourself a bit. I'm always amazed, you know, when you actually get to the bottom, the world, that is the point that everything is rotating around. And that you can, you know, from a latitude perspective, you know, as you walk around, you know, the pole that sticks when the south pole is over the north pole, you are walking around the equator, you are walking

36:55around the world. That's very significant. Yes, it's very, it's a very humbling experience. It's the truth. We are capable of so much more than we think. In a world of convenience, grocery stores, Uber rides and virtual doctors, we rarely even come close to our limits to our breaking point. We don't have to risk it all or go to the frozen ends of the earth. But if we never push ourselves, if we never step out of our shrink wrapped, brightly packaged world and put ourselves in a difficult position, if we never flirt with that edge, we're selling ourselves short. I think the aspect of what can be learned from just testing yourself outdoors is obviously a very good environment and anyone who's spent time in the outdoors, I suppose, starts learning weird and wonderful ingredients of the versatility and flexibility of life. I mean, nothing ever

37:59goes in the straight line, whether or with changes. Sometimes it's fantastic and lovely and, you know, you sit back and soak it all up and other times it's bloody frightening and you have to be, you know, super responsible and create and really understand that the aspects of how severe situations can be. I think anyone who's done any element of the latter is going to come back a better person. And, you know, Winston Churchill said, you know, success is going from failure to failure. That loss of enthusiasm. My takeaway is that you must always think big. You know, you must always think things, if they feel out of reach, they're not out of reach, actually. Everything is achievable and you can turn your hand at anything, you know, even someone like me who's not very good at anything can do enough of this sort of stuff that you suddenly, you know, you have the opportunity to go and see and experience firsthand. I think the other thing which is important is to kind of

39:02challenge assumptions. And I think, you know, I use this quite a lot, you know, creative vision that is bigger than the current reality. You know, we can make ourselves better, you know, as various people have said, you know, Steve Jobs said, you know, be a yardstick of excellence. Well, you can be, you know, really strive to be a better person, to have compassion and empathy and love and they're all great things. And, you know, they make for a happier world and happy people. You create a vision that is bigger than the current reality. I love that idea because that is what it's all about. We only expand the boundaries of who we are by breaking the expectations of who we might become. Our potential is limitless, but only if we continue to push those limits, to dare to reach for the summits that were once thought impossible. Whether that's kitesking the southern tip of the earth, we're just dreaming a little bigger, a little more than you currently

40:07think you can. I've had a phenomenal journey of going to the four corners of the world and seeing its majesty and seeing what I could do and what other people could do. And, uh, yeah, I mean, extraordinary, really, because I'm not particularly very good at anything. I've just sort of, you know, got, I've just sort of got on with it. And it's a very good adage for life, actually. If you dog it and resilient, it's amazing what you can achieve, actually, and learn. It does come back to that amazing gene that we all have, which is, I know I'm going to be better when I'm exploring and I'm curious and I'm praying. And it starts with little children going and drawing, you know, crawling upstairs or opening cupboards or all the way through to, you know, what amazing effort and cerebral brain power goes into all the space agencies around the world who are doing amazing things.

41:12It's a very, it's a part of our soul, which when you fuel it at whatever level, just ignites you. It's a wonderful feeling. And I think just wanderlust is the most delicious characteristic in quality. And the saying, which I'd always sort of lived by, that, you know, humans are meant to excel, we are just amazing machines. And when you start pushing that and seeing how capable we are, it's phenomenal what you can actually go and do. The agencies and universities are still crunching Justin and Jamie's data, working slowly like the famed explorers of all to color in the maps of our psyche and our physiology to flesh out our understanding of who we are and what we can do. And when astronauts do step onto Mars for the first time, this kite skiing trip across the icy heart of Antarctica so far away from that red planet

42:14will have been a part of that journey that allowed them to get there. The broken bones, the blinding snowstorms, the fear, the frustration, the risk, all of it will have contributed. And in the continued fight against global warming, expeditions like this are invaluable. We need to understand precisely what is happening in the far reaches of our planet, in order to discover how to counteract it. And some of that research simply cannot be done with technology, you need to go there to do it. And in the continued fight against global warming, expeditions like this are invaluable. We need to understand precisely what is happening in the far reaches of our planet, in order to counteract it. In some of that research, simply cannot be done with technology. You have to go there to do it. Justin and Jamie had the adventure of a lifetime. They kite-skied across Antarctica because they could because it was there. And in doing that,

43:16they built another step in the grand staircase of discovering who we are, what we're capable of and where we might one day go. Thank you so much, Justin, for taking us on this adventure. It was amazing to hear your story. And I know that personally, I'm going to try and get myself down to Antarctica one of these days. And as a reminder, you can learn more about his adventures at justimpactshow.com. And you can read more about the expedition we talked about today at chasing the light 2021.com. You can also follow him on Instagram at justimpactshow. We'll put all those details in the show notes, of course, as well. And if you enjoyed this episode and want to explore some similar stories, check out descending into Greenland's ice cap with Red Bull photographer Christian Pondela. That episode is all about reaching into the unknown, going somewhere no one else has ever been,

44:19and frankly, scaring yourself silly in the process. It's a good one. So thank you so much for listening. And don't forget to share this show with your friends. Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook at Armchair Explorer Podcast. And follow us on your favorite platform. It takes just a moment. So hit that subscribe button. It does us a huge favor and helps us to keep making this show for you. And don't forget to visit aptpodcaststudios.com to check out all their other shows as well. So until next time, keep looking for those moments of beauty. Keep getting up when you tumble and keep finding your limits. And then push beyond them because the more we look for wonder in the world, the more the wonder of the world becomes a part of who we are. Dare to be truly alive. This episode was produced by Armchair Productions. Find our other shows at armchair-productions.com. Armchair Explorer is part of aptpodcast studios. Jenny Allison wrote and co-produced the show along

45:23with me and Charles Tyree did the audio editing in SoundAssign. Our theme music was written by the artist Sweet Chat. I'm Aaron Miller. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. Travel doesn't always go to plan and that's where the best stories live. Welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast where you don't just hear about travel, you feel it. I'm James Hammond and I'm podcasting my own journeys from the road, sharing immersive soundscape episodes that drop you right into the moment from busy streets to remote mountains. Along the way, I sit down with local people and fellow travelers to tell honest stories about life, culture, and chasing adventure beyond the routine. No filters, no fake perfection, just stories to tell, tips to share, and experiences to inspire. Search Winging It Travel Podcast on any podcast out and let's win it. Hi, I'm Mike Siegel and man or man do I love talking about travel. You think I'd get enough of it to ring the world as a stand-up comedian or just going off on my own personal adventures around the world? No, when I get home I still have to talk about it. That's how much I love travel. So every week I sit down with a friend, a travel expert, influencer, ex-pat,

46:28or anyone for many walk of life who shares my passion for travel. So if you want to hear a fun casual off-the-cuff chat about travel from people who love it, listen to the Travel Tales Podcast with me, Mike Siegel, wherever you get your podcasts.