A Sunshine Coast local is continuing his preparations for an incredible journey to Antarctica in December.
James McAlloon will be skiing from the coast and then climbing Antarctica’s tallest mountain.
“It’s about a 500km journey through the Ellsworth mountain range, originally pioneered by another Australian team. The expedition will start at a place called Constellation Inlet, where nobody has done a ski expedition from,” he said.
“It depends on the weather but it should take about five weeks.
“The ski is going to take up to four weeks and then the climb itself should take hopefully no more than a week.”
Mr McAlloon is aiming to fly to Antarctica from Punta Arenas, Chile, on about December 15, with an aim of completing the journey around January 19.
Mr McAlloon works at Chimu Adventures, which organises expeditions to South America and Antarctica. He said that although it had been incredibly supportive of his journey, he would be doing the expedition separate to his work.
He has experience climbing mountains in South America, Africa and Australia. However, his inspiration for this trip came from wanting to do something unique.
“I have done a lot of other expeditions in the past, and I have always wanted to go on an Antarctic trip, but given how far away it is it’s always seemed quite out of reach,” Mr McAlloon said.
“I think most people ski to the South Pole or something like that, versus skiing through a mountain range to climb a mountain from the coast.
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“I stuck with it and that was three years ago and it turned into a much bigger project than I ever expected.”
Mr McAlloon has undergone extensive preparation ahead of the expedition.
“I actually moved to New Zealand for a few months, and we spent a lot of money travelling to Norway to train with some of the most experienced polar explorers there are,” he said.
“This past April and May alongside an expedition partner, we did an unsupported crossing across Greenland in order to put everything we learned into a trip that was similar to Antarctica.”
Mr McAlloon will also be collecting data on the expedition.
“We figured we are going down to this area and there will be places along the route that no one has really gone to before, and Antarctic science data is one of the keystones for understanding climate change,” Mr McAlloon said.
“We were lucky during a training trip in New Zealand that we got stuck in a hut with some Antarctic climate scientists, and we founded a partnership with the University of Canterbury Antarctic Science Division.
“They provided us a couple of devices to collect weather and terrain data, so they can measure the current environment and what changes have been made based on the weather.
“That will be linked with our GPS data to make sure it’s time and location stamped, and is as accurate as possible.”
Mr McAlloon is always looking at future expeditions, but is focused on this one for the time being.
“I always have plans for other expeditions I’d love to do, but I can’t really get into them until this one is completed,” he said.
People can track and support Mr McAlloon through website.
“The expedition will have a live tracking map where people can go on there and see where we are – we’ll leave little voice audios along the way, so they can check in and follow the experience,” Mr McAlloon said.
His partner Emma Williams is also an adventurer, walking 1700km and cycling 2500km for various causes.
Kelsey Reid is a journalism intern with Sunshine Coast News.
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