Buy used: $16.03

FREE delivery January 31 - February 12. Details

Delivering to Montreal H1A – Update location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno US

Add to Wish List

Added to

Unable to add item to Wish List. Please try again.

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Colour:

To view this video, download Flash Player

Follow the author

Felicity Aston

Follow

Alone in Antarctica Hardcover – Oct. 14 2014

by Felicity Aston (Author), Joanna Lumley (Foreword)

4.5 219 ratings

See all formats and editions

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.

Print length

253 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Counterpoint
Publication date

Oct. 14 2014
Dimensions

16 x 2.29 x 23.62 cm
ISBN-10

1619023474
ISBN-13

978-1619023475
See all details

Felicity Aston
75
Paperback
$18.63
Get it Feb 7 - 29
$3.99 shipping
Only 1 left in stock.
Sara Wheeler
168
Hardcover
$46.84
FREE Delivery Thursday, Jan 25
Alfred Lansing
20,115
Paperback
in Adventurer & Explorer Biographies
$25.99
Felicity Aston
7
Hardcover
$29.24
Temporarily out of stock.
Robert M. Bunes
42
Hardcover
$42.95
Get it by Saturday, Jan 20
FREE Shipping by Amazon
Felicity Aston
4
Hardcover
$19.99
Only 5 left in stock (more on the way).

Product description

Review

"A quick–reading account of a spectacular and appalling journey." —Kirkus

"Aston's memoir gives the reader a good sense of her isolation, her determination, and her fragilityAston doesn't overdramatize her adventure – she favors straightforward descriptions over breathless prose – but she still pulls us in and makes us feel as though we are with her, at the freezing–cold bottom of the world."" —Booklist

"Felicity Aston ventures into even more extreme climes when she sets out to become the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica. Her memoir, Alone in Antarctica, brings to life the terror, the wonder, and the craziness of her two–month ordeal." —National Geographic, Best New Travel Read of Fall 2014

"Aston’s account of her frigid voyage is a bracingly honest look at the daily grind of adventure, physical exhaustion, and fear."—Jen Rose Smith, Condé Nast Traveler

"An extraordinary journey of solitude and determination"—Ben Fogle, author of The Teatime Islands, Offshore, Crossing, and The Race to the Pole.

"Felicity's dynamic and inspiring storytelling links us all to our own crossing, helping us all push beyond our fears to reach our goals. Her descriptions of the ice and her honesty of the feelings it brings forth, stir our love for that magnificent place and the lifestyle of the challenge – we want to return!"—Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, polar explorers

"Felicity's gripping adventure captures the thrill and fear of Antarctic exploration"—Ranulph Fiennes, author of Killer Elite,and My Heroes

"Her achievement is remarkable"—The Daily Mail

"Admirable, emotional and enchanting... a must–read"—Wanderlust

About the Author

Felicity Aston is the first and only woman in the world to ski alone across Antarctica. The 35–year–old British expedition leader, public speaker and freelance travel writer from Kent also led the 2009 Commonwealth Expedition to the South Pole, the first British women's team across Greenland; this became the subject of her first book, Call of the White, a finalist in the Banff Mountain Book Competition in 2011. Outside Magazine named her one of their 2012 Adventurers of the Year. Felicity lives in Birchington–on–Sea, Kent, in the UK.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Counterpoint (Oct. 14 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 253 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1619023474
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1619023475
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 495 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16 x 2.29 x 23.62 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #2,037,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #664 in Solo Travel Guides
- #26,806 in Women's Biographies (Books)
- #64,980 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 219 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Felicity Aston

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Felicity Aston is the first and only woman in the world to ski alone across Antarctica. The 35-year-old British expedition leader, public speaker and freelance travel writer from Kent also led the 2009 Commonwealth Expedition to the South Pole, the first British women's team across Greenland, and completed the infamous Marathon Des Sables across the Sahara. She previously worked as a meteorologist in the Antarctic for three years as well as completing expeditions in Siberia, Quebec, Iceland and the Canadian Arctic. www.felicityaston.com

Sort reviews by

Top review from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Alexandra

very inspirational book

Reviewed in Canada on June 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

Very inspirational book, I loved it. I was expecting a bit more technical description of actual travel, but the book surprised me in a different way.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Bonnie Krim

Review of Alone in Antarctica

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is an amazing story. Felicity Aston tells her story and as the reader you feel like you are right there with her on the ice as she attempts to traverse the most amazing landmass and scenery. From page 1 the adventure hooks you and you don't want to put the book down. As she tells her story she expresses herself in a very humble and easygoing straightforward manner. When she tells the story of why she did this it is not to achieve a status of elitism, or inflate her ego but just to test what her own personal limits are and what drove her to find that out. At the beginning she had no preconceived notions of whether she would be able to finish this or not and there were doubts along the way however she persevered making a little bit of progress everyday and eventually she achieved her goal. She also had some good general advice for the reader which I really liked and it would apply to just about anything that if you persevere you will achieve your goals and that we are capable of more than we give ourselves credit for. The way she expressed this is that we "all must get out of the tent" everyday whatever our symbolic tent is, whether we are camping, riding a bike a long distance, hiking, or whatever our adventures are. So fundamentally whatever you are doing you have to get up and get going no matter how good you are at doing the adventure or it will never get done. Congratulations Felicity on making an amazing story and being able to tell it. Bonnie Krim

Ben

Alone in Antarctica: solitude in a hostile environment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2013

Verified Purchase

In 2011-12, Felicity Aston, a British explorer, walked on skies from the Ross Ice Shelf on one side of Antarctica to the Ronne Ice Shelf on the other side, a distance of 1,700 km, pulling everything she needed to survive on two connected sledges. She did this alone over a period of 59 days. She had just two resupply points; one at the Scott-Amundsen base at the South Pole and one further on at a place called Thiels Corner. The fact that she completed the coast-to-coast trek is, in itself, amazing, and to do so on her own is even more remarkable. "Alone in Antarctica" is her record of the trek and lays bare her emotions as she trudged through the hostile and sometimes terrifying terrain that constitutes the Antarctic continent.

Aston's narrative is a fascinating study of the effects of trekking alone over many weeks, over a hostile terrain in extreme weather conditions, and with no other persons or habitations close by. I am a long-distance walker and I have some appreciation of the effects of "alone-ness", as the author puts it, but I have never experienced the day-after-day extremes of solitude and I've not trekked over such a vast distance. Felicity Aston's ability to describe the environment and her emotions are, in places, both poetic and highly imaginative. I enjoyed her commentary immensely and empathised with her situation and reactions.

What I missed however were two things: a map (I created my own), and photographs inserted in the text rather than at the end so that I could "see" what the author was describing at the time.

For example, I would have liked in-text photographs of the following.

- The author after she had been flown down to and dropped off at the Ross Ice Shelf. The aircraft's pilot took a photograph. Aston describes her emotions after the aircraft had departed (she wept!) but were her feelings reflected in her face as she said goodbye?
- The approach to the Leverett Glacier, her chosen route over the intimidating Transantarctic Mountains. Would it be a doddle or a nemesis?
- The Hilleberg tent (Aston's ultimate refuge, womb-like in its importance to her).
- The nunataks, exposed mountain tops surrounded by glacial ice: a new term to me.
- The LOO-JW wooden marker post. A wilderness beacon on the approach to the Leverett Glacier and an encouraging sign that the author was on the right track.
- The sastrugi, exotic and mysterious structures in the snow formed by wind erosion and the deposition of snow particles: another new term to me.
- The view of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole base after 650 km skiing as she approached it in low visibility: her first sanctuary and resupply point.
- The Christmas Day in-the-tent photograph.
- The two friends, Gisli and Gummi, whom she met on the South Pole Operations Traverse trail leading to the South Pole.
- The Norwegian kite skiers she met on her way to Hercules Inlet, the finishing point on the Ronne Ice Shelf.

When I finished the book, I found some of these pictures at the back but it would have been so much better if they had occurred at the appropriate point in the commentary.

Overall, however, this is a terrific book. I am not normally drawn to reading explorer books but I was attracted to the story after hearing Felicity Aston speak about the trek on a BBC World Service interview. Her answers to the interviewer's questions struck a chord and I purchased the eBook version. I'm glad I did. The author is to be congratulated on her achievement and on writing an absorbing and motivating account of her trans-Antarctic coast-to-coast trek. Well done and thanks for an excellent account.

7 people found this helpful

Dale Lorna Jacobsen

quiet courage

Reviewed in Australia on December 19, 2015

Verified Purchase

Reading "Alone in Antarctica" is like travelling, invisibly, alongside Felicity. I was moved by her honesty dealing with her emotions as well as her physical challenges--like the time she frantically searched for tracks she thought she saw on the surface, only to discover she had wandered far from her tent. It was chilling to think of the results had she not seen the "smudge in the distance" that had to be her tent.
Her writing, on the whole, is very easy to read and enjoyable, but some of the similes didn't work and I think the story would have been richer without them.
I have been to Antarctica, but in the safe environs of an expedition led by a mountaineer. The furthest I got from the coast was the Taylor Dry Valley - a poor second compared with Felicity's achievements, and yet it gave me a taste that allowed me to imagine much more clearly what it felt like for her.
Gee, I wish it had been me!

Tim W.

Fascinating insight into mental fortitude

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

A gripping story of an epic challenge to both body and mind. The descriptions of the physical landscape are graphic while the insight into the author’s state of mind are frighteningly honest.
Great book to read before my first visit to the (tame part of) Antarctica.

everyone's a critic

Candid account of crossing the Antarctic continent

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2015

Verified Purchase

After reading several books about dead white male explorers in Antarctica, this account was a refreshing change. I found myself rooting for this woman, sometimes wanting to give her a kick in the snowpants to tell her to get a move on and at points being moved to tears about a necklace her sister gave to her and some cookies in the bottom of her bag. I think her book truly made me understand how terribly difficult such a journey is mentally, from battling her loneliness and strange behaviors and thoughts brought on by fatigue to some quirky moments that made the reader realize just how alone she really was to some dangerous behavior that had me seriously concerned about whether she was going to make it alive. She seemed to me to be very candid in this account, sharing her vulnerabilities and mistakes so that you really are rooting for her once she leaves the South Pole.

I gave the book four stars because I wanted more. This had a movie-like ending, not a book ending. She seems to gloss over the physical effort too much in my opinion. She has a hilarious anecdote about her training with a tire, but I wanted more details about her training for this adventure. Because I was rooting for her at the end, I wanted to be there for her reunion with her family and to see the reaction of her friends and followers. She speaks in the beginning about how such a journey changes someone and she does touch on how she's changed, but I was curious whether she was changed in the years that followed. Did her personality change? Did she change the way she chose to live her life? I also was interested in the messages she sent out on her sat phone. She and the reader don't know how her real-time accounts played online, but it would have been interesting to learn what the response was from those following her. Not during the journey, because that would have wrecked the solitary feel of the book, but in hindsight as she learned about it upon her return. Maybe time for another edition with a new epilogue?

3 people found this helpful

See more reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract and engage customers	Amazon Business Everything for your business	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts

	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust	Blink Smart Security for Every Home

Image Unavailable

Follow the author

Alone in Antarctica Hardcover – Oct. 14 2014

Customers who bought this item also bought