This is a picture on our last day of the group that we spent most of our time with while we were on the ice. From left to right:

1.  Mariquita - dressed in my stylish hat that was permanently affixed to my head starting day four and was not removed until I was safely in the shower in Chile after our return.

2.  Don Mankin - Don is a professor and adventure traveler from Venice Beach, CA.  He had great LA stories that kept us entertained throughout the trip. 

3.  Martha Hewitson - Martha was the only person on our trip that was flying to the south pole.  She was 80 years old, from Germany originally, but has lived in England for over 40 years.  She has traveled to the North Pole and has rode through the Northwest passage.  We heard a lot of her great stories - she was effectively the camp grandmother.

4.  Matt - notice the beard, which started growing when we got to Chile, so it was full by the time we arrived in Antarctica.

5.  Carwyn Roberts (in the back) - Carwyn is from Wales and is 16 years old.  He is an Air Cadet, a youth organization supported by the Royal Air Force and has Type 1 Diabetes.  He came to Antarctica as part of the Cure Walk Expedition, which is a ski expedition to the South Pole that is being done to raise money for Diabetes Research.  

6.  Katrina Scott - Katrina is from England and is 14 years old.  She is a very active 14 year old who also has Type 1 Diabetes.  She was also on the continent as part of the Cure Walk Expedition.

You can read more about the Cure Walk at www.curewalk.com

We were privileged to be in camp when three of this year's four expeditions were successfully completed.  This picture is of the Chilean expedition through the Ellsworth Mountains.  When they skied into camp, they had finished the first ever full traverse, on skis, of the Ellsworth Mountains.  Their expedition was almost 60 days long and covered almost 250 miles of mountainous and glacial area.  They had some harrowing stories of some of the passes they had to cross, including a number of ice cliffs that they went over that were extremely tall.  When they started, their sleds were carrying 250 pounds of gear, food and supplies.  Because no one has ever done the traverse before this, they named the passes they went over for the first time, and climbed some mountains that had never been climbed before. 

The other two expeditions that came in while we were in camp were the Ski South Pole Expeditions.  One was an expedition of three English men, led by John Landry, from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole in 47 days.  The distance of their ski was just over 670 miles, uphill almost the whole way.  I don't have a picture of them coming into camp since they arrived in the middle of the night, but these three guys did decide to streak with their UK flags at midnight on New Years Eve.

The second Ski South Pole Expedition was led by John's wife, Matty Hewson, who is famous for leading the first all-female ski expedition to the North Pole several years ago.  She led a diverse group of six men from Spain, England and Canada along the same route.  They took about five more days for their journey. They arrived into camp the night before we left, so we didn't get to spend much time with them.

Unbeknownst to us, these explorers are all extremely famous in the community of adventure explorers and climbers.  The Chilean team are celebrities in Chile not only for this particular adventure, but also because they are Chile's most accomplished climbers.  In addition, the  leader of the Chilean expedition, Rodrigo, is the CEO of one of the largest television companies in Chile.  John Landry and Matty Hewson are well-known in the adventure community and own one of the most premier adventure travel training companies in Canada.  

There are almost 20 people that live on Antarctica for the four month summer season.  They range in age, experience, and nationality.  The majority of the staff is from the UK - Scotland and England.  In addition, most of the pilots of the smaller planes were from Canada.  There was one American who was the pilot for the Cessna and Single Otter planes.  The staff we spent the most time with were the field guides.

Doug lives in northern Canada and guides people on expeditions in the Arctic during the northern summer months.  He is very knowledgeable about the geology and climates of the polar regions, so we learned a tremendous amount from Doug.  He also has a very interesting wardrobe - almost all of his clothing lining is made from Caribou that they hunt in Canada.

Denise lives in Southern Ontario, but works mostly as a guide in the Arctic during the northern summer.  A few years ago, Denise was the Assistant guide, along with Matty Hewson, of the first all-female ski expedition to the North Pole.  Denise taught us about survival in the cold and led us on our overnight camping excursion where she taught us Eskimo baseball which we played to keep warm.  Denise had a jacket and big gloves made from black bear fur.

Di is from Scotland, where she is an accomplished mountaineer and guide.  This was Di's first year in Antarctica, but you would never know it from the amount of knowledge that she has about the continent and its history.  She also taught us how to use GPS measurement tools and guided us on a blind journey to the DC-6 using the sun and GPS as our guide.  I don't have a great picture of her, unfortunately.

Also, on our plane coming out were a number of other people that all had interesting backgrounds and stories:

A Dutch couple - Rose and Fritz - who were going to climb Mount Vison Massif.  For Fritz, this was going to be his "seventh summit" meaning he will have climbed the highest summit on each of the seven continents.  For Rose, this was her fifth summit - she is still contemplating climbing Everest and is looking for the time to ascend Kilimanjaro. 

Geoff Somers, leading two skiers for the last degree of the Cure Walk - Geoff is famous for being one of the seven men that crossed Antarctica on the International Transantarctic Dog-Sled Expedition a number of years ago.  They took 120 days and crossed the continent at the longest point.  He was a very interesting and insightful guy.

Jamie Young and Brian Cunningham from Ireland.  These guys have spent the last six months designing an expedition modeled after one of Geoff Somer's expeditions from last year.  They have designed kites and buggies that will enable them to "sail" from the South Pole back to Patriot Hills camp.  Unfortunately, they did not have any wind at the south pole and they had to abort their expedition and return via plane.  Jamie owns an adventure travel company in Ireland - he has done a number of interesting adventures, including attempting to re-enact Shackelton's boat ride from Elephant Island and crossing of South Georgia Island.  Brian is a former executive from IBM who is now doing super marathons (50 or 100 miles) in the mountains of Ireland.   To learn more about their expedition, you can go to their website at www.icekites.com