I simply camped on the ice in Antarctica — this is how one can, too

I am undecided I’ve ever camped in a spot as serene because the place I camped this week.

From the doorway to my purple two-person tent, anchored atop a area of ice, I appeared out over an epic panorama: Hovering snow-covered mountains, glaciers and a bay so nonetheless that I may see my reflection within the water.

Nevertheless it wasn’t simply the spectacular fantastic thing about the place that made it particular. It was the utter solitude that I used to be experiencing. The stillness. The quiet.

Together with a number of dozen different vacationers who had come to Antarctica aboard the HX Expeditions ship Roald Amundsen, I used to be getting a uncommon probability to camp in a single day in what some describe because the world’s final nice wilderness.

It was one thing that few people on this planet had ever gotten to do, and that alone made it alluring — to me, no less than.

Nevertheless it additionally was an opportunity to expertise residing — if just for a day — in one of many few remaining wild and distant locations that is virtually untouched by people.

Snuggled into my HX Expeditions-provided mummy bag within the tent late that evening, alongside my companion and fellow journey author Belinda Luksic, what jumped out to me was what I did not discover. There was not even a touch of the presence of humankind within the noises wafting my manner, apart from the occasional rustle of fellow campers in tents close by.

No muffled sounds of airplanes flying within the distance. No hum of a close-by freeway. No low-frequency from human world that by no means absolutely sleeps.

All I heard was the faint sound of water lapping alongside the rocky shoreline. Often, a sea chicken cried. Someplace behind me, I believed I detected the tiniest drops of melting ice.

After I drifted off to sleep, it was the primordial sleep of a world lengthy gone — the sleep of my ancestors. Or so I imagined.

Not that I slept all that a lot.

One of many issues that you do not take into consideration while you signal as much as spend an evening on the ice in Antarctica is that — at sure instances of 12 months, no less than — the darkness of evening by no means comes.

The continent is simply too far south.

In these “winter” months of December and January — on this a part of the world, they name it summer season — the solar by no means units in a lot of Antarctica. And that may depart your circadian clock befuddled.

Our tenting web site, particularly, was alongside a bay at Horseshoe Island, on the Antarctica Peninsula. At practically 69 levels south, it’s bathed in 24-hour solar for greater than a month every year, from early December till nearly now.

At practically midnight, I used to be nonetheless awake — my tricked-by-the-light thoughts pondering it nonetheless was late afternoon. So had been quite a lot of my fellow campers.

I reached for the attention masking that I usually maintain in my backpack and realized I had left it on the ship. I needed to resort to Plan B: Wrapping an additional pair of lengthy underwear round my head.

It appeared ridiculous, even when it labored, prompting my companion to intervene. She pulled out an additional eye cowl from her bag and handed it my manner. She is resourceful that manner.

Quickly I used to be, lastly, quick asleep. Although not for lengthy.

Simply 4 hours later, lots of my fellow campers from the ship had been rustling awake, making noise, waking up the remainder of us. Perhaps that they had forgotten their eye covers, too. Or perhaps we had been all simply excited by this opportunity of a lifetime.

We emerged from our tents to soak up the icy splendor that could be a calm Antarctic morning. One other serene scene.

After which quickly, by 6 a.m., after taking down the tents, we had been packing into Zodiac boats to go again to our ship.

We had been drained, for positive, however triumphant.

We had braved an evening out at probably the most distant, hard-to-reach locations on earth.

The way you, too, can camp on Antarctic ice

This wasn’t one thing that solely a fortunate few journey writers can expertise — it is one thing you possibly can completely e book. Expedition cruise firm HX Expeditions operates the largest in a single day tenting operation in Antarctica by means of its long-running “An Amundsen Night time” tour program.

Priced at 429 euros per particular person, the one-night outing is obtainable as an add-on tour to Antarctica journeys on a number of of the road’s vessels, together with the 536-passenger Roald Amundsen and sister ship Fridtjof Nansen. Each vessels sail with 15 sturdy and insulated two-person tents that passengers arrange themselves after a Zodiac boat lands at an acceptable location.

The “depart no hint” in a single day tenting outings start after dinner on the ship, with no meals or drinks allowed on land, and finish early the subsequent morning.

HX Expeditions gives all of the tenting gear essential for the outing, together with an insulated tent, Antarctic-standard mats, sleeping baggage and liners, and a headlamp (throughout instances of the 12 months when there’s not 24-hour solar).

New this 12 months, HX Expeditions additionally gives in a single day tenting in Antarctica in one-person bivvy baggage — light-weight, weatherproof sleep techniques that may be arrange instantly on the ice. The associated fee for bivvy bag tenting excursions is 350 euros per particular person.

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