Adventurer Preet Chandi aims to become first woman to ski to North Pole solo

Preet Chandi from Derby, England is bidding to become the first-ever woman to ski to the North Pole solo and unsupported in 2025.

The army physio-turned-adventurer would become just the third-ever person to make it to the Arctic without support on a solo trip.

She is a seasoned extreme traveller, having become the first Asian woman to make a solo expedition to the South Pole in January 2022, travelling 700 miles in 40 days.

Chandi then earned a Guinness World record after covering 922 miles in 70 days and 16 hours in 2023, a record for the longest solo, unsupported, one-way polar ski expedition.

‘I know there’s a slim chance of me actually making the endpoint, but that’s also the beauty in it,’ she told Sky News of her upcoming trek.

‘It’s trying to do something that I know is really challenging, and there’s beauty in trying. There’s beauty in the journey itself.

‘For me, I knew nothing about Antarctica four years ago. I remember learning about the South Pole and I was like ‘oh it would be great to [go to] the North Pole too’ knowing nothing about it.”

‘I started to look into it and thought, “This seems very, very challenging,” but like with anything, you learn by looking into it.’

Before she takes off from Ellesmere Island in Canada next March, Chandi needs to undergo strength and muscle training to build muscle and fat and add 15kg to her weight of roughly 62kg.

There will be significant obstacles – including polar bears – as she bids to make the third solo and unsupported journey to the North Pole after Borge Ousland in 1994 and Pen Hadow in 2003.

‘Heading to the Arctic I will be on sea ice – which means it’s moving,’ Chandi continued. ‘I could set up camp one day and then be in a different location because the sea is moving.

‘I have to cross sections of open water so I have a dry suit I get into to cross those sections of water.

‘I have to cross rough ice which can be very, very high, so I’ll have to take my skis off and literally climb over those… And there are polar bears as well!’