Bottomless ice pits beneath thin layers of snow. Sharp ice ridges, one after another, like frozen waves across the land. Howling winds and blowing ice crystals.

Jade Hameister knew her South Pole journey would be hard. But she never imagined it would be this unforgiving. She bent into the wind and strained to pull the heavy supply sled strapped to her waist. All she could do was put one ski in front of the other, one small step at a time.

Jade had already completed two parts of the demanding Polar Hat Trick. She had skied to the North Pole and across Greenland. This South Pole adventure would be the final challenge. Hardly anyone had tried to do what Jade was attempting now. She was only 16. Only 140 people have ever skied without assistance from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole. And only 20 of these were women.

Jade’s team would travel under their own muscle power, without sled dogs or vehicles. No supplies would be airlifted to them. Everything they needed for the estimated 40 days had to be loaded onto sleds and hauled. With food, camp stoves and fuel, clothing, tents, and equipment, each sled weighed more than 80 kilograms (176 pounds).

If this wasn’t enough, Jade and her team took on an added challenge. They wanted to take a new route to the South Pole. They studied maps and found a coast‑to-pole route that no one had ever taken. This would take them through steep, challenging terrain. They’d ski across the Kansas Glacier and through the Transantarctic Mountains that divide east and west Antarctica.

Jade’s team included her father, Paul Hameister, a mountaineer; master polar guide Eric Philips; cameraman Ming d’Arcy; and assistant cameraman Heath Jamieson.

From the beginning, conditions were brutal. The route started uphill and hardly ever leveled off. Jade struggled with her sled up icy slopes. She headed into wind so strong and so loud that she had to scream to be heard. Jade felt like she was standing still, even though she was pushing forward with all her might.

The steep hills were slick with blue ice. They were hard and slippery, like glass. Jade’s skis couldn’t get traction. When the team wasn’t skiing, everyone wore trail crampons—spiked metal plates on the bottom of their boots to help them walk.

Higher and higher they climbed, across the Kansas Glacier. No human had ever set foot here. Ahead was a steep ascent out of the glacier. This would take them through the Transantarctic Mountains—if they could make it.

The going got even harder as they came upon sastrugi. These are wave‑like ridges of ice formed by the wind. Skiing across them was, as Jade said, “like skiing on a choppy ocean that has been frozen in time.”

Ahead, the far wall of the glacier looked like a giant, frozen tsunami.

At 3,000 meters (9,842 feet) above sea level, they reached the highest point—the Stanford Plateau. This was a major victory, but they still had a long way to go.

The greatest dangers on the route were the crevasses. These deep, seemingly bottomless cracks are covered by snow bridges that hide them. Jade and her team knew they needed to watch out, or they could tumble to their deaths. The team carried long coils of rope. When they suspected hidden crevasses, they roped themselves together in case somebody fell. It was tense and hard going.

One afternoon, when Jade had taken a break, she heard a wild yell. What was that? She knew the others had gone on ahead. A short distance away, she saw cameraman Ming chest‑deep in a crevasse. He was hanging onto the edge with his fingers! Jade ran toward him, screaming for her dad. Ming managed to pull himself up and out of the crevasse. Whew!