On December 14, 1911, Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen and his team hoisted the Norwegian flag over the South Pole, becoming the world's first explorer to reach the South Pole. In tribute to this feat, 110 years later, on December 14, the book launch of "Invincible - Chinese Girls Trekking antarctica" and Feng Jing's "Amundsen Night" sharing meeting were held in the Centennial Study Room of Xinhua Bookstore.
On the evening of December 14, feng Jing was sharing her expedition experience at the book launch of "Invincible - Chinese Girls Hiking antarctica" and Feng Jing's "Amundsen Night" sharing meeting.
On January 8, 2018, Feng Jing cross-country skied 1,130 kilometers, lasting 52 days and 5 hours, arriving at the South Pole, becoming the first Chinese woman to set off from the coastline and hike to the South Pole. On November 7, 2019, the "Marching Rules Are Coming" expedition initiated by Feng Jing set off from the coast of Princess Astrid on the Antarctic continent, which lasted 80 days and crossed more than 1,800 kilometers, and reached the Antarctic continent on foot at 7:18 p.m. Beijing time on January 25, 2020, with coordinates S82°6.655 E55°1.957 and an altitude of 3715 meters, which is the first time that humans have reached this place by relying on their feet. Antarctica is the farthest point from all the coastlines of the Antarctic continent. Prior to this, only 9 male explorers in the world arrived by kite skiing.
Feng Jing wrote her own experience as a book called "Invincible - Chinese Girls Hiking Antarctica is Difficult to Reach", which tells the extraordinary story of how she started from scratch, after five years of tempering, breaking through her own limits again and again, and finally creating history. Before completing this challenge, Feng Jing could not ski and did not know how to survive in an extremely cold environment. So when she came up with the idea, no one thought it was feasible. In order to complete the project, Feng Jing made five years of preparations, including a 2018 trekking to the South Pole of the Antarctic Continent, which was actually an adaptation training for the expedition. After completing the expedition, Feng Jing conducted a professional evaluation and concluded that she had a certain possibility of completing the project.
"Invincible: Chinese Girls Trekking Antarctica is Hard to Reach the Pole", by Feng Jing, China International Broadcasting Press, December 2021 edition.
"Amundsen was a very influential person for all the expeditionees, and it had some more special meaning for me." At the event site, Feng Jing's sharing began with the thrilling Antarctica race between Amundsen and Scott 110 years ago. Feng Jing analyzed the possible reasons why the Scott Expedition, which had departed before Amundsen, arrived at the South Pole a month later than the Amundsen Expedition and eventually led to the tragedy.
On January 17, 1912, almost five full weeks after Amundsen's expedition, Scott reached the South Pole and was in a state of extreme fatigue. After suffering a major setback, several members of Scott's expedition were very depressed, which further affected their progress, and due to a series of previous mistakes, the expedition ran out of food at the last moment, and all five members of the group were buried in the ice field. The story is documented in a 1979 book, The Last Place on Earth, by British biographer Roland Huntford.
The Last Place on Earth
In November 1912, the tent where Scott was finally killed was found. After the bad news spread back to England, Scott was considered to have sacrificed his life for the country, and he gained an unprecedented prestige, and his funeral was very solemn, and many people remembered him every year. This continued until the publication of Hunterford's work. After learning Norwegian, Hunterford studied all of Amundsen's work, making a comprehensive comparison of the two expeditions for the first time.
Hunterford found that none of Scott was stronger than Amundsen in all the details, which explained why their results were diametrically opposed. Why do two teams produce such different results? Feng Jing carried out this from the aspects of transportation methods, food, fuel, as well as the difference in personnel composition and laying supplies. In terms of transportation, for example, Amundsen's team relies on sled dogs— he and his team spent two years wintering with them in the Arctic Inuit area, systematically learning how to survive in extremely cold environments and how to use sled dogs as a means of transport. Scott's team initially used a motorized sled, but the technical conditions at the time, the mobile sled could not adapt to this harsh working environment, and the choice of Siberian ponies was also a mistake - their hooves and their own weight made it easier for them to step through the ice gap than the lighter dogs.
"What I'm going to do is the limit of what I'm going to the Antarctic continent." Unlike the commercial route to the South Pole in 2018, Feng Jing and her expedition to the inaccessible route is a completely new route, and before that, there was no information to refer to. Therefore, Feng Jing knew that before the trip began, she must be prepared. The invincibility was calibrated in 1958 by an 18-man convoy sent by the Soviet Union. In 1965 and 1967, two more expeditions from the United States and the Soviet Union arrived. It wasn't until 2007 that an expedition arrived again as kite skiing – the first non-mechanically powered expedition in human history.
Illustration of "Unconquerable - Chinese Girls Trekking Antarctica is Difficult to Reach".
Feng Jing said she had the idea of reaching the limit in October 2014 and finally started executing the project in May 2015. Start with the simplest basic training and work out all year round. During this period, Feng Jing mainly trained in Beijing, Jilin, Norway and New Zealand, and also specialized in ice gap rescue techniques. But after actually arriving at the South Pole and starting the trip, Feng Jing still encountered a series of problems: the water vapor of the breath would condense into ice, various equipment damage caused by excessive cold such as the sole of the shoe was opened, the water in the drinking bottle was frozen into an ice lump, the strong high reflex, the respiratory system problems, the shoulder and neck muscles were strained, bone fractures, dislocations, penetrating wounds in the lower lip and chin area, and the albino day that Feng Jing called the "battle of the centimeters". In the march of the forbidden area of life, Feng Jing must not only deal with the huge physical and mental challenges brought about by the extremely harsh natural environment, but also deal with the contest and conflict of human nature in a long-term extreme state. In Feng Jing's view, not everyone will set foot in antarctica, but everyone has a life worth pursuing.
Author 丨He An'an
Editor 丨 Zhang Jin
Proofreading 丨 Zhao Lin