Ice’s seven Project

Every crossing planned on this project is first national achievements: they have never been performed by any other Spanish expedition. Extreme weather, lack of resources (as much as they can carry), long distances and ground difficulties will put their limits to the test. Nevertheless, Jose and Hilo are not moved by the effort of beating sport records. On the contrary, they are motivated by the idea of the trip itself, the way of carrying out every stage to take the best advantage of everything that is being offered to them.

Strategy: looking for global experiences

Ice is more than water below 0 Celsius degrees. Each frozen extension of the planet has its own feature, which makes of every planned stage a particular physical challenge, but logistic as well. There are a lot of factors to bear in mind, from materials to be used and the way of progression, to the type of terrain, latitude, time of the year, permits and requirement needed in every area, just as the way to access to each starting point… and to get back once the goal is reached. For instance, the kites which with they both look forward to covering more than 2.000 km in the Antarctic would be useless in the North Pole, where the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean is moving and breaking into pieces continuously by the effect of tides – and global warming. In the same way, in the South Ice Camp they won’t find any human settlements whereas they will find them on both sides of the Northeast Pass; in Patagonia, at the end of the ice they will find lakes, rivers and fjords far from any village, which they will do by kayak. On the other hand, each objective consists in something more than doing a certain distance; on the contrary, they are looking for complete experiences. That’s why they do not want to give up climbing mountains in Spitsbergen, living with inuit clans (Eskimos) that live in the southern islands of Canada, or reaching the South Pole from a different route that most of the expeditions normally takes, even though this means extra kilometers and extra days of stay on the ice.

Learning from the masters

At the time of selecting places and routes, in the mind of the expedition members the legacy of the great explorers of the Polar Regions have had a great importance: Shipton’s in Patagonia, Peary and Cook’s in the Arctic Ocean… but, above all, the Norwegian pioneers. “Norwegians triumphed over other explorers from other nations, because they learnt from Eskimos, and they used the wisdom that the inhabitants of the Polar Regions had accumulated through centuries”, José assures. "Today, 150 years later, we want to take the baton, and learn at the same time, from Norwegians. We are going to follow Nansen’s footprints in the Arctic, Amudsend’s through the Northeast Pass to the South Pole, Sverdrup’s in Ellesmere’s Island… And not only of those visionaries that opened routes considered impossible, but of their heirs as well."
Indeed, José and Hilo are in touch with some of the most outstanding polar expedition members of the current scene: Borge Ousland (first man, who crossed the Arctic alone passing through the North Pole, and that two years ago he also crossed the South Ice Camp) and Rune Gjeldnes, whose footprint will be followed by Hilo and José from the Land of Queen Maud to the South Pole (Rune went on after it to the other side of the Antarctic, in a crossing alone and with 4.800 km autonomy, which hardly will be repeated). Both have been a valuable source of information in everything regarding last generation material, strategy, logistics and route tracing.

Enterprising spirit

In short, José and Hilo understand that expeditions must maintain the spirit undertook by pioneers that some day started to travel the blank spaces of maps: the spirit of exploration, of discovering – both of the environment but of themselves as well. They assume that their choice involve risk and suffering but they are confident of, when they come back home, it will be with a big smile, a few lessons learnt from experience, and a bunch of good stories to remember and to share.