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Morning News

Surviving Antarctica: The History-Making Trek of Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen

Aired December 19, 2000 - 10:33 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: If you really want to talk cold temperatures, wait till you hear about the history-making trek that two women are currently making across Antarctica. American Ann Bancroft and Norwegian Liv Arnesen left in mid-November on a journey that very few people would try. They're attempting to become the first women to cross Antarctica on foot.

Now, why would anyone want to do such a thing? We had a chance to sit down and talk with these two women in the month before they left.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN BANCROFT, ANTARCTIC EXPLORER: Let's go.

This is free. It's a great way to get in shape and to maintain a level of shape.

That's it. Come on.

It's so fun when your mind just goes. I'm kind of in my own head.

KAGAN (voice-over): Don't let the fun part or the beautiful autumn scenery fool you. Ann Bancroft is a Polar adventurer, training hard, pushing herself each morning as dawn breaks.

BANCROFT: You know, if I look at this activity as my career, this is my peak moment. I've been building for this my whole career.

KAGAN: Why? Because this 45-year-old former schoolteacher is facing her toughest adventure yet. She's looking to become one of the first women ever to successfully trek across the continent of Antarctica.

(on camera): Is an early reaction that you get that you're crazy for trying this?

BANCROFT: Oh, yes. I don't view this as an extreme sport kind of activity. But it is very hard to convince people that this isn't reckless.

KAGAN (voice-over): She sees herself as someone who travels the road less traveled. It's been her life's work.

(on camera): Not a lot of women around the world pulling tires for a good time.

BANCROFT: There's a reason you live in this remoteness, you know. You don't want neighbors.

KAGAN (voice-over): Bancroft was raised in rural Minnesota. She remembers her father taking her into the open wilderness. Books also had an influence: stories about old explorers like Ernest Shackleton, who searched out distant lands. Those fantasies captured Ann's young mind.

BANCROFT: It's not the career I think that my mother though I would have. She was pretty happy with me being an elementary teacher.

KAGAN: The first true test came in 1986. After years of training, Ann set out on a 1,000-mile journey through northern Canada to the North Pole. She wanted to become the first women ever to get there.

BANCROFT: The place is so big. And you just -- I just remember standing on that ice and it just swallowed you up. And as woman, you know, I was seeing so many people come up to me and hearing so many people say, you know, you couldn't and you shouldn't and, you know, all of that stuff. And it's like, but this is what I want to do. And you don't know if I can't. I mean, I knew I could do this.

Finally, huh?

KAGAN: And so she did.

BANCROFT: You just don't get an opportunity in this world very often to have this unencumbered view, this kind of silence where you can really clear out the clutter in your head and get into a rhythm with Mother Nature. And it demands -- it really, really does demand so much of you to be out there.

KAGAN: And Bancroft wanted even more experience in a land where summer temperatures average 30 below, with wind gusts whipping at 100 miles per hour across its icy peeks and valleys.

So in November 1992, she embarked on what would be her first journey across Antarctica. She recruited three other female explorers for the 1,500-mile expedition.

BANCROFT: They all looked at our size. And we were a group of -- I think the tallest of us stood at 5'6". The rest of us were all down around 5'3", you know, 110 pounds.

KAGAN: But after 67 days, the grueling elements finally took their toll. Bancroft and her group were disappointed and weary. They only got as far as the South Pole, just a third of the way into their expedition.

BANCROFT: "Another long day with not enough of the results I'm looking for, reluctant to reach the goal, a mixture of excitement and sadness. So many years, so much focus that I feel uncomfortable in its completion."

KAGAN (on camera): How hard it was it to leave the South Pole that last time?

BANCROFT: That was the hardest decision I think I've ever made in my life. It was so the right decision. But having it be right did not make it easy. I was in the best shape of my life, the food was there, the fuel was there. Everything was in place to do it. There was enough time in the season.

I knew standing at the bottom of the world in January of '93 that I would be back.

KAGAN: So in 1993, Ann Bancroft found herself back in the U.S. with that unfinished business of completing an all-female trek across Antarctica. The key to making that dream come true was finding the perfect partner, someone who could complete that 2,400-mile journey. Standing here in Minnesota, who would imagine that woman lived a world away in Oslo, Norway.

LIV ARNESEN, ANTARCTIC EXPLORER: I think it's kind of magic meeting a woman with the same interests and background as myself.

KAGAN (voice-over): For Liv Arnesen, life is also about traveling the road less traveled.

ARNESEN: I don't think I followed the mainstream as a kid. I was kind of stubborn. I wanted to do it my own way. My parents said that I was terribly stubborn. But I have improved.

KAGAN: In 1994, Liv became the first woman to ski solo from the tip of Antarctica to the South Pole, an incredible achievement that caught the eye of Ann Bancroft.

BANCROFT: So I called her up and I said, you know, I said, what are you doing? and would you be interested? And she was very intrigued. And so I flew her over here and we sat out here for about eight days. And at week's end she goes, I think we should do this project.

KAGAN: That meant, for the past two years, Bancroft has traveled to Norway so they can train together during the winter months?

BANCROFT: What's the temp in here?

KAGAN: The remaining time is spent apart, giving them the opportunity to train, well, creatively.

BANCROFT: It's pretty nippy in here.

KAGAN: Ann sat in a frozen ice cream locker to adapt to the frigid temperatures and test her equipment.

DR. STEVE STERNER, HENNPIN COUNTY MEDICAL CENTER: This is buprivacaine...

KAGAN: They also had to prepare for the unknown. What if there's a serious injury? Do you go on or do you call it quits?

STERNER: This is obviously an incredible trip. And it's going in a place where, you know, most of us can't imagine. It's like being on the moon. I mean, there's no 7-Elevens, there's no Urgent Cares down there. They are really on their own.

KAGAN: The two explorers must cross Antarctica in 100 days. There's only a three-month window in the weather. They start along the tip of Queen Maud Land. After that, the terrain flattens out. Their goal is to reach Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole, a 1,300-mile journey, by Christmas Day.

PAUL KOCIN, THE WEATHER CHANNEL: This is very dangerous, primarily because the weather is going to be fairly unpredictable and they will experience, given the length of time they're going to be there, some very varying kinds of weather.

KAGAN: But they'll still have more than 1,000 miles to go. They'll have to ski down the precarious Axel Heiberg Glacier until they reach the Ross Ice Shelf, then finally into home base: McMurdo, Antarctica.

ARNESEN: I envision that it's -- that we are coming close to McMurdo and skiing side by side, and I have had a good expedition, but I'm not thinking very much of it. I'm just focusing on that everything is going to go smooth and to keep focussing on every day. That's the most important, actually, for us because it's such a long stretch.

KAGAN (on camera): If you didn't make it last time, what makes you think you're going to make it this time?

BANCROFT: Both of us know Antarctica. It's not our first time so I don't think we're going to have that moment of -- how the last time just landing you got so overwhelmed. The place is so big.

We don't know exactly where we'll be led. I mean, I have a whole, you know, pocket full of dreams I want to achieve. I don't know in which order they're going to fall.

I'll feel really good once we strap into our harnesses and begin because then it all starts to be real and you sort of settle in, you feel your hip bones again grinding against the harness, and you'll know you're home.

It does change you in small and sometimes big ways, depending on what unfolds. And that's kind of the exciting, you know, not scary, but nervous piece, because that's really the unknown.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And those pictures from about 36 days ago as the women started their journey; 36 days in, they are about halfway to the South Pole.

Later today here on CNN, we are going to have a great opportunity: the first live telephone interview with the adventurers to Antarctica. The latest report had the temperature at 21 degrees below zero. We'll get the latest on the progress of the expedition from Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen. Again, that's 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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