Setting out from the Gould Bay fuel cache - at the point where the open water laps the sea ice, and home to a large Emperor penguin colony - the route traverses south across Berkner Island. After crossing the Filchner Ice Shelf and setting foot on the Antarctic land mass, a steep ascent through the Pensacola Mountains allows a passage onto the Antarctic plateau at around 3000m above sea level.

Several hundred kilometers of sastrugi - parallel, wave-like ridges in the snow scarred by the wind - interrupt the final steps before reaching the pole nine hundred miles later.