Darren Edwards World Record Sit-Ski Expedition To The South Pole Cut Short After One Week In Antartica

Darren Edwards, the world record-breaking adaptive adventurer, has announced that after encountering insurmountable challenges he and his ‘Redefining Impossible’ expedition team have cut short their 222 kilometre sit-ski expedition to the South Pole.

Darren Edwards has said: “We’re not going to reach the South Pole. The distances we are doing each day, the amount of hours we are putting in each day, the terrain that we’re trying to get through, it’s so incredibly tough and the reality is that at the speed we are going, we will not reach the South Pole in time. We don’t have the rations to keep going, we can’t afford a resupply and members of the team are carrying injuries. The reality is we are not covering enough distance each day, so we are far too slow to reach the Pole in time and that hurts. But we learn more from our failures then we do our successes.”

British adaptive explorer Darren Edwards, who is paralysed from the chest down, set off from the UK on Wednesday 3rd of December and arrived in Antarctica on Sunday 7th December with expedition team members Matthew Biggar, Lucy Shepherd and Dwayne Fields.

Darren started his ‘Redefining Impossible’ world record attempt to become the first person to sit-ski 222km across Antarctica on Wednesday 10th December with the aim of reaching the South Pole two weeks later on Christmas Day in an attempt for the longest sit-ski in the history of Polar exploration.

One week into the expedition, on the evening of Wednesday 17th December the team collectively made the difficult decision to cut short the expedition, announced via Darren Edward’s Instagram account on Thursday 18th December. The team were picked up by airplane on Thursday 18th December and flown back to the safety of one of Antarctica’s manned stations via a visit (by airplane) to the South Pole.

One of the biggest challenges the team faced during the expedition was battling Antarctica’s Sastrugi – these are sharp, wave-like ridges and grooves carved into the snow surface by relentless, strong winds, acting like snow dunes but aligned with the wind, making travel by ski extremely difficult and almost impossible by sit-ski.

In recent years weather patterns in the Antarctic have been dramatically affected by global climate change, and the area that the team were skiing through at 88° South is further out from the pole than most expeditions venture, with gale force winds, punishingly low temperatures (down to minus 45 degrees), hard snow and strong friction, with the hard-packed snow resembling sand paper, all while skiing uphill, making the going incredibly arduous.

The team had a window of three weeks to reach the South Pole, however the adverse weather conditions and the incredible challenge of both skiing and sit-skiing across rock hard Sastrugi, through the world’s most inhospitable desert, meant that the expedition team could not cover enough ground each day. Falling further behind their target distance each day meant that the team would have had to extend the expedition by up to two weeks to reach the South Pole. Without the rations needed to extend the expedition or the funds to fly in a resupply, the team made the difficult decision to call an end to the expedition on Wednesday 17th December.

The Redefining Impossible expedition to the South Pole was organised by Darren Edwards, who suffered a spinal injury in 2016, to challenge perceptions of disability and empower others to redefine the impossible in their own lives.

Darren Edwards remains the only person to attempt to sit-ski to the South Pole from 88° South – 222km from the South Pole – a place no one with a spinal cord injury has every ventured before.

Darren Edwards is a former mountaineer and Army Reservist who sustained a life-changing injury in the summer of 2016. The near-fatal climbing accident would leave Darren permanently paralysed from the chest down. With determination, grit and positivity, Darren has overcome adversity by becoming an Adaptive Adventurer, Expedition Leader and Motivational Speaker.

On the 6th of August 2016, Darren Edward’s life changed forever. Whilst rock climbing in North Wales, a section of rock unexpectedly shifted below his feet and Darren was sent tumbling uncontrollably toward his climbing partner 100ft below.

The injury Darren sustained would leave him instantly paralysed from the chest down and with a severe spinal cord injury. Darren had been incredibly lucky to survive. Yet, as he was prepared for aerial extraction by the Mountain Rescue, Darren made an important and life-changing commitment to himself. He would not be beaten. 

Darren Edwards is a living testament to the boundless capabilities of the human spirit. Surviving a devastating, life-changing climbing accident that very nearly claimed his life, and could so easily have destroyed his spirit, Darren has instead used it as a catalyst for growth.

What followed his accident was an arduous five-month journey through intensive care, surgery, and rehabilitation. Whilst Darren was able to come to terms with the events of that day, it would be accepting the limitations and implications of his disability that would require genuine grit and resilience.

Darren has pushed himself at each stage of his rehabilitation to come back stronger and to prove what can be achieved by someone with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and disability. Adventure has very much been at the heart of Darren’s recovery. Since first dreaming of learning to kayak as a way in which he could continue to explore the great outdoors, Darren has gone on to train as part of Great Britain’s Paracanoe Team, to pioneer adaptive freediving in the UK, and in 2021, to become the first disabled person to kayak from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’ Groats in Scotland – a distance of over 1,400 kilometres.

Darren Edwards has said:“From the moment we set off from 88° South (222km from the Pole) we’ve battled Sastrugi. The snow is like sand paper, so every push of my poles gets me only six inches further forward, where as normally I can push and glide, and we’re down to temperatures of minus 45 which is extreme even for Antarctica. As a team we’ve battled through every minute and every hour. It’s been the toughest physical and mental challenge of my life.

"While we haven’t made it to the South Pole, for me the success of this endeavour has been to chart an area where sit ski has never been and where someone with a Spinal Cord Injury has never been. In a landscape that feels incredibly hostile to disability and hostile to a sit ski, I’m so thankful for having my team mates Matthew, Lucy and Dwayne alongside me, who have each had their own mental and physical battles to fight through each day, just like me.

"This has been one hell of a journey of redefining impossible. Being in hospital nine years ago, being told I would never walk again, I would never have dreamed it possible that someone with a spinal cord injury could go to the South Pole. This journey has been about much more than reaching the South Pole. This is about impowering people to achieve things in their lives - the things they couldn’t have dreamt would have been possible. Hopefully this journey inspires people to redefine impossible in their own lives.”

Darren on Sit Skiing across Antarctica: “Sit skiing up here is the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done. In normal snow conditions, I can push and glide on the sit ski, but here it’s like the sit ski is stuck to the snow and every inch forward has to be fought for. The sastrugi doesn’t need to be that big to really make the sit ski difficult to handle and at the end of each day I am physically and mentally exhausted. Mentally it’s been a rollercoaster of battling through lots of negative thoughts and self-doubt and moments of real self-belief that anything can be overcome and reminding myself why I am doing this.” 

Darren is continuing to raise £100,000 for the charity ‘Wings for Life’ which seeks to find a cure for Spinal Cord Injury, and funds research and clinical trials globally with astonishing results. https://givestar.io/gs/redefining-impossible--darren-edwards-to-the-south-pole

Previous record-breaking challenges undertaken by Darren Edwards since he was paralysed at the age of 26 include:

• In April 2023, Darren was part of the first adaptive team to cross Europe’s largest Ice Cap, the mighty Vatnajokull in Iceland. Alongside Ed Jackson and Niall McCann, the team of three individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) overcame huge challenges to complete their epic unsupported journey in just 11 days.
• In October 2022, Darren became the first person to complete the World Marathon Challenge using a wheelchair – the iconic challenge of running seven marathons in seven days on seven different continents. More people have stood on the summit of Everest than have completed this gruelling logistical, physical and psychological test.
• In May 2022 Darren became the first adaptive adventurer to lead a crew of six on the epic undertaking of rowing across the English Channel (23 nautical miles across the busiest shipping lane in the world) in aid of suicide prevention charities across the UK and in memory of his father who took his own life in September 2021
• In June 2021 Darren became the first person with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) to Kayak 1,400 kilometres from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’ Groats in Scotland. He also led a team of five injured and wounded veterans during the challenge.

Now, a record-breaking adaptive adventurer, Darren has redefined the limits of what is thought possible for an individual with a Spinal Cord Injury.