A week in the interior
Cape Town to the South Pole and back: Whichaway Camp, the Blue Rivers, a night at 83° South and Echo Base, as one journey on the ice with White Desert.
The week
White Desert’s longest journey, held as one continuous stay: Whichaway and the Blue Rivers first, then the flight to the South Pole and a night on the High Polar Plateau, and finally Echo Base among the nunataks. Cape Town frames it at either end.
The stays are two camps of six pods each: Whichaway Camp and Echo Base, with the Pole between them. The order of the days follows the weather, as it always does in Antarctica.
See our Antarctica guide and the Wild Frontiers collection.
Itinerary
Rock and lakes, the bottom of the Earth, then the nunataks, sequenced by White Desert’s guides and pilots, and shaped by the weather.
Arrive in Cape Town at least two nights ahead; the day before departure, White Desert’s team holds the safety briefing and personally checks your polar clothing and kit. Then five and a half hours south by privately chartered Airbus, crossing into continuous daylight, to land on the blue-ice runway at Wolf’s Fang. The arrival is toasted with cocktails chilled by 10,000-year-old ice, before the short flight on to Whichaway.
The first days begin gently, with activities matched to your skill and energy. Once settled, the guides lead a four-hour hike from camp to the Blue Rivers, along ridges of ice above the running water, with a picnic at the river’s edge before the walk home.
A walk across the frozen lake, yoga in the wellness dome, a massage from the camp’s physical therapist. In the evening, your guides brief you on the journey to the Pole.
The Basler flies over mountain ranges to the High Polar Plateau, refuels at Dixie’s Camp at 83° South, and lands at the Pole. Stand at 90°, visit the Geographic and Ceremonial Poles and stamp your passport, then return to Dixie’s Camp to spend the night as the polar pioneers did.
Wake on the plateau and fly back across the continent to Echo Base. The sauna, a massage, and a cocktail at the bar overlooking Wolf’s Fang.
The ice cave, a line on the ice-climbing wall, or a hike with IFMGA-certified guides to the summit of a nunatak, to take in the full scale of the last true wilderness.
As the Airbus lands on the blue ice, there is time for the Ice Bar, the boutique or a film in the ice cinema, before the flight home to Cape Town.
The landscape
White Desert stills from Whichaway, the South Pole and Echo, the oasis, the plateau and the glacier between them.
The houses
Houses on the itinerary, opened by name.
Schirmacher Oasis, Queen Maud Land · Antarctica: six pods, twelve guests
White Desert’s original Antarctic camp: six pods with glass conservatories on the rare exposed rock of the Schirmacher Oasis, above a chain of freshwater lakes.
Henriksen Nunataks, Queen Maud Land · Antarctica: six sky pods, twelve guests
White Desert’s Echo Base: six award-winning sky pods on an ancient Antarctic glacier beneath the Henriksen Nunataks, conceived in conversation with Buzz Aldrin.
Photo: White Desert
Begin here
Whichaway, the South Pole and Echo Base are confirmed by hand. Tell us the season and who is travelling.
