The Antarctic Ski Expedition: Skiing the White Continent, Reached by Sea

Boris Malesset
Jul 5
8 min read

Two days of the Drake Passage roll under the hull, then the swell drops, the water goes flat and grey-green, and the first tabular iceberg slides past the porthole. You clip into the skins off the deck of a zodiac, climb a slope no one has ever tracked, and ski it back down to where the snow meets the sea ice. That, in plain terms, is what skiing Antarctica is — the most remote ski trip there is, reached not by plane but by boat, in the austral summer when the sun barely sets. No lifts, no road, no village at the bottom of the run. A sailing ship for a base camp, the Antarctic Peninsula for a whole season of untracked lines, and a light that holds past midnight. I have spent twenty-five years around off-piste skiing, and nowhere else feels quite this far from everything.

The white continent: skiing where almost no one goes

There is nowhere on Earth harder to reach with a pair of skis. The Antarctic Peninsula is the long arm of the continent that curls up towards South America, and it is the one stretch of Antarctica within a boat's reach for a ski trip — a coast of glaciers that drop straight into the sea, ridgelines rising out of the pack ice, and snow faces that no one has skied because almost no one comes here. The peaks we climb run between roughly 500 and 1,500 metres, low numbers that mean nothing until you understand they start at the tideline and finish in the water.

The Antarctic Peninsula: a first line dropping towards the ship, and no other party on the whole coast.

What you get in return for the distance is a kind of skiing that has all but vanished elsewhere: virgin slopes where you set the only track, and a descent that runs out onto a beach or the frozen surface of a bay. Between the ski days the wildlife is not a backdrop but the company — colonies of penguins ashore, humpback whales working a bay, the occasional pod of orcas off the bow as the ship repositions. No other party in sight for days. The scale of the place does the talking, and it does not need an adjective from me.

Getting there by sea: the Drake Passage, the ship as base

You reach Antarctica the way the old expeditions did — by sea. The trip begins in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile, where you board the JRR Tolkien, a Dutch expedition sailing ship built in 1964. From there the ship rounds Cape Horn, the last cape of the Americas, and points south across the Drake Passage — some 800 kilometres of the most open water on the planet, where the Southern Ocean meets no land to slow it down. Two days of swell, and then the Peninsula.

Once you are among the ice, the ship becomes the whole trip: base camp, dining room and transport in one. It anchors in a bay, a zodiac runs you to the foot of a slope, you climb and ski, and overnight the ship slips to a new stretch of coast so you wake under a different set of peaks. It is the same logic that runs through every boat-based ski trip we organise — our ski-and-sail expedition off Spitsbergen aboard the schooner Noorderlicht works the Arctic coast the same way. At the end of the ten ski days you do not sail back across the Drake: you fly out from King George Island, off the northern tip of the Peninsula, which trades the second crossing for a few hours in the air.

Skiing Antarctica: the skiing itself

Strip away the distance and the ice, and the skiing itself is honest ski touring and ski mountaineering — the kind you would recognise from any serious spring day, done in a place almost no one reaches. You step off the zodiac, clip into the skins, and climb. The day's ascent usually runs between 600 and 1,000 metres of vertical, set on untracked virgin slopes, and the descent finishes where the snow runs out at the sea. There is no lift and no shortcut; you earn every turn on the way up.

A first descent running out onto the sea ice — the signature of skiing the Peninsula.

The safety work is the same as anywhere serious, and it is not optional this far from help. Avalanche terrain is never zero-risk, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something; the aim is not "safe" but acceptably safe — a line read and judged. The snowpack is assessed to the day, the aspect and timing chosen with care, and everyone carries the standard kit, provided for the trip: an ABS airbag pack, a transceiver, and a shovel and probe, checked before the first climb. On glacier and mountain terrain like this, the party is led by a mountain professional — a qualified off-piste ski instructor or an IFMGA/UIAGM mountain guide, depending on the ground — and now and then the most expert call of the day is the good sense to turn back. If you want the plainer picture of what turns like these ask of you, how good a skier you need to be for a trip like this is worth reading before you write.

The austral window: endless light

South of the Antarctic Circle the seasons run backwards to ours. The window to ski here is the austral summer — the southern-hemisphere summer, which falls in our northern winter — when the sea ice loosens enough for a ship to work the coast and the days stretch to more than twenty hours of daylight. Near the solstice the sun barely dips below the horizon, so you can climb at almost any hour and the snow rarely locks up hard overnight.

That is why the booking calendar looks upside down: you plan a trip for the season that is winter at home. In practice the departures fall in November and December, the heart of the austral summer, when the light no longer goes out. The exact dates of each departure sit on the trip page, so check the trip page for the year's departures and we will confirm them when you write. The one thing that does not change is the light: at these latitudes, in the austral summer, the day simply does not end.

Who it's for: level and the expedition mindset

Honestly: a fit, confident off-piste skier with some ski touring in your legs, and the head for an expedition. You should be comfortable skiing the fall line under control in mixed snow and linking parallel turns off the groomed whatever the surface throws at you, then repeating it across ten ski days with 600 to 1,000 metres of climbing on each. This is not a first tour, and it is not a place to learn.

The rest is temperament. Fifteen days aboard a small ship, two crossings of open water, weather that turns a planned line into a different one, cold that bites on the climb — the expedition mindset matters as much as the legs. Groups are kept to four or five skiers with a guide to each, eighteen at most across the whole ship, so the guiding is close and the pace is human. If you are weighing whether the level and the outlay are right for you, what a ski adventure like this actually costs sets out the money side plainly, and the different ways we reach untracked snow puts the ship-based approach next to the others. If you are unsure where you sit, say so when you write — it is exactly the conversation to have before you book.

In brief

Duration · 15 days · 10 ski days
Access · by sea — the sailing ship JRR Tolkien, Punta Arenas → Cape Horn → the Drake Passage → the Antarctic Peninsula; return by flight from King George Island
Terrain · ski touring and ski mountaineering on the Antarctic Peninsula · ascents of 600–1,000 m · virgin slopes, descents to the sea
Groups / guides · max 18 per departure, in 4 groups of 4–5 · one guide per group (4–5 guides)
Season · the austral summer (our northern winter), November–December · 20+ hours of daylight · exact dates on the trip page
Wildlife · penguins, whales, orcas along the coast

Frequently asked questions

How do you get to Antarctica to ski?

By sea. The trip starts in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile, aboard the sailing ship JRR Tolkien; it rounds Cape Horn and crosses the Drake Passage — about 800 kilometres of open ocean — to reach the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship is your base camp for the ten ski days, and you fly home from King George Island rather than sail the Drake a second time.

What level of skier do I need to ski Antarctica?

A fit, confident off-piste skier with some ski touring experience, comfortable on the fall line in mixed snow, and with the head for an expedition. The trip runs ten ski days with 600 to 1,000 metres of climbing on each, across fifteen days aboard a small ship. It is not a first tour and not a place to learn.

When is the season to ski Antarctica?

The austral summer — the southern-hemisphere summer, which falls in our northern winter — with departures in November and December, when the sea ice loosens for the ship and the days run to more than twenty hours of daylight. The exact dates of each departure sit on the trip page; we confirm the year's departures when you write.

Is a ski trip to Antarctica a real expedition?

Yes, in the true sense of the word. You reach the continent by boat across the Drake Passage, live aboard for fifteen days, and ski untracked virgin slopes with no infrastructure below you and no other party in sight — the safety and self-reliance are run accordingly. This is one of the few trips where "expedition" is the plain, honest description.

A word from the founder

In twenty-five years around off-piste skiing, nothing has come close to standing on a deck off the Antarctic Peninsula at midnight, the sun still up and a wall of ice filling the horizon. You cross the Drake, you take the zodiac, you climb on skins, and at the bottom of the run there is the sea — and the ship, waiting to carry you somewhere new while you sleep. We keep it to small groups of four or five, a guide to each, and the programme honest: it moves with the ice, the weather and the snow, and now and then we have the good sense to turn back. Antarctica decides; we read it, and we go home when it says so.

— Boris Malesset, founder of PowderWeGo, off-piste ski professional since 2001

This coast is the whole of our Antarctic Ski Expedition.

A sailing ship for a base camp, the Drake Passage behind you, and skins to virgin summits that finish at the sea — ten ski days for eighteen skiers at most, in the light of the austral summer. Departures and price are confirmed on request; a place is held with a simple message.

Discover the Antarctic Ski Expedition

A question on level, dates, the crossing or the cost? Let's plan your expedition — Boris answers personally and helps you hold an option.

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