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    Glamping in Antarctica with White Desert is a transformative journey

    Ben Mack

    It's not just camping, it's a glamorous, surreal experience in an otherworldly place

    Stirring from the soft, warm king bed, it’s difficult to tell if I’m still dreaming. Through enormous, curved windows perfectly positioned so as to fool the viewer into thinking they’re floating, a dazzling white carpet of snow glimmers almost as far as the eye can see. At the edge of the horizon are dark, jagged shapes – mountains, beyond which is the South Pole.

    Mesmerising views from six futuristic, igloo-like guest pods – which also have couches, toilets, USB ports, even underfloor heating – are but one of many otherworldly aspects of sleeping atop a glacier in Antarctica at a camp operated by White Desert. Located in remote – even by Antarctic standards – Queen Maud Land, Echo Camp may well be the most exclusive luxury accommodation in the world.

    “About 99 per cent” of Antarctic visitors come by cruise ship, explains co-founder Patrick Woodhead (who holds three polar exploration world records). With strict limits on the number of people from the ships allowed on shore, only the very privileged few get to spend the night – or several nights – on the ice itself. Staying among the alien landscape of the vast, wild interior, Woodhead adds, is the closest thing to visiting space – and that distraction-free serenity is a big part of the appeal.

    White Desert flies guests 5.5 hours south from Cape Town, South Africa, in an Airbus A340 or business jet between mid-November and early February. This is summer in Antarctica, with 24 hours of bright sunshine and temperatures sometimes just a few degrees below zero (Echo staff say the relative warmth can surprise many guests, though it’s still frozen Antarctica). 

    It’s possible to stay at Echo for a day, a week or longer. You can even book out the entire camp – which celebrities and royals have done – and land your private jet at Wolf’s Fang, the ice runway they operate a short drive from Echo.

    Once in Antarctica, the feeling of surrealness never leaves. There are the amenities in camp, on par with a five-star hotel. These include spacious walk-in showers with blissfully hot water, Charlotte Rhys toiletries, and cinematic views of the huge, snowy landscape. There’s a lounge pod packed with plush furniture – an ideal place for socialising while enjoying salmon and caviare canapés and admiring a kaleidoscopic sculpture by Anthony James. 

    There’s also a well-appointed, dreamlike library, filled with rare curios such as fossilised shells, and boasting what’s unquestionably the best view of any library in Antarctica.

    Then there are the activities. Each feels like an epic adventure worthy of Hollywood or a hardcover book. “Antarctica attracts adventurers from all over the globe,” explains Woodhead – and it shows in the offerings. There’s hiking across the icy, majestic landscape that glitters like spilt sugar, riding orange “fatbikes” with special studded tyres, cross-country skiing, and much more. 

    I join the expert guides one morning for an expedition around a nunatak – the part of a mountain sticking out from a snow field or glacier – and am shown how to use ropes and ice axes before abseiling dozens of metres down a nearly sheer, rocky cliff pockmarked by wind – the adrenaline-pumping thrill is unlike anything I’ve experienced.

    Another day, we venture into an ice cave, exploring its twisting, crystalline passageways. Faces reflected in the glass-smooth ice, it’s like walking through tunnels of frozen mirrors.

    No matter what each day brings, it’ll be fuelled by sumptuous meals made fresh in Echo’s cosy – yet well-appointed – kitchen, connected to the dining room by a small hallway that wouldn’t look out of place on a space station. Served with bone china plates, Sola silverware, and Luigi Bormioli glasses, breakfast might be fresh-baked bread, fruit, and omelettes made to order, while lunch could be roast beef and aubergine wraps with Greek pesto. One day, it’s chicken with Gorgonzola salad and potatoes on the dinner menu, and another, duck with honey and Dijon mustard sauce, followed by gooey chocolate mousse for dessert.

    According to Echo chefs Jenna Short and Sarah Cuppleditch, many ingredients are flown in fresh – and everything is used in creative ways in the name of sustainability. 

    “There’s a whole lot of maths involved,” explains Jenna of balancing the need to ensure the food meets the standards of discerning guests. “We also only use quality ingredients – we take no short-cuts.”

    Speaking more on sustainability – one of White Desert’s mottoes is “leave no trace”, and sustainability is taken seriously. Shower water comes from melted ice, for example, and guest pods are solar-powered. They’ve even flown planes to Antarctica using Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

    Luxurious as a stay at Echo is, White Desert offers even more privileged experiences. 'South Pole & Emperors' includes a visit in a propeller-driven, shiny bright red, white, and dark blue Basler BT-67 aeroplane with skis attached to its wheels to a colony of more than 14,000 emperor penguins and their fuzzy young chicks. 

    There’s also a trip to the South Pole, with a chance to explore the hallowed ground people for centuries thought was impossible to reach (and, yes, there’s a red and white pole there, with a mirrored sphere on top).

    “Ultimate Antarctica” is a new, bespoke, 24-day adventure allowing guests to experience the very best of Antarctica in the greatest comfort. It includes private air charter to Antarctica, exclusive use of Echo for up to 12 guests, visits to the South Pole and penguin colonies, a 77-metre luxury yacht cruising around the edge of the ice, helicopter flights over the ice itself, even a three-seater submersible excursion under the Antarctic ice. 

    Woodhead says a White Desert trip can be transformative. Many guests leave the ice as Antarctic ambassadors, advocating for looking after its unforgettable environment. As he says, “There’s adventure out there, and it’s important to foster it.”

    Summitting a nunatak called Cheesegrater near Echo and sipping hot coffee and tea while drinking in the views of the vanilla-cake-frosting-like snow fields below as brown birds called south polar skua fly overhead without a cloud in the sapphire sky, it’s quite impossible to disagree.

    white-desert.com

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