Explorer Plans a Happy Brrrr-thday

SNOHOMISH, Wash. —  Helen Thayer turned 50 at the top of the world. For her 60th birthday, she’s heading south.

She’s set to start a three-month, 1,500-mile solo trek across Antarctica this weekend.

Thayer is taking along a cupcake and a candle, but festivities Nov. 12 may take a back seat to more pressing concerns. Subzero temperatures, for example. Or 100-mph wind gusts that could hurl her into a crevasse in the blink of an eye.

Thayer already made history as the first woman to walk to the magnetic North Pole alone. On that trip, she experienced tent fires, ice that broke underfoot and at least seven encounters with polar bears.

“It was scary,” she said. “You never knew when you’d be on their dinner plate. That would not have been be a cool way to go.”

In the Antarctic, where temperatures can drop to minus 40 Fahrenheit, she plans to walk at least 12 hours a day, with about five minutes of rest every hour or so.

Anything longer will make her body temperature drop too much. Anything too strenuous will make her perspire and freeze.

She spent two years getting into condition for this venture, with a grueling daily schedule that included a 10-mile run, a 20-mile hike and an hour of weight training.

Thayer also put in a daily hour pulling a sled filled with concrete, to toughen her for the 260-pound sled--crammed with carefully weighed essentials--she’s hauling across Antarctica.

Every little thing counts: The handle of her toothbrush has been sawed off to make it lighter. Her wedding ring is in her left jacket pocket--keeping her link with husband Bill close to her heart--because it could freeze on her finger and cut off circulation.

She’ll take in about 5,000 calories a day and expend about 6,000. About half of the sled load is food, including crackers, cashews, soup, energy bars and her favorite peanut-butter cups--all without wrappers to reduce waste and weight.

For three months, she will have no human contact except for the daily satellite signals she sends her husband through the Global Positioning System with a small hand-held transmitter.

Only her journal will keep her company. No music, no books.

“There’s going to be plenty to keep me occupied. I doubt boredom will be a factor,” she said with a smile. “I really get focused on what I want to achieve--that is what I can gather through my camera lens and my notes for kids.”

In 1987, the Thayers--who have no children of their own--established “For the Future of Kids,” a program that targets at-risk urban youngsters.

On their expeditions--the couple have kayaked through the Amazon and walked the Sahara--they gather information and photographs that Helen Thayer uses in speaking tours and slide shows to teach children about the limitless possibilities of life.

“I did it so that kids can see all four corners of the world through our eyes,” she said. “I want them to learn how to set goals, plan for success and be the best they can be.”

Thayer, author of “Polar Dream,” has told her travel tales to almost 350,000 children worldwide.

The risks don’t faze her.

“You know when you do something like this you’re pushing the envelope a bit, but when we set a goal, we research and train and go for it,” Thayer said. “Bill and I try to look at the positive side of it all the time, rather than the negative side.”

Her progress will be updated daily by her husband on a Website specially set up for the trip and monitored by schoolchildren, kindergarten through 12th grade, in 32 countries.

With financial support from Statesville, N.C.-based Thorlo, which makes sports socks, she flew to Punta Arena, Chile--the jumping-off point--on Oct. 21 to prepare for the expedition.

Thayer’s 5-foot-3, 135-pound frame is powerfully built. Her cropped reddish-brown hair and clipped fingernails bespeak an active, no-frills lifestyle. Expeditions and writing aside, Thayer has worked as a clothing designer, ski instructor and lab technician. She plays the organ and violin and has a passion for knitting.

“I just regard myself as an ordinary person who does unordinary--not extraordinary--things,” she said. “When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, I’m just like the next guy.”

The New Zealand-born Thayer and her husband, a helicopter pilot, live on six acres in the rolling foothills of the North Cascade Mountains near Snohomish, about 25 miles north of Seattle.

“I have no plans for slowing down,” she said. “Bill and I were thinking of trekking across the Gobi Desert next.”

Helen Thayer’s trip can be followed on www.antarctictrek.com.