Antarctica Team    
             
 

Alison Levine, from San Francisco, USA, is a climber, explorer, entrepreneur, and organisational leadership consultant. She is also the founder of the Climb High Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to improving the lives of jobless women in third-world countries by training them to work as porters and guides in their local mountains so they will have the skills to benefit from trekking and climbing-related tourism.

True to a Norwegian saying, Merete Gjertsen was "born with skis on her feet". At 60, she will be the oldest woman to ski from the Antarctic geographical coastline to the South Pole. Merete is not new to adventuring having crossed Greenland in 1996, completed expeditions on Baffin and Svalbard, and many high mountain expeditions in the Himalayas, to Elbrus in Russia and Africa. Merete is a doctor, she is married to Tom and has two children and four grandchildren.

Over the past twenty years Bernice Notenboom has embarked on unusual expeditions, from camel drives in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia to climbing and ski-mountaineering trips in Greenland and the Himalaya, to skiing frozen rivers and kayaking the North West passage. Bernice traded her career as a professional river outfitter for a career in journalism, radio reporting and documentary filmmaking. During this International Year of the Pole 2007 – 2009, Bernice is skiing to three poles in one year: the North, South and Cold Pole in Siberia. In March 2007 she skied the Villiyu River to the cold pole in Siberia, in April 2007 she reached the North Pole and she now embarks on her South Pole trek. She will be the first Dutch woman to ski to the South Pole. Her mission is to take inventory through interviewing scientists, recording native people and taking photos of some of the world’s most extreme climates to observe how rapidly these environments are changing. You can find her stories and radio reports in various National Geographic publications, on NPR broadcasts, on her website and in her upcoming book. Bernice is originally from Holland but resides in Fernie, Canada.

 

  

George Szwender was born and raised in Edmonton Alberta, by his Polish parents. Growing up Canadian with a Polish heritage, he speaks fluent Polish. He holds a BA Degree in Outdoor Recreation and Geography from the University of Alberta. George has worked in Youth Counselling, as a Recreation Director, a training consultant and Recreation/Tourism consultant and worked for Kananaskis Country for 10 years. He has led groups in winter and summer, from skiing to canoeing and climbing. He was Chief of Cross Country Marshalls for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

Sports: Football, track and field, Cross-country racing for many years, Triathlon for last 12 years including (2005-2007 Escape from Alcatraz), telemark skiing, skijoring, marathons, hockey, kayaking, scuba diving and travel!!. George has hiked Akshayuk Pass on Baffin Island with Ross Watson in 2005.

George started Angel Accessibility Solutions in 1994, a healthcare company specializing in injury prevention.

George is married to Shirley, they have two daughters, Alexandra (Ally) and Isabella (Bella) His older children are Leslie-Anne (Lesia) and Nicholas (Nick). Nick hiked Akshayuk Pass with Ross and George. They all live in Victoria BC.

George's Goal: Wants to be an adventurer when he grows up!!

George would like any donations to acknowledge this trek to be directed to U Can 2 Canada's National Disabled Sailing Progra.m

Eric Philips is the guide for the ANI Messner Route South Pole Expedition. He has been an ice fetishist much of his life. Harbouring a childhood dream to visit high latitudes, Outdoor Education degrees would delay his first foray into the Arctic Circle until he was 30. Fifteen years later, Eric's passion for ice, bitter cold and the ends of the Earth hasn't dimmed. He has traversed Greenland, the largest icecap on Canada's Ellesmere Island, the South Patagonian Icecap, worked as a Field Training Officer for the Australian Antarctic Division, pioneered a new route to the South Pole via the Shackleton Glacier and skied from Siberia to the North Pole. Eric has guided many ski teams to the North Pole and last year took his young family to east Antarctica. Eric is the founder of Icetrek Expeditions. He is guiding this expedition for ANI/ALE (Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions).