Between Two Ends of the Earth and Every Continent in Between
A year, two ice worlds, and from Arctic Night to Antarctic Day.
Last Thanksgiving, Neeta and I found ourselves deep inside the Arctic darkness — in Svalbard, above 78°N, where the sun does not rise for months. We walked into an ice cave under a sky that had forgotten daylight. The world was black velvet, and every crunch of snow under our boots sounded like a secret being whispered.
See In the Belly of the Icy Beast
This Thanksgiving, almost exactly a year later, we stepped into another ice cavern — this time in Antarctica, below the Antarctic circle at 70.75° S at the opposite end of the planet, beneath a sun that never sets. It was the same month, the same two travelers, the same curiosity for frozen adventures. But everything else had inverted.
Night had become day.
Shadow had become brightness.
Silence had become a roar.
And in the twelve months between these two moments, we visited all seven continents, marking our 40th-anniversary period with adventures stitched across the globe.
Life rarely offers symmetry. This past year offered nothing but symmetry.
Two Ice Worlds, One Year Apart
Svalbard — November 25, 2024
The ice cave in Svalbard felt like an underworld. The approach was in total darkness, guided only by headlamps and instinct. Entering the cave felt like being swallowed by the earth — the air colder, the walls tilting inward, the floor creaking under layers of millennia-old ice. Every sound felt amplified. The cave asked for quiet, for humility.
We moved slowly, together, breathing the same frozen air.
[IMAGE: Svalbard in November 2024]
Antarctica — November 24, 2025
Walking into Antarctica's ice tunnel this year could not have been more different. The sun was high — it was always high — and the landscape was a blinding sheet of white. Approaching the tunnel entrance felt surreal; the shadows inside were dramatic precisely because everything outside was endless light.
But before we reached the cave, there was the getting there, which in Antarctica is never a small detail.
We left Ultima's Oasis Camp at 9 a.m. with Angel Armesto and Gonsalvo, bouncing across the rocky landscape toward the Maitri Indian Scientific Station. It's a 40-minute drive that feels like crossing the surface of the moon, assuming the moon had Toyota pickups and cheerful Argentinian guides.
[IMAGE: Ultima Guides — Angel & Gonsalvo]
At Maitri, we layered up, left the heavy camera bag behind (Angel's "trust us, you don't need that" was on the money), and began walking. First over rubble. Then over the snow. Then over a frozen lake whose texture made it obvious it had frozen on a windy day. Antarctica doesn't do subtle clues.
As we neared a small ridge, we heard what sounded like a squeaking toy or a bird. Angel told us to go look. Two Adélie penguins sat on the rocks — sharp faces, white eye-rings, and an attitude that suggested they were judging our crampon technique.
[IMAGE: A pair of Adélie penguins — rocky area]
[IMAGE: Adélie penguin in the Antarctic ice cap — far from the ocean]
Angel explained the sad irony: in this region there are no rocky nesting grounds for nearly 3,000 km of Antarctica's "shoreline" (eastward from the Antarctic Peninsula directly below South America, where most cruises go), so Adélies that end up here can't complete their breeding cycle. Antarctica is beautiful, but not always kind.
[IMAGE: Rock oasis in the endless ocean of ice]
We continued toward the ice cave, navigating steep rocks while Angel coached Neeta across the larger gaps. This place sees a maximum of a few hundred tourists a year; it shows.
At the cave entrance, we strapped on crampons and stepped onto glowing blue ice. Meltwater dripped everywhere.
[IMAGE: Fast-melting ice sculptures]
This entrance was narrow. Very narrow.
[IMAGE: No way to navigate from this direction]
The main route was flooded, so we backed out, circled around, and tried the alternate entrance on the opposite side. Angel had gone ahead to test the route, calling back cheerfully that "it definitely goes." Guides always make this sound more reassuring than it feels, and he coaxed Neeta to try, saying she could do it.
[IMAGE: Angel's reconnaissance from the other direction]
At one point, the tunnel tightened so sharply that we had to crawl on elbows and knees through freezing meltwater, twisting sideways to fit between ice walls narrowed by fat icicles formed from the dripping melt above. From crawling on elbows and knees, we had to turn sideways at the curtain of icicles, squeeze through the bottleneck, and twist to a sitting position on the smooth ice — no hold to haul ourselves uphill and backwards. Fortunately, Gonsalvo helped by pulling from behind. It was certainly getting a bit scary and breathless at this point.
When Neeta, followed by me, exited the tunnel, the other travelers clapped and cheered, making the effort gratifying.
Inside, the cave glowed with the ethereal blue that only sunlight filtered through thick ice can create. We stood quietly, hearing only the drip-drip-drip of meltwater.
Coming back involved retracing our steps over the rocks and snow, then standing on the mini-summit to take in the vast, endless ice sheet — white to the horizon in every direction.
[IMAGE: A few minutes on an endless sheet of ice in the White Desert]
Angel explained that beneath our feet the ice is 100–150 meters thick, floating in places above ancient lakes. Maitri scientists study this constantly. Antarctica looks static, but nothing here is truly still.
Where the Arctic cave had been a descent into darkness, the Antarctic tunnel was an immersion into light. We experienced both together — the night of one pole and the day of the other.
The Weight of Light vs the Weight of Darkness
In the Arctic, the world was reduced to dark shades of black and silver, and the cold felt like an ancient presence pressing inward.
In Antarctica, the cold existed, but the light dominated — endless, sharp, absolute. It washed over everything until the horizon itself felt erased.
It is extraordinary how the same substance — ice — seems to behave differently under two opposite skies. In darkness, it absorbs. In light, it radiates.
Standing inside both tunnels, separated by one year and the breadth of the entire planet, the contrast feels almost choreographed.
Anniversary in the Ice
Our ice-tunnel day in Antarctica fell within the same period as our anniversary in November, a date that has hosted many of our adventures across the decades — mountain peaks, long hikes, angry oceans, impenetrable prisons, and unexpected detours. Marking this year's anniversary inside an Antarctic ice tunnel felt in character for us.
By the time we returned to Oasis Camp, wet and exhilarated, Chef Tian and Chef Johan had lunch ready — a welcome warmth after crawling through icy water.
Not everyone would consider crawling through a narrow corridor of frozen blue ice at the bottom of the world an anniversary celebration. But it felt like a perfect metaphor for Neeta and me — a reminder that our life together has always been a tightrope of exploration, wonder, chaos, turbulence, and the willingness to step into the unknown.
A Year of Continents
Between the two ice caves — Svalbard's Polar Night last year and Antarctica's Polar Day this year — we managed to step foot on every continent: North America, Australia, Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, Antarctica.
[IMAGE: Passport tracing (almost) our routes]
Not intentionally as a checklist, but naturally — the result of a year that kept expanding through wanderlust, curiosity, and serendipity. Many new countries were visited for the first time. Looking back, the sequence feels improbable, almost poetic.
Emerging From the Tunnel
In Svalbard, when we emerged from the cave, the night still waited outside. The darkness swallowed everything except the faint glow of our headlamps.
In Antarctica, when we crawled out of the ice tunnel, we stepped directly into unbroken sunlight, wind scraping patterns into the snow. Behind us, the tunnel continued to glow faintly blue — a secret keeping its own time.
Two entrances into two worlds. Two exits into two skies. A year of motion between them.
Night into Day
One year apart, two poles apart (and yes, Neeta often claims that may describe our temperaments!), yet held together by the same sense of wonder — and the same two people walking side by side.
A year ago, the ice swallowed us in darkness. This year, it illuminated us.
More photos can be found here.