Arctic adventure in tracks of a pioneer

Exactly four decades had passed since Myrtle Simpson became the first woman to ski across the Greenland ice cap. And while their experiences are strikingly similar, they are also poles apart.

Both in their 30s, each grasped a gruelling challenge with relish despite the physical and mental pressures it would bring.

They each completed their incredible task - one with only the most basic of equipment, the other armed with modern satellite communications - placing them among the few people ever to brave the Arctic.

Today, Louise relaxes at home in Old Dalkeith Road after an astonishing journey which took her in the tracks of the first man to ski across Greenland, Norwegian explorer Fritjof Nansen in 1888, and the first woman, Myrtle.

"It was a massive personal achievement," agrees the computer company boss. "There is a lot that is unique about Greenland and there are a lot of reasons to avoid going there. And even with modern support, there are still a lot of expeditions there that fail."

That's not surprising when Louise, 38, recalls long, freezing days spent hauling her sledge over an ever-moving ice cap - the first 13 of them uphill to the summit of a 2500-metre glacier, trekking for eight hours a day.

"Those first two weeks were by far the most physically challenging," she recalls.

"The coldest temperature we recorded was minus 22 - that's without adding in the wind-chill factor. But we were very lucky that we had no storms or any major scares."

It was a chance remark by a tour guide while on holiday with her husband in Iceland ten years ago that set Louise on her journey.

Fascinated by the ice cap - she is among the few golfers to experience ice golf, playing three times on an island 600km into the Arctic circle - the guide's mention of skiing across Greenland seemed lan obvious thing for her to do.

She made her decision last summer and there followed months of gruelling training: running, hill-walking, cycling and weightlifting. Her training schedule reached a peak with arduous hikes up Hillend carrying a 15-kilo pack, while a Anyone who happened to be in Princes Street early enough may have been surprised to see Louise racing up and down the Playfair steps on The Mound 20 times before 7am.

The training paid off. Louise and her team, put together by a New Zealand adventure firm, completed their traverse in 23 days - five days faster than they had predicted. Yet while Louise takes time out to reflect on her life-changing experience, her achievement has brought the memories flooding back for one-time Edinburgh resident Myrtle.

She was a 35-year-old mother of three when, with husband Hugh, - the great, great nephew of James Simpson, the Victorian physician who gave his name to Edinburgh's maternity pavilion - she embarked on just one of her many incredible journeys. Yet while Louise's 5700 trip was meticulously organised by a holiday firm who provided almost everything, from guide to satellite phone, tents to personal locator beacons, Myrtle's adventures were much more DIY.

"My husband had spent a lot of time in Antarctica and we both wanted to follow in Nansen's footsteps," says Myrtle "Part of the trip was for medical research - Hugh was a pathologist and he wanted to research the body's reaction to stress - while I planned to collect flower samples for the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. But we really had no support at all," said Myrtle, still to be found climbing hills and canoeing in the Arctic at aged 75.

Myrtle, Hugh and two fellow adventurers, navigator Roger Tufft and William Wallace, gathered their own equipment together, first pleading with a Greenock-based company to make them suitable anoraks and then having to travel to Norway for their skis.

"Of course nowadays you can just go to a shop and buy them," laughs Myrtle, "but the skis we needed were only available in Norway. Then we had to make our own bindings which would last for the long journey.

"Our tent was exactly the same kind that Scott of the Antarctic would have had. And we only had one sleeping bag for four of us - married quarters were at one end, the other two went in the other direction. When it came to toilet needs, well, put it this way, the men had it easy. I was always the last one out of the tent."

As for food, Myrtle and the team found themselves blazing a trail - dehydrated food in the Sixties was, like swathes of the ice cap, unchartered territory.

"We had to make our own dehydrated food," she remembers. "We took steaks to Aberdeen University where they were doing some research into it and had the meat dried. We also managed to get a supply of fruit from a farm which we had dried too.

"The meat tasted ghastly but it was light, which was all that mattered when four of you are pulling a 500lb sledge."