Michele Pontrandolfo needs 397 pounds of stuff to survive. That’s stove fuel, food, clothing, technical equipment, a tent, maps, and more, piled up on a sled that, if all goes well, he’ll spend November and December (and maybe longer) dragging across a 2,400-mile, hellish Antarctic path called the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. Temperatures can reach –58 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds will whip up to 300 miles an hour. And he will be solo, aiming to become the first person to make it across entirely alone.
But today, he is not alone. And he is hot. It’s August and 100 degrees in northern Italy, where he lives, and he is looking for anything that will prepare him for the Arctic suffering. So he’s come here, to a rockstrewn landscape called Magredi. It’s…