{"id":586055,"date":"2026-04-06T15:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586055\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:13:09","slug":"surrey-women-complete-arctic-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586055\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey women complete Arctic challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Four women from Surrey have completed an expedition to reach one of the most remote areas of the Arctic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sue Sturgeon, Rosie May, Alex Rickard and Vicky Windsor, all from the Guildford area, were part of a seven-woman team who trekked 46 miles (75 km) along the King&#8217;s Trail in northern Sweden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The four, plus one other woman from Croatia, managed to complete the challenge battling 56mph (90km\/h) headwinds and relentless snowstorms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sturgeon, 68, from Puttenham, said: &#8220;I really had to dig deep and was outside my comfort zone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She added: &#8220;To trek in this beautiful, unspoilt part of the world was amazing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The women carried all their own food, clothing, and safety equipment throughout the journey, which took them 124 miles (200km) north of the Arctic Circle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">May, 70, from Guildford, said: &#8220;We pulled together and very much supported each other when times got harder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I returned so proud of my achievement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Five women in ski gear smiling to camera hugging each other\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e1868eea29b323317efc1a38da719a22.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Arctic expedition was aimed at women over 50 [Nick Wildman]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The four Surrey women are all friends who attend the same gym in Guildford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The expedition, aimed at women over 50, was led by former SAS soldier Nick Wildman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said: &#8220;I was truly humbled by their sheer grit and determination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The achievement stands as a powerful testament to endurance, mindset, and the limitless potential of the human spirit\u2014regardless of age.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Surrey on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCSurrey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCSurrey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;X&quot;}\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, and on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcinsurrey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Instagram&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a href=\"https:\/\/nz.news.yahoo.com\/mailto:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk\" data-ylk=\"slk:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk<\/a> or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.<\/p>\n<p>More on this story<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four women from Surrey have completed an expedition to reach one of the most remote areas of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[223795,223797,49,48,223792,223798,223793,87674,223796,223794],"class_list":{"0":"post-586055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-alex-rickard","9":"tag-arctic-expedition","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-nick-wildman","13":"tag-northern-sweden","14":"tag-sue-sturgeon","15":"tag-surrey","16":"tag-surrey-women","17":"tag-women-over-50"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}