First Indian to ski solo to South Pole battled mental health struggles

After dragging a 150kg tyre through the streets for the umpteenth time in March 2023, San Francisco-based mountaineer Satish Gogineni walked into the gym and made his trainer laugh. "I told him I wanted to attempt skiing solo to the South Pole," says the 41-year-old, who had by then become the fastest Indian to climb two 8,000-metre peaks—Mt Everest and Mt Lhotse—within 19 hours. Though his trainer chuckled, knowing how much he hated hauling tyres, Gogineni would try on cross-country skis for the first time a year later and less than two years later, he would drag a 126kg sledge across 1,133 km of Antarctic ice. "History made at the South Pole," posted Gogineni on Jan 13, 2024 when he became the first Indian to ski solo and unsupported from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole.
The expedition, part of Project Spandana, was dedicated to his cousin, who died by suicide three years ago. "My goal is to remove the stigma around the word 'mental' by being an example," says Gogineni, a former financial risk manager who also lost his mother to suicide. Their deaths shaped his struggles with mental health and shattered his own stigma around seeking help. "People saw me as a happy-go-lucky person, but they didn't know about my anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies," he says.
In 2022, Gogineni—then a financial risk manager—had just finished a climb in Wyoming's Wind River Gorge when he got the call about Spandana. She was found hanging, just like his mother in 2011. His family realized too late that she had been silently enduring mental and physical abuse from her husband for 15 years. "She married the love of her life against her father's wishes, but was stuck in an abusive marriage, financially supporting her family. I believe I could have saved her had I been vocal about my own struggles."
His mother's death had been equally painful: "Every year around her death anniversary, my anxiety worsened." When he moved to the US for higher studies, she would call him "crying for help". Though never officially diagnosed, she had endured immense struggles: a traumatic accident at a temple, the loss of her grandmother and father, menopause, and unspoken mental health issues. Losing her made running cease being therapeutic, says Gogineni who found solace in mountaineering.
In 2013, he naively accepted a friend's invitation to climb Mt Whitney (14,505 ft). "On the way up, my heart pounded like I was running two marathons at once. I swore to never go back." But he did—again and again. Over the next eight years, he climbed technical peaks across the US, training with 150kg tyres in Colorado. Then, the pandemic struck. "Trapped indoors, my anxiety overwhelmed me. I sought help…"
Training for big peaks became his new refuge. In 2022, after his Everest-Lhotse double summit, he discovered British explorer Preet Chandi's Antarctic expedition. "She travelled across Antarctica solo, and I was fascinated by what she had achieved in a big continent in solitude." Soon, he was dragging tyres across beaches and parks to prepare for the South Pole. He underwent polar training in Baffin Island and Greenland, gained weight for insulation, and secured funding from backers, including mountaineer Milind Kaskar and tech entrepreneur Vivek Mehra. The expedition cost over Rs 1 crore.
For 51 days between Nov 2024 and Jan 2025, he skied in -37°C, battling zero visibility and 70 km/h winds. Towering sastrugi formations (snow sculptures formed by winds) slowed him down, and he developed "polar thigh"--a condition that chafed his lower half, making each step agonising. "I felt protected by my mom when I was out there," he says. Despite the pain, Gogineni finished two days ahead of the other expedition members. Ten days after raising the tricolour at the South Pole, Gogineni returned to sunny San Francisco only to find himself on thin ice. He had been sacked. His bank had denied his leave request, and his decision to go cost him his job. "I'm unemployed at the moment," says Gogineni, unfazed.