FREDERICTON -- A Fredericton man arrived back on less-frozen, Maritime ground on Saturday after spending the month of January hiking to the South Pole.

Polar explorer Brian Jones says his body did the physical work, but his mind was the key to a successful trek.

He says it was cold -- very cold.

"It was as cold as I thought it was going to be, it was on average -40, -45," Jones said.

Jones is one of few people in the world that can, first-hand, compare the two.

After an 11-day trek along the Antarctic tundra, Jones reached the South Pole in mid-January -- now having stepped foot on both the South and North Poles.

"Every day was a struggle like, every day," Jones said. "Like, getting up, you get up at -40 in a tent, you got to get busy you got to get moving. It takes us two hours to melt water, just to get the water for the day."

And there's something else you may not know, unless you've been to Antarctica.

"You get up and you got to go to the washroom, so in Antarctica, they want it pristine so all your "stuff" goes in a bag," Jones said. "Which is tricky, and then you take that with you. It freezes, so it's not totally disgusting."

And if the grueling, 11-day trek to the South Pole -- and four day hike up the continent's highest peak -- wasn't enough, Jones had the flu and fought through a snowstorm that forced him to stay in a tent for five days.

So as hard as it was on his body, he says it was still harder on the mind.

"I counted to a thousand in French and backwards in French, I tried the alphabet a few times, you start to go a little bit crazy, at night you couldn't sleep because it was so cold. So you'd want to dream, but your mind wouldn't stop," Jones said.

The term "bipolar" has a double-meaning for jones. At the South Pole, along with the City of Fredericton, UNB and New Brunswick flags -- he flew the Bell, Let's Talk flag.

Jones' reason for the trek itself is to raise money for mental health initiatives.

One of them is already in the works:

"Right now, the plan with Horizon Health is to redo a piece of the ER department at the Chalmers Hospital to create a safe room within the existing space," said Gilles Allain of the Chalmers Foundation.

It will be a space for those who may be experiencing a mental health crisis and the goal is to raise $100,000.

They're at just over $27,000 right now and will continue to raise money until a final event in March.

"My fingers, they're still all sort of fried from here up," Jones said. "My nose was totally a mess, my ankle, I had blisters."

Jones is happy to be back at his day job, trading the snowsuit for a suit and tie -- but says he doesn't regret one single step.