Archive for the ‘Antarctica 2011 Legacy Crossing’ Category

January 15, 2012

S86°54.158 W091°48.895

Elevation 7058 feet

So much for the predictions and expectations. The sweet downwind runs; the reliable winds; the high daily average. We are marooned one more day with dead calm conditions. It had been a while. On the positive side, the sun has been out, baking the tent, while the outside stillness has eclipsed the frigid temperatures which have dominated since the South Pole. Our prospects of reaching Hercules in seven days quickly faded, and we are back to finding ways to occupy ourselves for hours at a time while laying down. Eric has taken to listening to every podcast on my outpost, and sleeping. I have spent almost twenty hours reconstructing and finishing–almost–the article that I lost yesterday in cyber space. At least this was constructive: the Antarctica branch of Sebastian Copeland Productions is now officially open! All this while waiting for the wind to build and switch direction.

This is oddly anti-climactic, especially in light of what I wrote yesterday; with 800 kilometers still of travel, the trip is far from over. But this leasurely pace could have us fooled. The winds will turn on again, and Antarctica is sure to dish out some of its decibels, at least one more time. I suspect we’ll have one more marathon session before long.But for now, the prospects are weak, and it is back to the spell check program. And there goes the glamorous life of an expedition on the ice! We have nine days to complete the mission. And we fly off the ice in eleven days. Tic-toc, tic-toc…

January 14, 2012

S86°54.158 W091°48.895

Elevation 7058 feet

I was proud of some writing I had completed from the ice, for an upcoming article detailing this trip. Not only did it have immediacy and relevance, as I was communicating virtually in real time, but I took great pleasure in writing it. Nothing felt forced, and without the pressure of a deadline, I wrote when I felt I had something to write. It flowed; it was witty; and now it’s gone. Thanks to a glitch in Microsoft’s program, three thousand out of a four thousand word article went the way of the dodo when I attempted to back it up on a flash card. I was guttered, and frozen in disbelief. The document showed on the flash card, but with 0 byte of space, and in the process was deleted from the iPack’s hard drive. I spent the morning trying to reconstruct out of memory what could from my words. Another lesson in detachment…

Consequently, we were slow out of the tent. This had little consequence, in the end, as the North-easterly winds are not serving us well. We have drifted too far west as it is, and would be headed into the Thiels Mountain range which is coming up in less than two degrees. We tried, first with the Yakuza’s to beat upwind, but the pull on the kite was too great; we downsized to the 13 meters, but the wind dropped to a crawl; we then re-launched the Yakuza’s, only to find that again, the pull was too great to beat upwind. With that, we decided to set up the tent, and wait: either for more wind–to fly the 13’s upwind–or for the wind to shift direction. In the end, we both fell asleep! When we woke up, the wind had died altogether. The sun was out, and the air still. For some time now, we had not experienced a warmer day. Inside, it was baking. We both slept on top of our sleeping bags. And I resumed reconstructing my article…

This is an odd time in the expedition: it is becoming harder to motivate out of the tent. In a sense, it feels like the mission is almost completed, and the remainder of the trip is now academic. And yet, we still have just under 800 kilometers to cover, which is no chump change. We are basically a week away, but not there yet. Focus at this stage is as important as ever. We are close, but no cigar yet! The forecast calls for a south easterly starting tomorrow, which would serve us well if the prediction wasn’t so weak: five to ten knots for the next two days… We might just end up crawling there. We only managed 9.5 kilometers yesterday.

January 12, 2012

S86°56.704 W093°11.593

Elevation 7184 feet

We were bracing ourselves for this day. Covering two degrees from the South Pole means that today we would enter eighty seven. The eighty seven degree latitude south, between seventy and ninety west has a reputation for some of the worst sastrugi in all of Antarctica. It is a well traveled route, linking the coast to the South Pole, one which the majority of skiers use, as well as vehicles providing logistical support for the ALE South Pole base. Sastrugi heads there have been reported to reach up to two meters in height. With notoriously strong winds in that region, the combination makes for challenging kiting conditions. The ride can be hellish, requiring minute maneuvering at high speeds, challenging terrain for a sledge prone to tipping and flipping, and guaranteed headaches for the lines when landing the kite. This section suddenly appears while descending the South Pole plateau, the result of powerful and consistent katabatic winds.
We had camped at the edge of eighty seven last night. Already, large sastrugi heads were becoming more and more commonplace, a shape very different from what we had experienced thus far.

Since we rolled the clock, and are now traveling at night, we set off around midnight UTC. The wind was light, and we flew the large kites. Maneuvering through the rough patches was both exhilarating and stunning to look at. In the haze and dimmed sunlight, this made for remarkably beautiful and different terrain. The ground looked like a battle field that had suffered a fierce bombing campaign. The sastrugi shapes were pretty random, and did not seem to follow a specific wind direction. As we weaved a path through this mangled terrain, we were on alert for what was sure be getting a lot worse. This made for a heightened level of tension as we carefully progressed amidst the strengthening wind. Our growing speeds in this rough environment had the sledge flip over one too many times; we chose to down size to the thirteen meter Frenzy’s. Within half an hour, the wind had built further, and the gusts created powerful and precarious accelerations in the rough ice. At each break we said: “Well, it’s about to get a lot worse!” And we’d set off again. The wind today was uncharacteristically in the East, and the growing conditions made it difficult to beat an angle against it; we were being pushed downwind, and losing ground to our tack. The wind kept building, blowing snow and dropping the visibility down. At times, Eric and I could not see each other but for our kites in the air. We were forced to downsize again, to the nine meters this time, and before long, even those were making it tough to beat upwind. But the legendary terrain we anticipated all day with anxiety never materialized. “We’ve been ripped off!”, said Eric. “Where is that sastrugi?” It was true. By now, we were closing in on eighty seven, and the worse was allegedly behind us; we never saw a head reach even a meter, and while we did encounter some very rough patches, none of them lived up to the reputation! The wind, however, did: it was now blowing twenty five knots with gusts pushing thirty, but the direction was making it hard for us to push east. At the angle we kept, we would end smack into the Thiels mountain range, about two degrees down from us. It was cold, we had covered another degree through the day. After six hours on the trail, we decided to set up camp. No point in killing ourselves at this stage: we are ahead of my scheduled assumptions.

The other good news is that my toes have not been cold for the last few days; looks like I will be keeping them after all! This unfortunate chapter of the trip, which has constantly been on my mind, seems to be behind us.

We traveled 115 kilometers today, which puts us 792 kilometers from target. Perhaps seven days…

January 11, 2012

S87°58.044 W095°28.243

Elevation 8668 feet

The were all standing outside the mess tent–Lou, Henry, Mark Wood and Mark George, Hannah and Ben–the motley crew that had made our community since reaching the Pole. By virtue of circumstances, and the commonality of our shared experiences, we had developed instant kinship’s. When you reach the bottom of the Earth, the stories of those who have, too, become part of your own. You don’t forget them. They were out to see us off. We had monitored the conditions all day, and while the forecast had called for five to ten knots slowly fading by end of day, predictably perhaps, the winds had only loosely reflected that trend. Now, at 18:00 GST, they were kicking up blowing snow, reaching eighteen knots and building. Eric and I had psyched ourselves to go; the comfort of life at the base was like a black hole luring us to stay; a siren at sea steering us off course by challenging our motivation. It was time to go. We were dressed for the trail, the tent had been freshly packed, the sledges re-arranged, and the kites were now laid out and gently bouncing in the gusts. The visibility had dropped to about two kilometers which was just enough to make out the South Pole Station perimeter, but not more. Our friends had put on warm jackets and gloves and were waiting in the cold to bid their farewell. Their faces displayed a mix of curiosity with the incredulous disconnect that comes from knowing that your mission has ended while witnessing the familiar steps of others committing to another round. It is a blend of relief and envy. They were already out; we were going back in. Besides, all of them had suffered the slow punishment of long distances covered on skis; it was hard to resist witnessing firsthand the modern alternative of swift and limber travel by kite!

Following warm embraces and the obligatory photos sealing permanently this page of our lives, Eric and I walked to our respective lines, clipped in the harness, raised our kites in the air and simultaneously glided away for the camp. We followed a flagged route that cut right through the station. We reached the runway, and steered right passed the parked Hercules aircraft. The flags lead us out of the station, between the Clean Air Sector and the Dark Sector. The gap separating them grew, and as the visibility was fast dropping, they were fading in the landscape. Soon, what appeared to be the last one marked the end of the road. I looked back. The station had disappeared. We were shrouded in white. The wind was kicking. The skis were scratching the ice below us and our speed was growing. The kites were diving up and down pulling us into the wild. We were back on the trail.

The thing about reaching the Pole is that any direction from there leads you North; and because the longitudinal lines are so close together–they meet at the Pole–navigation just out of the station can be a tad confusing. The further you move from the Pole, the more relaxed the GPS gets. In the whiteout, we could barely see two hundred feet in front of us; but the wind was pushing us downwind at a pretty good click: we were flying blindly, as if in a blank canvas! Luckily, the snow condition was soft, and the terrain flat. We continued in this way for almost two hours until we came upon a series of tracks, all headed to our shared destination: the coast at Hercules Inlet, some 1118 kilometers from there. Amongst them were the symmetrical five ski tracks which had been with us in the final days of reaching the Pole. They belonged, we found out, to a ski mounted platform with a tent on top, a cooler in the back and propelled by a large wing driven by a team of Spaniards! The whole set up weighs more than a ton!

The horizon eventually cleared up, and the conditions were perfect: solid wind on a broad reach, soft and flat surface. We were making great mileage with minimum effort. Three hours in, all of a sudden, about two thousand yards to the left of us, we noticed a camp of red Hilleberg tents. We changed course and decided to pay them a visit. It was a group of Japanese, doing a last degree (sixty nautical miles) to the Pole. This was their third day in. We landed the kites and said hello. They took pictures (of course!) and we were off. Not five minutes later, the same thing happened, this time with a group of Russians! They invited us in to their tent and served us tea. We shared stories, and eventually got back out. They, too, took photos! Five kilometers downwind, we found another camp, and again stopped by; the Russians had told us of a disabled man who was skiing the last degree to the Pole. We stopped to pay our respect, and again, were invite in! This was most definitely our social hour! It turns out that just eighteen months ago, he had suffered a snowmobile accident that had paralyzed him from the waist down. Choosing not to be beaten, he decided to pursue some of his various ambitions, including reaching the South Pole. He was there with a ream documenting it. By the time we stepped out of the tent, the wind had dropped considerably. We switched to the big kites and after they, too, took photos, we were off. This was the end of our last degree groups encounters, and the close of our social butterflying! We had lost two hours in great fun.
The wind grew again and was strong for the Yakuza’s, but given the downwind tack, we stuck it out, at time exceeding forty kilometers per hour. We traveled through the night, eager to descend off the plateau were both temperatures and winds are very predictable. By morning, we had covered two of the ten degrees for this leg of the trip, or 227 kilometers. We stopped more out of caution not to exhaust ourselves to reach Hercules only to sit for days waiting for our pick up. We have 903 kilometers left to cover, and twelve days to do it in.

January 10, 2012

S90°00.000

Elevation 9301 feet

Arriving at the South Pole was a milestone for the expedition. It also, predictably, marked a shift in the psychology, and temporarily hit the pause button. A whole community populates the station here, and the human interaction is a paradigm away from what we have experienced for the weeks of isolation on the ice. Antarctic Logistics Expedition (ALE), who takes over from TAC as our logistics operators, has a camp facility here. That is to say, there is a large community tent–warm–and a camp site around it where we can pitch our tent. There are food items, and stoves, and tables and chairs. And people. The reception, upon arriving, was warm, as was the meal of steak and vegetable that we were served. Coincidentally, within twenty four hours of our arrival, three other expeditions reached the pole from their respective destinations.

Lou Rudd & Henry Worsley spent 68 days retracing the Amundsen expedition up the Axel Heieberg glacier and walked in a few hours after we did; Mark George walked solo from Hercules Inlet in 43 days and had arrived a few hours prior; and Mark Wood also walked solo in 50 days and arrived the following day. This makes up the motley crew of bearded men who populate the camp. Our common interest and recent effort creates a natural bond and camaraderie in the mess tent. Conversations are easy and familiar, made all the more so as all but one are British. Some details are shared on customized gear, breakdown challenges, and stories of past expeditions. Somehow, the struggles and personal challenges experienced on each of our trip remain unspoken. They don’t come up; not immediately, nor do they need to. Generally speaking, these follow the same narrative. Nothing is as quite as effective as the ice to strip down your ego to the core and expose your vulnerabilities before building you back up. It is like stripping down the paint off a surface to its base and buffing it, in order to lay down fresh coats for a new layered finish. The weathered faces, limping walks and resolved, peaceful expressions tell a story that words wouldn’t. And if you carry those yourself, not much needs to be said in order to be understood. Mostly what unites us is the inner peace that comes from meeting a difficult objective, and the humility of not knowing exactly how you managed to get there. A long mission on the ice is often a one day at a time affair. And it is hard, even personally, to retrace each step that led you through. Diligent preparation and conditioning are the platforms on which you are broken. The rebuilding process is in itself the admission of vulnerability, while the aches and pains are the symptoms. But the authenticity you read in each of these men’s gaze is the pay off; and it is instantly familiar.

The new warm sleeping bag brought relative comfort back to my tent experience. But the excitement of reaching the Pole made it difficult to sleep soundly. We were offered a tour by the National Science Foundation who administers the station’s facilities. They offer as much comfort as can make palatable eight months of isolation during the austral winter. Fifty people man the station during that time, while the population grows to over two hundred during the summer months. Gymnasium, a basket ball court, sauna and a greenhouse house producing fresh produce are some of its amenities. But the more interesting aspect of the station is its research programs, particularly the work done here on neutrinos, those mass particles that may well travel faster than the speed of light, thereby challenging most of Einstein’s theories, and shaking down the foundation of astrophysics and our assumptions on theoretical mechanics. The South Pole station is the world’s foremost scientific study environment on neutrinos. The clarity and purity of the air here also offers its telescope a privileged opportunity to peer into the universe for astronomical observations.

Eric and I then made the obligatory sojourn to the actual South Pole location; one of two spots in the world where the world rotates below your feet, and where circling a stick in the ground is tantamount to crossing all of the Earth’s time zones. I got jetlagged just doing that! We took photos to honor the sponsors of this expeditions which include HP, Napapijri, Climate Partner, and Rossignol as well as national flags. We then rushed back to the warmth and comfort of the ALE tent, and stuffed ourselves on peanut butter and marmite crackers.

Our plan to take off today was thwarted by low winds and reduced visibility. We have fourteen days to make it to Hercules Inlet, and complete the final phase of the expedition. This represents a considerable effort still, and a not negligible 1200 kilometers. Each day spent here makes facing this next travel challenge more difficult, and will require a quick re-adjustment to life on the ice. All the boys here will fly back from here. But it is time for us to get on with it before we go soft. Watching two James Bond movies in a row on the tent’s monitor does not a transcontinental crossing help! If the winds manifest, we will be gone by morning.

January 8, 2012

S90°00.000

Elevation 9301 feet

First, they were the tracks. More of them. Beyond the rigid, five ski platform, the tracks of which we had crossed for the last forty eight hours, we then saw, faintly, mostly lost to the blowing snow, the remains of three skiers’ tracks. Then came vehicle tracks which left what amounts to a highway out here. If all roads lead to Rome, all tracks in Antarctica lead to the Pole; the inescapable iconic destination and sometimes pit stop of the white continent.
The conditions were gusty, and light when we decided to hit the trail, in spite of dying and very light wind predictions for the day. Still, we figured we’d chip away at it, as we had the previous two days. Eighty kilometers separated us from the Pole, thanks to the Clean Air Sector. Our approach angle, from the POI did not serve us well, tacking almost 150 additional kilometers onto our trip. Still, given the purity of the air in Antarctica, this large wedge, extending from the Pole, provides important research to scientists measuring ozone depletion, CO2 and methane content, as well as other greenhouse gases linked to the shift in global climate. In fact, the South Pole research station boasts the longest continuous record of gases in our atmosphere dating back to 1957.
Still, that wedge was a thorn for us, eating up precious time and what could be days in light winds. The tracks we found were somehow re-assuring: both a testament to our correct heading, as well as an indication of other human activity. After so many weeks of autonomy and isolation, it is easy to imagine roaming a post-apocalyptic planet, stripped of civilization, and shrouded in a thick cap of ice. Those tracks confirms that we are not living inside a Hollywood production!
The night had been cold again, due to cloud cover, and I slept cold; without a sleeping bag, I’ll admit that I may as well be out on the trail. The sun was in hiding all day, which made for chilled travel conditions. The gusts would propel us forward for a few minutes of fast travel, but the lulls counter punched with tediously slow speeds.
Nonetheless, we were making decent progress. Five hours into the day, clearing off the clouds in the horizon, appeared a faint gray shading. Something was breaking the singularity of the ice, and it had to be human made. We were thirty five kilometers from the Pole, so this could not possibly be the station quite yet. As we approached, we could now make up the tents that formed an encampment: fifteen or so tents, with a large center mess tent in the middle. We landed the kites, and poked around. The place was deserted, and no fresh tracks were to be found indicating any recent activity. It was eerie, like a ghost town. Inside the mess was a fully stocked kitchen, replete with gas stoves and food. It turned out to be the Russian outpost base for Novolazarevskaya, whose logistics team, TAC, has been monitoring our expedition since its start and providing search and rescue support; in that respect, we were home! I called them from there to report our position, and the two dessert packs that will be missing from their stock! We boiled water and heated the tent. I chose the cinnamon rice pudding; Eric the chocolate mousse (does this actually make us re-supplied…?). And soon, we were back out. A few miles later, the same type of encampment appeared in the distance. We repeated our visit, only to find the same deserted spaces. This time, it was the British Extreme Challenge camp, whose folks we had run into on the ice with their trucks six weeks back.
Not long after that, we were back out wrestling the very fluky winds. Now on an upwind tack, with eighty meters of line on the Yakuza’s, this was not fun. In the gusts, the pull on the lines forces serious strain on the legs; in the lulls, the bearing stalled the kite to a stand still.
But all of a sudden, clearing from the distance, looming on the horizon, was the outline of a much larger complex. I landed my kite to take in that first sighting. About ten kilometers in front of us stood the unmistakable outline of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, with its dome and futuristic looking research buildings, built on the very spot that has captured the imagination of all explorers and adventure seeker long before its discovery, one hundred years ago. I thought of Amundsen and Scott, and their successful reach, and with mixed emotion thought of all those who have, from one place or another, approached that point of the globe with the same knot in their stomach. And then I thought of us, here, today. And how, in the history of Antarctica exploration, the route we had covered from the POI to the South Pole was about to be open for the very first time. We were now staring at the success of that mission. A destination gives an expedition is sense of purpose; it is its DNA. And no destination holds more mystic than the Poles. For us, that purpose was about to be realized.
But the South Pole, on that day, would not give itself up that easily: the sharp upwind tack would see to that.
The South Pole Station is quite regulated; one thing that it regulates is where you can, and cannot go as you approach it. There are two flagged paths leading you in, and they are insistent that you follow them to avoid conflicting with their research fields, airports and other activities. Unfortunately for us, the path from our approach was a steep upwind tack that stole the glory out of our arrival. It forced us to pull tacks, and slowed our speed considerably. Besides, the fluky winds had me wonder if we would actually reach the station that evening, or be forced to walk to it, or worse, camp in plane sight of it!
But somehow, foot by foot, we gained ground. At 00:30 GST, after sixty five days of challenging travel across the heart of Antarctica, we set our kites down and unclipped our harnesses. The GPS read South 90°00.000: we had finally reached the iconic geographic South Pole!

January 7, 2012

S89°16.623 E007°14.488

Elevation 9128 feet

Given Marc’s forecast model for the next twenty four hours, we were surprised to find wind gusts hitting the side of the tent from the north when we woke up around midday. We have been turning the clock somewhat, and traveling partly at night. From a light or warmth perspective, this make absolutely no difference where we are now. The sun essentially rotates around the horizon for the twenty four hours of the day, at just about the same angle. Besides, we have been operating on UTC time (Greenwich Standard Time) and in a couple of days, we will be reporting with our new logistics team, ALE, who operate on UTC-3. In that respect, we also have to adjust to their time zone, and rotate our body clock. At the Pole, of course, which we are very close to, you can pick whichever time zone you choose to be on: they all meet there!

The night had started very warm in the tent, but early in the morning, the sun was replaced with cloud cover, and temperatures inside fell drastically. I scrambled for some clothing, but in my half sleep, failed to plan effectively. I slept cold, and woke up cold. My sleeping bag, sitting somewhere on the ice between here and the POI, was never more sorely missed.

Winds were light when we decided to leave, and dropped even further shortly into our day. The Pole is obviously playing hard to get. We are virtually crawling there. It doesn’t help that our tack is straight downwind; this forces us to swerve right and left to keep tension in the kite and the actual distance we travel is a least twice what it shows. It is tedious. The sun was at the losing end of a struggle with the clouds, first parching its light across the wide open surface. This, again, is very reminiscent of Greenland; it creates a layered depth that adds a new dimension to the ice. The beauty here is grand and sparse, but light can literally paint details into it. Soon, however, the sun disappeared altogether, leaving a flat light rob most details from the ground. Thankfully, the terrain remains unbelievably flat, and the snow relatively soft: no sastrugi anywhere, which has been a highlight. We were reunited with the tracks we saw yesterday: clearly, they were headed where we’re going! The five ski tracks perfectly aligned makes it look like a road; it eases navigation in the flat light. The weak gusts have moved us slowly towards the Pole, but not close enough to claim it quite yet. We barely closed 31 kilometers today, which puts us within striking distance, at around 80 kilometers or so. Very close, but still no cigar. Perhaps tomorrow, if the winds play nice. Meanwhile, the lack of sun will make for another chilled night in the tent. I am wrapped in as much clothing as I have with me; I will drape Eric’s jacket over my legs, clench my teeth, and dream of warm sun rays and a sandy beach. Soon come.

January 6, 2012

S89°00.448 E011°22.371

Elevation 9005 feet

After yesterday’s push and late finish, we had essentially turned the clock: we woke up in the late afternoon. The sun was out, the snow was soft, and it was baking inside the tent. This wasn’t so bad, considering I spent my first night without sleeping bag. Wrapped in my big Napapijri jacket, I was actually too warm, and ended up sleeping on top of it. We were still riding high from the the previous day’s solid mileage. But the wind conditions suggested a different menu for the day. After checking with Marc, the predictions did not look good: light northerly, eight to ten knots decreasing to five knots by mid morning.
By 21:00, we were out of the tent and back on the trail, to a very different rhythm than the previous day. Altogether, at first, it was not unpleasant to be riding slow in the flat, soft snow. Given our proximity to the Pole, at this stage, this was almost like taking a stroll: easy on the joints, soft on the body. The incredibly flat terrain remained and the weak wind, with the warm temperatures reminded me of Greenland. And then something very unusual happened: we saw tracks! Five ski tracks, perfectly spaced, heading straight south. This was evidently a wind powered platform mounted on skis, and the first sign of human life we have encountered since running into these vehicles a month and a half ago. We followed the tracks for a while; clearly, they were headed for the Pole as well, though they did not seem to heed much attention to the Clean Air Sector: they were cutting straight into it!

The winds were virtually non-existent on the ground, and by running the kite–which Eric did three times for me, thankfully!–we manage to catch some air above. Until it finally died. It was 2:30 in the morning. We had managed 39.4 kilometers before setting up camp. Our hopes to reach the Pole tomorrow seem dim: wind prediction are weak for the next 24 hours. Perhaps the next day. I fell asleep to a warm tent, but woke up shivering: the clouds took over, and the temperature inside plummeted! Even wrapped in as much clothes as I have, this was not a warm sleep! ALE will take over logistics for us from the Pole to Hercules Inlet and then on to Chile–replacing TAC which has been doing the job since Cape Town. I have asked for a sleeping bag, as well as some medical gauze and tape for my toes, some replacement fuel and ten meals. Depending on how we approach the Pole from the Clean Air Sector, we are about 130 kilometers from there We’ll keep you posted…

January 5, 2012

S88°38.809 E015°18.869

Elevation 8984 feet

“Eric, let’s keep going!”, I said as he was walking to his kite to wrap it for the day. “Who knows if we’ll ever score conditions like these again?”, I insisted.
“Okay, sure”, he simply replied.

It was 2 AM. We had left the tent at 11:30 the previous morning, in what was already a long day. In a sense, sleeping for me had lost some its appeal. The fact that I no longer had a sleeping bag was only one of the many ironies of that day.

To get out of the tent and hit the trail when it is blowing snow and the cold gets a hold of your fingers almost instantly is losing its appeal–if it ever had one. For the both of us, especially after long traveling days, fatigue and soreness is taking its toll on our ability to spring out. Even on a windy day like this one. Besides, we had left the seventy five meters of line unwind last night, and the wind was too strong for the Yakuza’s; our first order of the day was the anti-climactic ten minutes of winding and wrapping the big guns before laying out the next size down. Just enough to let the cold get a grip on you! For that reason, we chose to leave the tent up, and seek shelter once this was done, just long enough to psyche ourselves up again. When we did leave, riding big with the thirteen meter Frenzy’s in about twenty knots, we shot out like a pinball for a wild and adrenaline fueled ride! In the gusts, the accelerations reached forty kilometers per hour, our fastest speed on this trip. The sledges were bucking and bouncing all over the place, sometimes flying, sometimes rolling a full three-sixty, and sometimes tipping which requires landing the kite to re-set. The sights were unlike anything we had experienced thus far. Haze in the air was robbing the horizon line, but the sun’s soft, warm light was defining the terrain which, thankfully for our speeds, was remarkably flat.

For long stretches, much of the sastrugi had gone in what was by far, the best conditions we have experienced. I had to film this! On our next break, Eric came to my sledge to check on our speed. We were both excited: thirty five kilometers for the hour, including the “tip stops”! I had Eric help me set a camera on my helmet, and we were off. As I filmed Eric, I weaved back and forth, fish-tailing the sledge which erratically bounced around like a quarter in the dry cycle! On our next stop, I walked to my sledge and immediately noticed that the storage area in the front had flattened considerably. Could it be that the pounding had compressed the cargo to that extent? In quick succession, I realized that my front zipper was only partially closed. And almost instantly understood that the flat area meant things were missing! “My sleeping bags are gone!”, I shot out to Eric. “The zipper was left open.” Both my Western Mountaineering minus 25C bag, and the over bag were gone! The rodeo had ejected them out somewhere in a thirty kilometer stretch of this desolate part of Antarctica, where they now sat, in the blowing snow, getting half buried. “I’ll go back, and see how much Indian blood I have in me,” Eric immediately offered. Give him a scent, and he does have a hound in him. “It’s no use, let’s go!” I said. “It would be like looking for a pin in a hay stack.” In reality I was shocked. “It’s your sleeping bag, man. Unless you want to cuddle. Besides I found that camera on Greenland.” Last year on Greenland, he successfully backtracked a section to recover a small camera that had fell off the sledge during filming when the center column of my tripod had loosened up. With that, he was gone amidst the blowing snow. I set up the tent thinking, of the two of us, he was the best man for that job. An hour passed. It suddenly occurred to me that, that morning, while riding, for absolutely no reason that made any sense whatsoever, I had had an imaginary conversation with no one in particular boasting that with three months on the ice, I had not lost a single item! Not once during the trip had such a thought entered my mind, nor is it a consideration which I have previously entertained! I don’t typically lose things. And here we were… How ironic! Aside from the bags, I also lost the first aid kit which is even more valuable to me now for the dressing materials of my toes. That, and ten days’ worth of Herbalife protein powder, as well as some lose bars.

Another hour passed. I contemplated the nature of ambition. Could it be that the desire and excitement to get the best shots, in some of the toughest conditions, had me blinded to the basics of life, such as zipping up your sledge before going? Is this something I should factor in for other areas of my life? In the following hour, I dozed off in spite of the chill that gnawed at my bones. I woke up hungry, and stepped out to the sledge. The wind had dropped considerably. I was frustrated with the lost mileage for the day in such epic conditions. I looked up, and on the horizon, noticed Eric’s kite. He was a good ten minutes away. I crawled back in the tent. When I heard his skis, I jumped out, but my heart immediately sunk. “No luck, eh?”, I let out, quickly scanning him for extra cargo. “No. I got to our last break, but nothing,” he replied. “I had to tack upwind to backtrack. Besides, the light of the sun from this direction made it hard to see things,” he added.
“Well, at least it wasn’t the camera bag!” I said. I meant it. Inside had all the pictures and film files of the trip. In a sense, my angel was still sitting on my shoulder. Besides, we are dropping in elevation like a lead balloon, (3220 feet since the POI) and the temperatures, in the tent especially, are noticeably warmer. Who needs a sleeping bag? I guess I’ll sleep in my big, cold weather Napapijri jacket.

We laid out the big kites, hoping to make the best out of the dying winds. It was 19:30.

The terrain suddenly smoothed out, almost completely, and the ice cover softened. I was praying for the winds to hold, and they were! We were making over twenty kilometers per hour, with another sample of incredibly consistent winds; they just wouldn’t let up. The day had started epic; taken a turn for the worst; and was now setting up to be our best traveling day yet! At the same time–another irony– while we experienced, by far, the best terrain condition of the trip (reminiscent of Greenland surfaces), my ankle and knee were starting to give me serious trouble. Go figure.

From the modest hope of getting us some decent mileage to make up for the lost afternoon, I found it difficult to turn it in. Besides, without a sleeping bag, sleeping had lost some of its incentive! We were doing thirty minute sections, and after each one, my knees and ankle were giving me a serious taste of old age. I had difficulty walking. Eric’s knee was also beginning to feel it. But we kept adding one more section.

The Antarctica ice had never looked so glorious. Flat as the surface now was, and through the tint of my Revo’s, the white looked tanned, and the vast expanse of ice looked like an endless beach. The surface had turned to soft snow, with large, diamond like shining crystals. The temperature was remarkably warm. The day had started with my silhouetted shadow in front of me to the left; it was now in front of me to my right. The sun had circled around us over the horizon all day. It was 06:30 in the morning, and my joints finally called in the day. Our best day, as it ironically turned out. Life had handed its full gamut, but was ending on the bright side! We covered 228.5 kilometers which put us within striking distance of the Pole.

The POI-SP section has–so far, and but for three days in the tent–delivered the most consistent winds of the entire trip. We have logged in big days of travel, covering 540 kilometers in the last three days alone! This brings our total for the trip so far to 2500 kilometers. We expect to close the gap to the pole in the next day or two, bringing successful completion to the second mandate of this mission.

January 4, 2012

S86°55.433 E046°07.824

Elevation 10172 feet

We have put in another solid travel day today, with 155 kilometers of distance covered. The wind was strong and gusty this morning, averaging about twenty knots with blowing snow. Although we have dropped 2040 feet in elevation since the POI, and the temperature should rise accordingly, we have not felt it, exactly; it was still cold we hit the trail around 11:00 O’clock. Luckily, once we get going, traveling with the wind, the bite isn’t so bad; it’s the breaks that get you! We flew the thirteen meter Frenzy’s for most of the day, until the last hour and half as the wind was weakening. We set up the big guns–the fourteen meter Yakuza’s–and really flew, averaging almost thirty kilometers per hour!

The terrain varied in roughness, but generally it seems to be improving, though the denominator is so low, that before getting “good” there is a long way to go! We experienced a nice smooth patch in the morning, for about twenty minutes, and then back to some pretty rough riding. But overall, the height of the sastrugi is lower than it has been. There are no outstanding ice features, but for the occasional head, but those are quite sporadic, and generally quite small.
In a world saturated with people, and where so much has been explored that there is little left to discover, I am still somewhat in awe that no one has ever laid eyes on this stretch of ice, between the POI and the South Pole, before us. We are literally the very first to travel across this part of the world. It is hard to suppress the simple pride and satisfaction that comes with being the first somewhere. It is the golden egg of any adventurer, and as we lay tracks here and open a new route, every little observation of the terrain and conditions seems to take on that much more relevance.

Generally speaking, and except for the three days spent in the tent, the wind has been stronger, and more lasting than I had estimated. On the days we did travel, our average distance has exceeded one hundred kilometers per day, which just about doubles the rest of the trip. There has been no mid afternoon shut off, and we have ended our days mostly due to fatigue and soreness.

We are now 315 kilometers from the Clean Air Sector turn off; we will then need to head due south for the South Pole 150 clicks or so away. A damn shame, since as the crow flies, we are now 343 kilometers from the pole, a distance we could cover–if the winds held–in two to three days. As it is, I guesstimate our arrival at the Pole in five to six days. If this proves accurate, it should leave us plenty of time to complete the first East-West transcontinental crossing of Antarctica, and the final mandate of this mission! But there is still a lot of ground to cover: in the next twenty days, we must close about 1500 kilometers; we have done almost 2300 so far, in sixty one days!

Luckily, as I write this, the wind is growling outside the tent, and the forecast is still good for tomorrow. Let’s hope it holds…