Archive for the ‘Antarctica 2011 Legacy Crossing’ Category

January 3, 2012

S85°36.026 E052°39.086

Elevation 10816 feet

“Looks like a fine travel day,” I said.
“Yes, it does,” Eric replied. Not much more was said for the next hour. It was 5 AM. On a windy day, it is not unusual for our morning preparations to be silent, almost solemn. As we go though the daily nomadic ritual of stuffing sleeping bags away, melting ice and filling water bottles with various teas and protein powders, eating breakfast, and donning the layered cloak of our frigid travel before finally zipping up the tent and getting the house packed into the sledges, we mostly spend time in our own heads. And when we need the miles, as we invariably do, the mental preparation before hitting the trail is also a quiet time before show time.

The wind was steady at around fifteen knots, just as Marc had predicted. We laid out the big kites and jetted out of the campsite that had been home for three long days.

The terrain was hard and shredded. We were flying off a north-north-westerly on broad reach and quickly making miles. But none of it was pleasant due to the brain rattling surface. The sastrugi was different, and in varying stages alternating between what can best be described as a frozen plowed potato field, granulated and randomly shredded; and patches of more organized patterns following one, and sometimes two wind directions, sporadically including larger heads of about two feet in height. And then, for brief periods, the terrain would pleasantly smooth out–but for brief interludes of five or six hundred feet.

We have not lost enough altitude yet to find warmer temps, apparently: with the wind up, the cold was still biting. Given my concern for my toes (both of them, now) we started with two one hour sections, but switched to half hours, in order to walk around and redistribute blood flow. The downwind foot is the one that gets it; and since switching tacks after the POI, my left big toe has been getting worked. But not as much as the sledges! On a break half way through the day, I noticed some yellow spots on the fabric of my sledge. The zipper was frozen with what evidently had been liquid. I managed to pry it open, only to find that the screw top of one of my thermos had exploded, and the chai tea inside had soaked, and quickly frozen over much of my personal items tent bag! Between last week’s petrol leak, the stowaway snow inside the sledge, and now the chai tea, on top of the regular sweat of two months on the trail, my clothes are ready for the end of this trip. And today was going to be my “changing to clean underwear day”! (I have four for the entire trip…)

To be honest, I am getting ready for the end of the trip, too. With today’s sastrugi ride, my toes, knees and ankles have been feeling it. I am getting fatigued on the longer stretches, and the weight loss has been robbing my vitality. But the end is in site; we have about twenty days left, and the South Pole–if we get there!–will mark a break for the remainder.

Strangely, one of Eric’s thermos also exploded in his sledge today, although its content was only water. We stopped around 16:00 hours as we had both ran out of fluids. Between the effort and the dry climate, it is easy to get dehydrated out here. Our plan was to melt ice, call Marc for a weather update, and hit the trail again after a couple of hours rest. But given the cold out there, and finding out that all my tent clothes were now soaked in fragrant chai, the break turned permanent for the night!

We managed our best distance of the trip, so far, with 165 kilometers. This also means that we broke two thousand today, with 2112 kilometers exactly. Upon approaching the South Pole station, we need to adjust our tack to avoid a pristine and heavily protected area called the Clean Air Sector. This area is kept clear of any type of traffic for scientific studies of air quality and seismic research. Unfortunately, this large wedge extends about 150 kilometers, and cuts right through our path. It will add about one hundred and fifty kilometers to our trip! We are now 490 kilometers from the South Pole, but will need to add this on top… Getting there, though!

PS. On a previous blog, I just realized I made an error: Scott arrived at the Pole on January 17, and not 11 as I reported last month. It goes to show that spending too much time in the tent does indeed make the brain go soft! At the rate we’re going, we might well arrive on that day, too!

January 2, 2012

S84°08.345 E055°00.244

Elevation 11455 feet

After spending too much time in the tent in dead calm weather, your judgment can be impaired. Any sign of wind looks like a ticket out, but that isn’t always the case as we found out today. A mild flutter animated the side of the tent, and this we took as a divine sign to pack up the tent go. By the time the kite lines were laid out, no amount of tugging would lift the sail into the sky. We were marooned again. We set up the tent a mere ten feet from its prior location, and set up house again. This was just a drill.

The forecast calls for wind tomorrow, however. Through the day, small signs alluded to that, including a mild but persistent flutter of the tent. Marc’s wind model suggests twenty four hours of consistent winds building in the night. As it is, at 23:30, I can hear it outside. By early morning, it is meant to be on. We will ride it as long as we can stand. This could be a long day. Off to bed now.

January 1st, 2012 Day 58

S84°08.345 E055°00.244

Elevation 11455 feet

The quietness is crushing, almost oppressive. The air is still. No flutter in the tent’s fabric, no air pressure outside, and the only sound breaking the absolute silence that dominates the vast landscape is the mechanical clicker of my camera’s shutter. For weeks now, I have scoured the areas surrounding our campsites for the more interesting sastrugi formations, and the faces that reach out of the ice. But the storm that preceded our arrival at the POI has left in its wake new forms that we had not seen until then. These patches vary in size between twenty to forty feet in length, and ten to fifteen feet in width. They consist of delicate, curved, wafer thin ridges intertwined with each other, and rarely greater than twelve to fourteen inches in height. In the sunlight, the sharp edges and rounded shapes create endless arrays of subtle shading. Carefully framed, they deliver abstract patterns at once organic and graphic, reminiscent of computer generated digital art. Without a reference in scale, the could pass for sand dunes, but for the dominant monochromatic white and blue hues. I can’t get enough of them and thankfully, there are enough out here to chose from! While kiting, they will raise your guard as these delicate looking ridges are fiercely effective at catching and diverting a ski’s edge; they are hard and brutal to ride over. But they also offer a harmonious visual break from the monotony of the white shredded surface.
An ice cap isn’t typically the richest landscape to photograph. The endless white is remarkable to place a subject into, but by itself can easily look barren and, well, empty! These new shapes, especially defined by the changing light, are graphically exquisite. Because the sun doesn’t set around here at this time of the year–rotating instead around the horizon–the same sastrugi patch will take on different but equally rich shapes depending on the time of day.

I have been careful not to trample over the nicer patches in an effort to frame a shot, so as to re-discover them at a different time of the day. It also keeps me productive and occupied during stationary days; such as this one. If I were the wind, on this New Year’s day, my resolution would be to work harder! Today is one of the more still days of the trip; you could practically burn a candle outside. At least the sun makes for a warm and pleasant walk to photograph. Were it not for the frost that builds in the beard from breathing, this would pass for a T-shirt day.

A stationary day enables us to be frugal with our fuel consumption; and the sun baking the tent facilitates the melting of snow reserves inside without using a flame. It seems like we will be able to squeeze about fourteen days on our petrol reserve, which should allow enough time to reach the South Pole. Whether we can close to Hercules remains uncertain.

In closing, I will not win any feet beauty pageant any time soon: the nail of my other big toe fell off today as well. It had also suffered trauma in the ski boot riding over the sastrugi and finally gone black a week ago. That toe will now also require careful monitoring as the new skin is thin and fragile, therefore more susceptible to cold injury. Note to self, and others interested in this type of mission: the Dynafit Zero’s, while incredibly light and awesome boots, are the wrong choice for a long Antarctica crossing–even with a fiber fill overboot, as I have. Eric chose the Millet Everest boot, which is warm, but offers little structural ankle support, and fatigues both foot and leg. If I had to do this again, I would sacrifice in weight (probably about seven pounds) but pick a soft and warm Rossignol boot and binding system, one and a half size bigger. And keep all my toe nails; I am three down! Lesson learnt.

December 31, 2011

S84°08.345 E055°00.244

Elevation 11455 feet

No winds manifested in the night, and none during the day. After dragging the decision for as long as we could, we agreed to strap some skis on and give pulling a try. This was mostly academic at this stage, since in the time we have left before running out of fuel, the distance we could cover hauling would remain negligible. As it turns out, we need winds even more badly than we thought. One hour and one and a half kilometer later, I was sucking on air and cursing like a sailor. Eric had lent me an iPod, since mine is on the fritz, and I can’t tell for sure what made me more irate: the lack of oxygen or the selection of music. But after one hour, the experiment had lost its appeal. The sledges are heavy still, and after two months out here, with the weight loss, physical depletion, and at this stage lack of hauling conditioning, the exercise felt like slave labor! Add to that the psychological head game of computing that on our worse kiting day, we can cover in six minutes what takes an hour of walking and sweating, and a heart rate going up the charts! At almost 3500 meters still, the heart needs to work harder to pump in oxygen. That makes this type of aerobic activity leave you panting like a dog in heat! I was reminded of the intense effort of my 2009, seven hundred kilometers North Pole pulling trip with Keith! No pressure ridges or open water here, but the sastrugi certainly tries hard to compete!

The bad news is that the three day forecast calls for dead calm, and with it a noticeable increase of our required daily average. If we succeed at this, it will be a very close call. Had we not lost the fuel, we would still be within reasonable margins. As it is, we have a maximum of thirteen days before we exhaust our ability to melt ice into water and cook a meal. But we are close…

I want to thank all of you who are following our travails on this New Year’s eve, and wish you the very best in health, love and work for 2012 and beyond.

Rather than sending a silly hat picture (we did that for Christmas!) I chose a shot of some sastrugi from right outside the tent. How can something so painful on the joints be so easy on the eye? Enjoy!

December 30, 2011

S84°07.539 E055°02.714

Elevation 11433 feet

If yesterday’s progress suggested the successful final phase of our expedition, today’s non event brought us back to the drawing board. Nothing is certain, except that we have fourteen to fifteen days to reach the Pole before we run out of white fuel for cooking. And today suggests that getting there could be drawn out.
We were fooled again. While the remarkable wind conditions of yesterday held through the night and into the morning, we anticipated another glorious day of distance for today. There was no rush getting out of the tent: the previous two days held great winds, and as we are descending in elevation–and conquering new land!–we naturally expected for this to last. In the tent, we even joked about having found the Nirvana of ice kiting, and that we should set up a luxury kiting camp called “White Dessert” which would compete with the existing “White Desert”, except that ours would have a French pastry chef, and our katabatic winds would always be perfect.
We’re re-thinking the business model. We got out around 11:00, and I set up a shot with a camera mounted on the sledge behind me; we coordinated our synchronized lift off for camera, got the kites up in the air and ready to rip, and then…nothing. There was a breeze on the ground, but in a reverse of yesterday, nothing above.
Where I expected a glorious tracking shot from the rear as we glided, in formation, over the ice, we snailed around at four miles per hour, gyrating as we struggled to keep the kites in the air. And that old nagging feeling of doubt and crushed ambition creeped up again, fast, as I watched my kite fall out of the sky like a crumpled up cream puff! We were back in the doldrums. Within an hour, the wind simply shut off altogether. Incredulous, and not quite ready to admit defeat, we set up the tent as temporary shelter from the cold, but kept our clothes and boots on–not yet moving in–in case the wind would turn on again. I called in for Marc’s wind model forecast, and while waiting for his call back, starred at the tent fabric for any sign of life. Nothing. The call finally came, but the projections are bleak: no wind for the next forty eight to seventy two hours–the extent of the forecast. Tomorrow, we will likely strap on the skis–and start walking. We managed a measly six kilometers today, which leaves 656 to the South Pole, and fourteen days to do it in. We’re going back to work.
My lunch bags of nuts are becoming insipid by now, but that cream puff image is getting me all worked up! Luckily, I have managed to save a twenty day bag of Hebalife protein powder from the fuel contaminated food we jettisoned. Now we just need enough fuel to make water for it. Fourteen days…

December 29, 2011

S84°04.229 E055°07.914

Elevation 11450 feet

One of the best things about bad things, is getting on with it. Because sooner or later, luck turns. And good comes around. The key is to recognize that good and bad are both part of life. Attitude is what tips the balance one direction, or the other. As they say in the movies: life is like a box of chocolate; you never know what you’re going to get next!

It didn’t take long for yesterday’s buzz kill to turn around; today certainly made up for it. Unless you factor the protein bar with the tracings of gasoline which I ate on the trail, that left a lasting taste of petrol flavored burps for the following three hours; my breath was–almost literally–on fire! It is amazing and terrifying how fuel simply penetrates everything; including a sealed, aluminum lined bar wrapper. But as discussed, let’s focus on the positive.

The wind remained through the night and into the morning. Unfortunately, we still had some fuel soaked bags to sort through, and did not get out before 11:30. By then the blowing snow had largely gone, but we still had plenty to fly the big guns. The conditions were slowly pulling back and it seemed that we were headed to the usual afternoon shut down. But the wind simply kept up; it never shut off. We had the modest ambition of ending the day somewhere in 83 degrees; we finished in 84! And this turned out to be perhaps our best travel day of the trip, with 147 kilometers, bringing us to 662 kilometers from the South Pole.

We are now traveling a stretch of the globe that has never seen a man until now. In spite of the simplistic human urge to plant a little flag on unconquered land, perhaps to claim some type of ownership–or simply to say: “I exist”–there is something undeniably exciting, almost mystical, about setting prints where none have been before. In Antarctica especially, it gives the experience the taste of an other world. Of course, practically speaking, not much has changed: the terrain remained pretty shredded for the majority of the day, and my brains still rattles from riding the sastrugi. (Good thing, or my feet, ankle and knees would tell it to go on strike). I was told by the folks at the NSIDC that this region has probably not seen precipitation for five hundred to a thousand years. One noticeable change, and something we have not seen since climbing onto the plateau, are clear ondulations (hills) in the terrain. After eight hours on the trail, the wind was still there. What’s more, at eight knots it was light for the most part on the surface–which made for a warmer day for us, at around 25C below–but the seventy five meter kite lines found stronger fifteen knots air above which kept us moving at a pretty good click: we averaged around twenty kilometers per hour for the entire day. It is encouraging as we are dropping fast in altitude–we have come down over 750 feet since the POI– and this is a classic katabatic set up. A few days like this and we just might arrive at the South Pole by January 11th, my initial ambition, on the anniversary of Robert Falcon Scott’s centennial reach. However nothing says the conditions will hold. But…if they did…we would actually not even need to resupply on fuel at the South Pole (from what we lost in the spill) and we might just close the trip at Hercules Inlet, as intended…

The suspense is killing me!

December 28, 2011

S82°45.145- E055°40.091

Elevation 12084 feet

One of the small, but not insignificant luxuries on a trip like this, is the comfort of a hot water bottle in the evening. When the tent is cold, after a long day on the trail, to stuff a nalgene bottle filled with hot water into the sleeping bag is a little like the guilty pleasure of chocolate cake and a glass of milk before heading to bed. Or a foot massage after a day spent on your feet.

Unfortunately, after today, there will be no hot water bottles. In fact, hot drinks will be limited as well. We lost ten liters of white fuel. At the bottom of my sledge. Somehow, during today’s travel, one of the fuel container just had it with being bounced around. After the sledge hit one sastrugi too many, it cracked a small hole from so hard object that had traveled beneath it, and contaminated half of the sledge’s contents. This includes clothes, personals, and most importantly, food. Now, the thing about fuel is that it penetrates, and permeates everything. It will leave its signature smell–and taste–with anything it comes into contact with. Besides, the food bags generally have all developed small holes from the bounce, so it only takes for the fuel to simply looks at it for the content to get contaminated. Luckily, this happened in a narrow window of time, between a food break and a photo break, which saved the fuel from soaking absolutely everything. We quickly emptied all the content onto the ice–amidst blowing snow conditions!–and aired it all out. Then we inventoried everything, opening each lunch bag to smell, inspect, and sometimes sample its content. For the final tally, I have lost thirteen lunches, and a twenty day bag of precious Herbalife protein powder, as well as hot chocolate for the remainder of the trip. It could have been worse. With emergency redundancy–five days–it brings the lunch food count to eight losses which, with proper rationing, can be managed. And of course the fact that I will smell like a gas attendant at a petrol station for the rest of the trip. And no more hot water bottle. With five liters and change left, the real pressure is now getting to the South Pole within no more than fifteen days, as we burn a third of a liter per day. Beyond that, we will lose our ability to melt water and cook dinners–you get the picture. We can resupply fuel at the pole, but until then, we will need the wind gods on our side.

The joy of the POI quickly faded. With a very late night, we took our time in the morning. The wind was howling, with blowing snow but we spent some time near Mr. Lenin’s bust to take the necessary sponsor photos–no small feet holding those flags in twenty knots! By early afternoon, we capitalized on the conditions to get us out of there. The sooner we descend in elevation towards the South Pole, the greater the chances–theoretically–of finding consistent katabatic winds; and the warmer it should get. We rigged our thirteen meters for a broad reach tack, and flew out of there. Barely a minute after lift off, I looked back to take in the base one last time; but it was gone, erased from the landscape by the blowing snow. The POI had disappeared, as if in a dream. Lenin was back to his lonesome and frigid exile. Just as it was.
We covered 72 kilometers today, which puts us 809 kilometers from the South Pole, a distance we need to cover in fourteen days, for our timeline–fifteen for our fuel reserves. The race is on.

voicemail132507515120972Dec27

Two Days Late, but Santa Delivers!
This is an audio recording of Sebastian Copeland documenting the historic achievement of Sebastian Copeland and Eric McNair-Landry’s reaching of Antarctica’s Pole of Inaccessibility.

December 27, 2011

S82°06.696 E055°01.951

Elevation 12220 feet

It took the time, but I am pleased to report that tonight, at 19:30 GST, Eric and I reached the Antarctica Pole of Inaccessibility! This marks a first in the history of polar exploration: until today, no team had succeeded in reaching the POI without assistance or motorized transportation. The farthest point from any coast, the POI is effectively the heart of Antarctica, and regarded as the most difficult spot to reach in complete autonomy. A bust of Lenin, and a communications tower is all that remains of the Soviet era base which has been buried by drifting snow since it was abandoned almost fifty years ago. And now our red tent brings life back to the ghostly set!

The day started bleak. I woke Eric up at 5:30 as the wind had considerably dropped, but still held a punch. We were excited to finally get out of the tent and make some miles. If the wind held, we could close the 96 kilometers gap in four, maybe five hours. But during the short time it took to clear the tent of the considerable snow banks that had accumulated during the storm, the winds kept faltering–our hopes along with them. We set off with the fourteen meters Yakuza, but within the first hour, our speed was decreasing. It was disheartening, and set the tone for hard work. Given the pattern, the winds were sure to drop, and what then? Additionally, the temperatures remained cold at around 35C below without wind-chill. The storm had shredded the ice, and the sastrugi was vicious. My legs were burning; my toes chilled; the short night was getting to me; and the newly fixed binding kept coming undone; I was not having a good day. By 14:00 hour, I could no longer get the kite up in the air, so weak was the wind. Eric, assisted me, twice, by throwing it in the air, while I did my best to get the eighty meter lines up to find wind above. Our feeling was: whatever distance we don’t cover now, we’ll likely have to walk! That was motivation enough for Eric to run his own kite and get it in the air; how he managed, I’ll never know, but he is a light air specialist. Surprisingly, by 16:00 we were still going. Rather than shutting down, the wind actually built a little. By then, it might have turned to a cruel game: we were thirty three kilometers from the POI, and we could not get out of our head that we would get just within striking distance and the conditions to shut down! Not wanting to jinx it, I chose to blow through our scheduled break. This would be like the final approach on the mountain: you push until you get there.
By 18:30, we had been on the trail for ten hours–our longest stretch of the trip. Miles had been slow throughout the day, but now they were picking up! We had fifteen kilometers to close the gap–this was happening! As if to announce it, I skied over two hollows, experiencing the same sound wave blast from ten days ago. We raced over the ice, and I looked at the empty vastness ahead of me, scanning the horizon, expecting any moment to see appear a marker. With seven kilometers to go, we set down to check our bearing. Good thing as it was forty five degrees off: we almost overshot it! We lifted off one last time and rode practically next to each other, in formation. Within minutes, I raised a fist in the air and screamed, looking over at Eric who did the same! Ahead of us, sticking from the horizon were two markers; we sped toward them. The tall sastrugi we were now crossing at a ninety degree angle no longer mattered; the burn in my legs was forgotten; and the adrenaline actually warmed my toes! In no time, we were closing in. Each foot of ice separating us from what I had so long planned for was disappearing under my skis. We could now make out a thin, derelict communications tower, and the remains of a drilling platform. And of course, the famed bust of Lenin, sticking out of the ice, propped up on a wooden stand, at once stoic, incongruous and forlorn in this desolate space; like a Napoleon on a frozen Elba, in a timeless exile. The rest of the base was somewhere below our skis. We passed the tower, made a slow downwind turn, and simultaneously set down our kites.

Fifty three days, and we were there. Eleven hours on the trail, and 96 kilometers later, the Antarctica winds relented and honored our effort by letting us close the gap with our head high and a glory’s grace. We hugged and laughed. My lips were seized by the biting cold, but I mumbled something about accomplishment in life being so fleeting that it must be celebrated. We were giddy. I set up a tripod to freeze the moment in time. Because a photo, you see, is never fleeting.

December 26, 2011

S81°30.193 E050°44.931

Elevation 12175 feet

We’ll be denied our final approach one more time today, as the storm rages on, displaying the strongest conditions we have yet experienced on this trip. We had hoped to make a go for it in the night. Last night, the evening temperatures had held us back as the sun was in hiding, and the wind-chill set a morose tone for our advance at 50C below, especially as the tent remained chilled as well. The plan was to rise at 04:00 AM and hit the trail by 06:00 to close the gap with the still elusive POI. At 96 kilometers from us, the distance could conservatively be covered in five to six hours with decent winds. At 04:00, I opened the flap to confirm that these were not traveling conditions. Strong winds had been shaking the tent pretty violently, and outside, the cloud cover and blowing snow reduced visibility down to thirty meters or so. I did not bother waking Eric. I repeated the exercise an hour later, and again the following; the wind was only growing stronger. By 07:00 I gave up and fell asleep for good, amidst the roaring and violent growl of the building storm. Buried inside my sleeping bag, I did not emerge before noon. Eric was still sleeping. I stepped outside for a few seconds, just long enough to stick the wind meter in the air. It read 44.8 knots, but this surely was not the strongest gust! Snow banks had built around the tent, half burrying the sledges, while the blowing snow raced up to five feet above the ground, fast disappearing in the blanket of shapeless white that surrounded us. Within seconds, snow was sticking to my tent clothes and turning me into the boxing day snowman. Drift was filling the tent’s vestibule, and it was time to dive back inside the bag. I would estimate the temps to be around 60C below with wind, and the peak gusts over fifty knots.

I zipped up the bag, pulled the elastic fastener around my neck, my rabbit hat covering my ears, and watched the steam explode out of my nose towards the dancing socks and gloves hanging from the ceiling’s dry line, rocked as they were by the incessant shake. I’ll admit that such sight is almost hypnotic. The displacement of air inside from the shaking of the tent’s walls makes the colums of steam dodge erratically right and left in strict harmonic unity as it rises. I stayed in that position, staring at it, for most of the afternoon, making loose and abstract mileage calculations in my head. I am still holding on to the South Pole leg, but the full transcontinental crossing, ending at Hercules Inlet, is beginning to feel compromised. It’s not over until the fat lady sings, but whistling wind outside hints that she may be warming up. We have just about a month left on the expedition, during which to complete around two thousand kilometers, twelve hundred of which could be done in ten to twelve days, given the regularity of the winds in that region. That still does not leave much room for down days. And given how hampered we have been with those, it’s easy for the spirit to feel stirred…if not shaken.