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.