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.