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.