December 23, 2011

S81°22.321 E049°03.220

Elevation 12072 feet

The best I can say about today is that it followed Marc’s meteorological prediction, generally speaking. In the end, the wind did not blow four to six knots from the south; it didn’t blow from the north either; it simply did not manifest at all.

We are hanging on to Marc’s prediction like the word of the evangelist, hoping for wind tomorrow and then Christmas day. Aside from the very short 14 kilometers covered two days ago, today makes for the fourth day cooked up inside the tent. It is a little surreal. Aside from the tense anti-climax of watching days peel off the calendar while we still have so many miles to cover, it is also strange to think that we are now two days away from Christmas. In this festive time, I think of loved ones, family and friends preparing and planning dinner celebrations and I miss everyone, feeling fortunate that I have so many to miss.

In the spirit of the season, Eric did a wind dance that I captured on film, for your entertainment, as well as our own. In truth, today has been the most still day of the entire trip so far, with not a whisper of wind all day and all night. In that respect, the dance is a relatively fail-proof proposition: it is hard to imagine that it could actually get worse! Wispy high clouds have been developing this afternoon, partially shielding the sun, resulting in cooler temperatures inside.

I have began writing an article due in for the end of February; something that I honestly would never have imagined undertaking from the ice. But there are only so many chess games you can have in a day. With the iPod on the fritz, it comes back to writing! And here I thought I was getting away from the office…

On the health side, the toe is following its healing cycle, which is to say that the dead part is black and hard. It will eventually detach, but when exactly, I am not sure. As for the rib, I hardly feel the pain there anymore, except while sneezing. There is a bump where the break happened, but I assume that that, too, will eventually go away. Eric’s cough is still very much with him. I suspect it will dissipate as we lose altitude, but this won’t be for a while. We have a little over a month left on the ice. Our daily average has risen to 50 kilometers per day until the South Pole. We remain cautiously optimistic…

December 22, 2011

S81°22.321 E049°03.220

Elevation 12072 feet

A quietness that screams at you is hard to find. But on the ice, in a world void of life and on a windless day, silence takes on a weight that I have yet to experience anywhere. Beyond the screeching hiss that overtakes the audible sense, the slightest sound explodes through the ear canal as if captured in an isolation chamber. On a sleepless night, the heartbeat alone will dictate a clock-like rhythmic pounding there to remind you of each minute that drags on. And with each of those minutes, I contemplated the windless conditions and dubious prospects of the coming days. I dozed off a few times only to wake up to the same state, in and out of my head. By morning, the stillness of the tent’s fabric confirmed the night’s prediction: this will be another static day.

My anxiety stems from the elevation where we now find ourselves: at over 12000 feet (3600 meters), we are close to the top. The nature of katabatic winds is to roll downhill, generally gaining speed as they do. But the closer you are to the top, predictably, the weaker the wind. We are now a week behind my schedule assumption, and given the altitude of the POI, weak winds could be with us as well for the first couple of hundred kilometers towards the South Pole. Such a scenario would be detrimental to our time table, and compromise our ability to complete the mission. What we desperately need is another front system to push air to the south, like the one we had last week!

Upon studying the wind maps at home, and given the proximity of the Argus Dome (elevation of 4083 meters) about four hundred kilometers south-east of the us, I had assumed the winds would be weak, but sufficient to deliver kiteable conditions for the–as yet unexplored–leg from POI to the South Pole. Getting up this morning, I wondered if we would ever get there. Eric was more optimistic, but questioned reaching Hercules Inlet, the final leg of the expedition. We both agreed on a new strategy: if winds develop in the middle of the night–“our” night anyway, since the sun hasn’t set in over a month and we are just now at solstice!–regardless of sleep, we pack up and go. Additionally, starting tomorrow, if the wind does not manifest, we ski. Neither one of us was particularly excited about that option, given the thin air up here, and that getting up for a pee can suck your breath away! At least the terrain has smoothened out some, and the sledges are lighter by at least one hundred pound. While pulling my skiing boots out of the sledge to dry out the ice crystals inside, it occurs to me to call Marc De Keyser, the whiz Belgian meteorologist, who now happens to work for ALE, our logistics team from the South Pole on, at Union Glacier. After giving him our coordinates, Marc says he will call back with a model as soon as he figures it out. An hour later the phone rings: “Four to six knots from the south tomorrow, which is not going to help you much”, he announces. My heart sinks. “However, a front is moving towards you and you should see about fifteen knots building from the north in the afternoon of the 24th. This should grow through the night to twenty five to thirty knots on the 25th. You should reach the POI by Christmas day!” Aside from being a star, Marc right then was the closest I felt to Santa since I was four years old! His model predictions are notoriously on the money. That means probably a rest day tomorrow, and, short of another surprise, we should definitely see a white Christmas–at the POI!

December 21, 2011

S81°22.321 E049°03.220

Elevation 12072 feet

It is still as a corpse out there, and has been so since 13:00 this afternoon. It was quiet in the morning, and the wind manifested–weakly–long enough for a one hour section. No more. Hardly had we landed the kites for a five minute break that the wind simply shut off. And that was that for the day. We barely managed 14.5 kilometers. Luckily, at least, the fix job on the binding–part two–seems to be holding. Not that the speed we experienced today put it to the test, but it looks promising.

At this altitude, the winds are likely to be very weak. We are now out of the storm system that stayed with us for almost a week, and I have a feeling that, close to fifty days in, we may be entering the tougher psychological phase of the expedition: waiting for wind, and seeing the days burn by, without making the mileage. It has been tough to get a rhythm in for the last two weeks, and it doesn’t look like the weather will be cooperating soon. With only 126 kilometers to the POI, we can practically touch it! A distance that could be covered in one good day.

That section, as well as the one that will follow to the South Pole, was expected to be light on wind. We will get up if the winds manifest in the night. Or start skiing if we have to, perhaps more for the head than for the miles. There is only so much time you can spend in a tent without going cabin crazy–with or without chess! We have just had rice & beans for dinner, enough to generate a hurricane, even if only inside! Our spirit remains strong: we just pray for wind…

And now for the numbers: we have covered 1584 kilometers so far. There will be approximately 880 kilometers from the POI to the South Pole, and almost 1200 kilometers from the South Pole to Hercules Inlet. That very last section is notoriously, and without fail, very windy and riddle with sastrugi. It generally blows night and day, and we are planning on traveling long enough to cover 100 kilometers per day, with the hopes of closing it in twelve tough and final days.

So the focus remains on the aptly named Pole of Inaccessibility!