Day 1: Antarctica!

Nov 11, 2006

The Ilyushin lands at Patriot Hills, Antarctica.

Antarctica! After 1.5 years of intense preparation and training, we are ready to start our Antarctica adventure.

We landed at Patriot Hills, as evidenced by much noise and shaking. After a long taxi along the blue ice runway, the plane came to a stop, as evidenced by complete silence. The door opened, and the piercing cold rushed in. We climbed down the ladder, and were greeted by the amazing view of stupendous mountains nearby. Welcome to Antarctica! The time was 1:30 pm Chilean time, and the temperature was -18 F.

The ANI staff and crew got right to work unloading our sleds and gear. They knew we were all anxious to start our journeys. We put on our harnesses, clipped into our sled traces and walked the sleds a quarter mile to the fuel hut. There we poured fuel into our 5 liter cans.

Next we had a short meeting with the camp operations manager, then with hugs, handshakes, and heartfelt farewells to our fellow expeditioners, we were on our way. The time was 5:00 pm. (Note: Patriot Hills latitude 89° 60')

Skiing north, headed for our first camp.

We skied for three hours, heading north. We stopped to make camp in an area where the snow was not ice-hard. We set up camp. While we were moving, the light tailwind was not too cold, as long as we kept moving. Never mind my frozen beard, and our face masks that were hard as a board. But now in the tent, the cold was penetrating, even with most of our clothes on.

Our first camp.

Jenny heated water for hot cocoa, and dinner, and melted more snow for drinking water. Then we closed the tent doors and reduced the cold by half.

Evening camp: S 80° 15.623' W 81° 06.017'

Day 2 Antarctica: First Taste of the Wind

Nov 12, 2006

The night was very cold. We had cooked dinner in the vestibule, so there was not much heat from the stove coming into the tent. We slept in all of our clothes, including down jackets and insulated pants. During the night the wind picked up, and the ground blizzard made us close the tent door tightly to keep the spindrift out. The condensation inside the tent grew fierce and formed ice and ice crystals on the walls. In retrospect, it was our coldest night on the trip, as we had not learned how to manage our heat.

Yesterday we were going north toward the coast. Our intent was to kite ski to Hercules Inlet, then turn around and ski to the Pole. But this morning the wind was quite strong. Jenny wanted to stick to our original plan, but I now had reservations. I felt that we had our hands full adjusting to the cold and wind, and that if we introduced the additional element of kite skiing we might be in over our heads. As always, my philosophy is to never cross a Rubicon.

Also, I had reservations about continuing even sledging north. Not that it was dangerous. But yesterday it surprised us that we were going so slowly. Now it seemed a waste of time to keep going north when our ultimate goal was to go south to the pole. So with a great deal of reluctance we changed our plans. This camp would have to be our furthest point north.

Plan "B," which we devised on the spot, was to ski back to Patriot Hills and re-sort our gear and resupplies, and head to the Pole. So we broke camp and set our compasses on a reciprocal bearing, because we had long lost sight of Patriot Hills. The wind was now in our faces, and extremely cold.

In the morning, we found that the ground blizzard had covered our campsite with snow.

We have broken camp and packed the sleds.

This is the last photo of the day, because both of our cameras froze and would not work any more. We had not yet learned to keep them warm, or at least above freezing.

When we reached the Base Camp at Patriot Hills, three hours later, I had a lot of ice inside my face mask, and we felt like we had just returned from a severely cold weekend outing, when in fact we were barely getting started with this trip.

The staff welcomed us back and invited us into their little hut for hot soup and tea. We talked to a few of the staff members, and we all agreed that we had just completed a successful shakedown trip, giving us a chance to test gear and ourselves before setting out for the pole.

Back outside, we collected our gear bags containing all of our food and gear, and in the strong wind we re-located into the lee outside of a large tent. For one thing, we were carrying the kiting gear, and we would not need that for the south-bound part of the trip. While Jenny repacked our resupply bags with food and gear, I went to the fuel cache to fill our bottles for the next leg of our journey. Both of us were positively freezing and I was amazed that Jenny managed to sort food and repack our bags successfully. The temptation was to make camp and try again the following morning. But we both knew that we needed to get used to this, and that tomorrow's weather might not be better.

After two hours of resorting, we set off from Patriot Hills with sleds repacked with food and fuel for a month. The sleds were heavy and the day was late, but we wanted to at least ski for an hour before making our next camp. As it turned out, we would ski for much longer than that this evening.

Before heading directly to the pole, we had to go around the Patriot Hills mountain range. The reason for this Base Camp at Patriot Hills was the natural blue ice at the foot of the mountains providing a runway for the Ilyushin. The ice field stretches for miles, and unfortunately it lay in our path. Before long we found ourselves unavoidably skiing on ice, rather than snow. The ice was too slippery for boots, and we had no crampons, so we slowly and gingerly made our way along the base of the hills on skis. Normally the sleds slid on the ice fairly easily. But every now and then they would hang up. When this happened they were very difficult to free because our skis and skins provided almost no traction. We spent hours in this mode, but at least the efforts kept us warm in the rising wind.

The wind is sometimes so strong here that it blows stones off the mountain and onto the ice. In some areas the stones were so prevalent that they were unavoidable. We were very mindful of our hard-plastic sled runners, but we couldn't do much to prevent the rocks from scratching them.

The evening was getting late and very stormy, but we could not find a place to camp on the ice. So we kept going. In retrospect we probably should not have kept going because the wind built into a full-on gale and the temperature plummeted. We had been warned not to be out in such conditions due to the risk of frostbite. But we seemed to be OK for the time being.

At the far end of the hills we were faced with a long, steep ascent to the shoulder. We had been pulling hard and were tired, so when we finally reached a fairly level area, at 9:30 pm, we stopped to make camp. Here we realized how cold we were. We put on all of our jackets and pants, and proceeded to set up the tent. This was a task in the strong wind with stiff and numb fingers. As before, inside the tent was very cold, because we used the stove in the vestibule, not in the body of the tent, with the vestibule door fully open to avoid fumes.

Evening camp: S 80° 21.034' W 81° 13.233'

Day 3 Antarctica: A Close Call

Nov 13, 2006

We slept well in all our clothes and big down jackets, but when we awoke we were far from comfortable. Whenever we would move an arm or a leg, the thick frost coating on the inside of the tent would rain down on us. Nevertheless, we set our resolve and packed our bags, and emerged back out into the storm.

Directly ahead of us were the mountains at the south end of the Ellsworth Range. According to our map, we should have been heading for Foxy Pass. But according to our compasses (both mine and Jenny's), what we took for Foxy Pass looked impossibly steep. So in the next few hours we headed southeast to find a better crossing. Finally I realized that I had been using the compass wrongly. The compasses we had were new to us, not the type we were used to. As it turns out, they took some getting used to. Realizing my error, I pointed the compass in the right direction - and there, indeed, was Foxy Pass.

We skied for the pass the rest of the day in boisterous conditions, and in the late afternoon, as we were approaching the slope going up to Foxy Pass, the storm came hurling down on us in earnest. At times the ground blizzard was so thick that we could not see our skis. And again because of the ice and sastrugi, we could not find anywhere to camp.

The wind is strong. The mountains called Patriot Hills recede in the background.

At one point in the storm I had a close call. I took my ultra-thick mitten off one hand, and also the inner glove. I was reaching for the camera, down my shirt, while pinching the gloves between my knees. A moment of inattention, and the tempest blew my glove and mitten away.

Fortunately the glove and mitten were caught by a sastrugi 30 feet away. I ran and grabbed them. But then I couldn't get my hand back in my inner glove because the glove had frozen hard as a rock. In only a few seconds I started losing the use of my fingers. In another minute or so they would have been gone. I could not unzip my parka to warm my hand against my body because the zipper was coated in ice and wouldn't budge. I shoved my hand into the outer mitten, and after several minutes my hand began to warm. Lesson learned: wear vapor barrier gloves under the outer mitts, and tie the mittens to the body.

The grind up the slope was extremely long, slow-going, and exhausting against the wind. Visibility was less than a hundred yards, and we could not see the top of the slope. We could not tell how far below the pass we were until we were almost on it. As before, during the last hour Jenny lagged behind, and I had to go very slow so that she could keep up. I should have taken some of the weight out of her sled, but we were both too cold to stop. We figured we should find a place to camp soon, so we hung on.

At the end of a 12 hour day we reached the pass proper and found a good place to camp. But the wind was so strong that I had serious misgivings about pitching the tent, due to the risk of breaking a pole or two. However, I had fitted this tent with extra thick and beefy poles, and so pitching turned out to be no problem. We had read stories of tents blowing away in Antarctica, so I had devised a system of tie-downs, anchored by a ski pole or two. Our system was to lift the folded tent out of my sled and anchor it immediately to the snow surface. Then we hung on to the tent when pitching it, and then Jenny stood there holding on to it while I finished setting the anchors. I then shoveled snow onto the snow skirt all around. It was only at that point that we could both let go of the tent, confident that it wouldn't blow away.

Our camp at Foxy Pass. After only an hour, the spindrift is starting to bury the sleds. Mt. Shattock, behind us, lies at the far-south end of the Ellsworth mountains.

Crawling into the tent was a little bit of heaven because of the storm raging outside. We didn't feel it now, but in a few days we would realize that we had both frost-nipped the front of our thighs fairly severely on the climb to Foxy Pass. But we had fared much better than some skiers. In this same storm one person from a British team just ahead of us sustained frostbite to his thighs so badly that he had to be evacuated. The doctor said that because of the damage by gangrene, he might have to have ongoing skin grafts for the rest of his life. Someone else lost a thumb. Altogether some twenty skiers would suffer frostbite during this Antarctic season.

Day 4 Antarctica: A Beautiful Day

Nov 14, 2006

Wow! We could write a book about the last three days. It seems like we were in survival mode, with extra cold weather and extremely high winds. All batteries were frozen, with no way to recharge them.

Today was a beautiful day with -11C and 10 mph wind. We are having a great time, and learning how to cope with Antarctica's early season conditions. True, we are making slow progress, but that is to be expected at the start, with steep hills, sastrugi, very high winds, and some blue ice onto which small rocks have been blown from the nearby mountains creating havoc with our sled runners.

The Ellsworth mountains recede in the background.

Skiing in nice weather.

Shoving snow onto the snow skirt to pin the tent in place.

Jenny sorting provisions.

Home, sweet home.

Jenny thinks she might have frostbitten a finger, but all our fingertips feel numb - probably superficial cold injury. That, and we are not used to holding ski poles with gloves on; probably chafe, certainly nothing too serious.

Evening camp: S 80° 33.119' W 81° 34.530'

Day 5 Antarctica: The Wedge Design

Nov 15, 2006

Good day today. Ice fog and some white out, but minimal wind and relatively warm temperatures (-5C).

Yesterday we felt like we were going steeply uphill, which is why we were going so slowly. In fact for three days it has felt like dragging two tires uphill. Max cardio workout, all day with no rests. In those cold winds, to rest is to freeze. Today we gained a plateau, level "ground," and still we went slowly. In 8 hours we covered only 9.7 miles. (7.5 mi yesterday.) Yet it was easier today, and we enjoyed the day very much.

White out conditions are interesting to say the least. You cannot see the ground you are skiing on. As you step off a 1-foot ledge with a jolt, you wonder why you did not see it! As you run into a sastrugi and come to an abrupt halt, you wonder what was that?

Today Jenny took the lead, to give my eyes a rest from staring at the invisible horizon, and she did very well. But she soon grew tired, and started wandering off course. Way off course. In 25 feet she turned 45 degrees. Almost as if her boot was nailed to the floor. This happened several times. :)

In a white out you can't see the wind lines in the snow, but normally you can. And because the wind normally blows in the same direction, the wind lines give a person a general idea of the heading. For more accuracy, I painted this wedge design on both skis. By maintaining a certain angle with the wind lines, in this case about 40 degrees, I know I am about on the right heading.

Jenny takes the lead.

I painted this wedge design on both skis. The method is fairly common, but the design is original. Each wedge represents 15 degrees on the compass. The wind lines are about 40 degrees from south, and I'm heading due south.

My wedge design also works on the sun-dial principle. The shadow of a ski pole moves 15 degrees an hour, so looking at my watch and noting what time it is, I could maintain a certain angle on the wedges and know that I was on course. After a few days of using the wedges, I no longer needed them. For the rest of the trip I simply judged the angle of my body's shadow in relation to the shadow of my outstretched arm. The shadows move 15 degrees in one hour. (15°x24 hours=360° full circle).

Taking a break in near-white-out conditions. The air is below freezing, but the lack of wind makes it seem much warmer. We need such thick mittens to keep our hands warm because they don't get much exercise. We wear vapor barrier liners under them, to keep the moisture out of the mittens, so they don't freeze solid.

Skiing without a face mask in warm weather. Enjoy it while it lasts :)

After shoveling a pile of snow on the snow skirt, to hold the tent in place, I'm tying the solar panels to the tent. These solar panels worked at "night", and still put out some charge when the sky was cloudy.

It was Jenny's idea to name our pulks "Spirit" and "Opportunity" the Mars rovers, and I thought that everyone in the modern world knew what the names meant. I was rather dumbfounded when nobody in our circle of Antarctica friends had a clue. They did, however, know what Mars is. :)

We have loaded the camping gear into the tent, and put the pulks in place, and now it's time to retire for the evening. Here we have tied the pulks to ski poles, to prevent loss in the event of a sudden blast of wind. But because we can't see them at night, through the closed door, we later started tying them to the tent.

Our night-time gear placed into the tent. We sleep with two pads under us, one inflatable, and one not.

Jenny acting silly wolfing down a stick of butter. Butter helps us stay warm, and we use it in our cooking; but sometimes we eat it raw, like a candy bar.

The sun circles around the horizon, about 15 degrees above the horizon; so the daylight persists throughout the night. And now it is "night" and time for bed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the funniest story of today. In good weather we took our first sit-down rest of the trip, sitting on a pulk (sled). To make this possible we had to unhook the traces from our harnesses. When the rest was over, we stood up, put our ski pole straps on, and began to ski away. After 5 steps I always check the area. And what did I find that I had left behind? My pulk! Jenny was in stitches.

Evening camp: S 80° 41.466' W 81° 27.715'

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