Day 36: Cameras Frozen All Day

Dec 16, 2006

Good day! Wind: 15, tapering to 10 in the afternoon. Sky: blue. Sastrugi: intense and fairly claustrophobic, appeared to be no way through. At least in the morning. But then it started to give way, and we started to pick up a bit of speed. Then at 85 deg 50 min, we were essentially in the clear!! Meaning, there was sastrugi, but only isolated clumps which we could easily find our way through on smooth paths.

About this time we also started to climb, and this lasted for a few hours.

I led all day, with Jenny following close behind. She prefers to follow me because it is easier for her, and gives her a feeling of security. I prefer to lead most of the time because it gives me a sense of openness, and the freedom to choose my own route. Also, when in the lead my mind is free to soar, without distractions.

Occasionally I like to follow, to give my eyes a rest. And usually Jenny does well in her navigation, as long as she has something to steer by, such as a small cloud dead ahead. But when the horizon is empty, such as today with the blue sky, she tends to wander off course. As I wrote in a previous update, I should have made her a bracket that holds the compass directly in front of her. Our home-made arm-mounted compass are very difficult to read.

Regardless of the conditions, I tend to check my compass about once an hour, at the rest stops. I do not have an innate sense of direction, far from it. But over the years I have developed a multitude of observation skills that in effect let me know where I am headed. And with years of practice it has become almost automatic.

For example, in a white out, the light is very subtly different, depending on which way you face. I am sensitive to that within a few degrees. So I begin by orienting myself to the compass, then when I'm skiing, if that light looks the same, I know I am headed in the right direction.

This afternoon was very nice weather as long as you kept moving and kept the rest stops very short. So I enjoyed the afternoon very much. I am in my element here, within limits. That's not to say that our margins are very great. But while skiing I often get a sense of happiness and contentment that comes over me. It simply shows that I am enjoying what I'm doing, and my mind is full of wonderful and creative thoughts.

So, for example, this afternoon I worked on the details of my Next Fun Trip (Climbing Vinson Massif) - not to get ahead of myself with this one. We have a long ways to go yet, to reach the pole.

Speaking of which, this evening we crossed the 86th parallel. Actually we skied a little longer today, and I happened to pull out my GPS and saw that we had crossed it about 50 feet ago. So we made camp here. So we have covered six degrees and have four to go.

Our cameras were frozen all day, so we could take photos only when we reached camp and had warmed the cameras.

This is the foot end of our tent, and the photo is meant to show the amount of ventilation we need when running the stove. And keep in mind that it is very windy outside. When finished with the stove, we close the inner door by 2/3, and same with the inner door on the head end. The inner doors are quite breathable, so we are still getting lots of ventilation throughout the night-time hours.

Speaking of night-time hours, we have our clocks set to Base Camp time, because we need to call them every evening, and we need to be in the tent to make the calls. Base Camp uses Chilean time of UTC-03:00. (The South Pole and McMurdo use New Zealand time of UTC+13:00.)

Evening camp: S 86° 00.033' W 86° 43.702'

Today's mileage: 13.0

Altitude: 5800 ft., Temperature: -18 C

Day 37: Alone in an Immense Wilderness

Dec 17, 2006

Jenny:

It felt like the first day of summer. Beautiful blue sky, and a faint, light wind, just enough to keep us from overheating.

In the morning we had some hill climbing and moderate sastrugi, but by early afternoon we found the going a bit easier and the sastrugi not so rough.

A large part of our enjoyment today was the fact that we had gotten past the 85 degree hurdle. Now it felt like we were really on our way to the pole.

Due to the snowfall four days ago, and the lack of wind, we were constantly pulling the sleds over patches of soft, sticky snow of one to three inches deep.

Ray and I traded leads all day, and thanks to his coaching throughout the day (instruction and tips on the fine art of navigating by all clues available, while referring to the compass to verify only occasionally), I was able to maintain, for the most part, a correct heading. Of course, Ray had taught me much of this previously, but today I was able to put it into practice.

Without the biting wind howling through our parka hoods, I was amazed at how absolutely quiet and still this icy continent can be. And although there are other south pole expeditions ahead and behind us, we feel very isolated, as though we have this entire sector all to ourselves.

We are quite used to this feeling of aloneness; in fact it is one of the factors that draws us to the immense wilderness areas.

Tonight in the tent, as we eat our dinner and get ready for sleep, we can feel the solar radiation permeating the west facing side of the tent. With any kind of wind, the sun doesn't have a chance to do any warming.

And in the morning, when we awake at 6:00, we get the solar heating on the east side of the tent.

Evening camp: 86° 10.592' W 86° 41.745'

Today's mileage: 12.2

Altitude: 5930 ft., Temperature: -19 C

Day 38: Warm Weather and Sleds are Dragging Hard

Dec 18, 2006

We wake up at 6:00 am and look out the doorway - can't see nuthin'. Rub the eyes and try again. Still nothing. Looks like more playing in the junkyard for today.

By the time we had our skis on, sled traces attached to our harnesses, over-mitts clipped to our ski poles and put on, the time was 7:30 and the white out had downgraded to flat light. We were on our way.

Fifteen minutes later we were sweating and had to stop to shed a few clothes. Never mind the snow falling. The temperature had risen to -4 C.

The wind was very light and the sastrugi has eased up, for now, and we had little trouble finding our way though.

But the sleds were dragging hard, as if the brakes were on. I went the first hour wondering if it was me having a low energy day, or if the sleds were having a problem. Finally it donned on me that we were climbing. And so it went most of the day.

There seems to be two kinds of hills on our route to the South Pole: those that look like hills, and those that look flat. Then, there are two types of flat ground: ground that looks flat, and ground that looks like a hill. After so much time spent looking at the landscape, with nothing for reference, you lose touch of what is what. I have yet to figure out a technique for judging slope on this trip.

We were dressed lightly; only one thermal undershirt and our ski parkas. No neck gaiters (I usually wear two), no neck scarves, and the hoods of our parkas were down, leaving just the fleece face masks. In these warm temperatures, fogging of the goggles is a problem. So at the rest stops we take off the goggles to prevent serious fogging, although we always ski with the goggles on (actually, Jenny wore her dark glasses today). But to leave the eyes exposed for very long is very dangerous. Sure enough, by late afternoon my eyes began to hurt. I took this as a shot over the bow; a reminder to not remove the eye protection for more than a few moments. I changed my goggles for the heavy-duty, silver-mirror versions, and also went back to wearing my scarf over my face mask. Fortunately within a couple hours my eyes no longer hurt.

The sky started to clear just a bit, the snowfall stopped, and the temperature went back down and stayed there. Then the clouds moved back and the light went flat. Another hour of this and it was time to find a campsite.

In a white out you can only find a camp by feel. In flat light you can find a campsite visually, but you really can't see the surface that well to see how smooth it is, or how sloped. So we used our technique of pitching the tent, then looking under it and moving it as many times as necessary. This only takes a few minutes, and so far it has worked.

Backing up to yesterday, we are carrying five 1-liter cans of fuel, and also three 1-gallon cans. It was time to fill the bottles, and so we made a fuel filter out of a piece of mesh and a length of elastic over our funnel. Then it was time to check the contents of the nearly empty bottles to see what kind of debris they contained. Note: these were new bottles at the start of the trip.

Two bottles were clean, but the other three - I couldn't believe what I found. No wonder the stove had been acting up. In one bottle, which contained half an inch of fuel, there was quite a bit of debris of all sizes that looked like black sand, but it was not sitting on the bottom, nor was it floating. There also was a small amount of what looked like water.

That is the good part. The bad part - there was a thing sitting on the bottom that looked like a polliwog. It was cream-colored and about 7/8 inch long. Another bottle had much the same thing but the cream-colored whatever (not shaped like anything) was smaller. I absolutely could not believe my eyes. [Probably frozen water]

We decanted the fuel remaining, emptied the bottles of the debris, and then with our make-shift filter we opened a gallon can and filled all the bottles. Sure enough, there was debris in that can also (and also rust on the outside top of the can).

Evening camp: S 86° 21.539' W 86° 48.853'

Today's mileage: 12.7 in 10 hrs

Altitude: 6230 ft., Temperature: -18 C

Day 39: Climbing to the Polar Plateau

Dec 19, 2006

Clear sky, 10 mph wind, sastrugi moderate. So what is today's challenge? The cold. But after all, this is Antarctica.

Nevertheless, it's especially cold today, and for the moment I'm worried. Behind me, Jenny is running on only seven cylinders, and has trouble catching her breath. We are both skiing at only half speed at great effort. Something is wrong. Then it dawns on me. The stove.

Jenny feels pretty wretched, so I offer to make camp. But no, "We've got to make our 12.5 today and as long as you lead, I'm fine". So that is what we did, and before long Jenny was back up to speed, and my anxieties were no more.

Mid-day we left the sastrugi behind. No doubt there will be sastrugi most of the way to the pole, but here they were gone. In their place we had soft snow, and because of the low temperatures it was not slippery for the runners. So for the first time on the trip I adjusted both of our sled traces so that the sleds would track directly behind us, not off to one side. This made it easier for her to follow behind me with her sled following in the tracks of my sled.

All day today we climbed. And without the sastrugi the terrain was much more open and expansive. As we climbed higher we could look back and admire the magnificent vistas. It was very beautiful.

After ten hours of skiing with regular, short, standing breaks for snacks and water, we made camp on the same hill. We suspect that this hill is practically endless as we climb to the Polar Plateau.

While skiing today I had a thought discovery. Once in the tent, I checked the stove, and sure enough I found that the jet was loose in its threaded holder. So this must have contributed to the fumes, both this morning and a couple of days ago. I deduced that the jet needs to be screwed in extra tight to cope with the large temperature fluctuations. All stoves produce fumes, but I figure that a loose jet will produce more than carbon monoxide.

For those interested in tracking our progress, this is easy. We are tracking generally down the same longitude (86 degrees west). So we are interested in the latitude. So with ruler in hand, draw a straight line 10 inches long. Then draw a tick mark at one-inch intervals. At the first tick mark, write 80. The next tick mark is 81 degrees, and so on, to the finish at 90 degrees. Then draw a small circle at 86 and a half degrees. That is our approximate position tonight. See the coordinates at the bottom of this entry: South 86 degrees, 33 minutes. And note that each degree is divided into 60 minutes.

Evening camp: S 86° 33.120' W 86° 39.044'

Today's mileage: 13.4 in 10 hrs

Day 40: The Disappearing Hill

Dec 20, 2006

Blue sky, 15 mph wind, cold but not as cold as yesterday, sastrugi moderate. Funny thing: the hill we were climbing disappeared.

We have seen this happen many times. In the late afternoon (when tired) we labor slowly up a steep hill, and finally select a campsite which appears very steep. But once in the tent, the ground feels level. Then in the morning, when stepping out we are very surprised to find the terrain appears level on all sides. Many times while skiing we agree on the steepness, but not always. For example, this afternoon Jenny was climbing and I was skiing on level ground.

A sudden white out has erased the landscape.

We were weaving our way through the sastrugi, about an hour into our day, when a batch of clouds moved in from the SE. An hour later it was snowing, and we were groping along in a white out, which lasted the rest of the day.

That's the nice thing about Antarctica. When you get tired of looking at the same old snowy landscape, a white out comes along and erases it. Then, when the white out finally clears, you are glad to have the landscape to look at again.

The white out finally begins to clear.

Our face masks look pretty durpy but they do keep us warm.

At day's end we set up camp, using the technique of pitching the tent and looking under it to see the ground for suitability. We crawled into the tent, and within minutes the sun popped out.

Writing this update.

In direct sun, the tent absorbs a great amount of solar heat. But what the sun giveth, the wind taketh away. Even 5 or 10 knots of wind stabs like a driven knife. It has a tremendous cooling effect. But for the first time this evening, there was no wind. So we enjoyed our warmest time in the tent, ever. Never mind the minus 15 degrees Celsius outside, it was so warm in the tent, we had to leave both doors partially open for an hour or so.

Today we crossed 86 deg 40 min, which is 2/3 the way to the pole. We have come about 500 miles, and we have 225 miles left, and counting.

Evening camp: S 86° 43.630' W 86° 44.189'

Today's mileage: 12.1 in 10 hrs

Altitude: 6415 ft., Temperature: -15 C

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