Day 31: Mid-Journey Resupply

Dec 11, 2006

White out, wind 0 to 5 knots, some snow flurries.

The terrain was mostly flat in the lee of the Thiels mountains, so we found that by being extra careful we could ski just about as fast as if there were no white out. In this case, by being always ready to stop instantly when we felt or sensed a problem. I led all day, and I felt/heard Jenny crash into my sled a few times when she didn't stop quickly enough. Only once did she fall down one of the unexpected "mini ski slopes."

Despite the white out, we could see the base of the mountains, so navigation was easy. My method was to switch on the GPS long enough to read the magnetic bearing, then turn off GPS and put it away. Then pull out my compass, set the heading, and look to which mountain the compass was pointing to, then put the compass away.

We didn't see the fuel barrels until we were a couple miles away. We arrived at the resupply at 3:15 pm. Still in a white out, we had trouble finding a place to pitch the tent because we couldn't see the ground. So I devised a method: We pitched the tent, then lifted it high enough to look under it - and then we could see the ground at that spot. "That will never do; the ground is not smooth, and it is sloped." So we moved over a ways and looked again. After several tries we finally found a suitable place.

The "Thiels" location consists of an ice runway, dozens of fuel barrels, and a skidoo and plow to maintain the runway. It's all here because this is the half-way point for refueling the Twin Otter en route to the pole.

By resupplying here we saved carrying 75 pounds each of food and fuel for a month. On the down side, the cache was about seven miles out of our way, and then it will be an extra seven more miles to get around the mountains.

Nevertheless, tonight we are eating like kings, and wearing clean socks and underwear.

Evening camp: S 85° 11.997' W 87° 53.069'

Today's mileage: 11.3 in 7.25 hrs

Day 32: Sastrugi On Top of Sastrugi

Dec 12, 2006

If all the days were this tough, I might stay home and play checkers instead. Either that or take it up a notch and get used to it. Wow! We burned some blubber today.

The day started with heavy sleds, that seemed to get heavier as time went on. Yet all was going well for the first five minutes, until we encountered the sastrugi. But this was different. In the past it was sastrugi next to sastrugi. But here it was sastrugi on top of sastrugi.

We were crossing a wide area where the wind funneled between two mountains, and had churned the ice to chaos. It was like a short, choppy sea frozen in time. There was no route through, and time after time a wave caught the sleds and brought us to a halt.

After eight hours of such slow going, we came to an area of different terrain: blue ice. Flat, and ice-rink hard, at the foot of the mountains. The problem was, it was very slippery. We had to ski very slowly and carefully.

Sprinkled on the ice here and there were stones of all sizes. Probably the wind picked them up and flung them down here from the mountains. Jenny picked up a couple and put them in her pocket.

Over dinner we studied them. I thought I knew rocks pretty well, but I have never seen anything like these two. One was coal black and reminiscent of slate, but without the layers; smooth and homogeneous. The other sample reminds us of coarse granite. It comprises large crystals of quartz and what have you.

At the end of the day we had to find a make-shift camp, a small, tent-sized spot in the sea of sastrugi, on the east flank of Mount Walcott.

Evening camp: S 85° 21.199' W 87° 02.019'

Today's mileage: 11.7 in 10 hrs

Snow flurries, Temperature: -14 C

Day 33: Skiing Alongside the Thiels

Dec 13, 2006

We knew we had camped in the middle of chaos, and we still had a long way to ski before reaching the far end. But we had forgotten our Checkers set, so there was nothing for it but to load the sleds and see what the day had in store.

Can you believe it? Today was even more of a blubber burner than yesterday. Fortunately, we still have lots of blubber to burn. Speaking for myself that is. I don't know where Jenny gets her energy; she seems to have an unlimited supply.

Three hours into our morning, Jenny discovered that she could haul her sled out of holes better without wearing her skis. Boots give better traction. So we strapped her skis onto my sled, and she pulled with boots for two hours. The surface is white ice and frozen snow, and if you find an inch of powder snow somewhere it is a rarity.

The difficult sastrugi was caused by last winter's winds accelerating over the Thiel Mountains. If we would have stayed close to the mountains we would have been in that all day. Instead we headed southeast for five hours on a course that took us away from the mountains.

Reaching the edge of the severe sastrugi, we followed a heading that would take us back to the Pole. Then for most of the afternoon we skied alongside the Thiels at a distance of perhaps four miles. The rest of the day we climbed a big hill and watched the Thiels recede slowly in the distance.

The exercise keeps us warm, but even on a nice day like today we can't stop for more than a few minutes without getting cold.

When outside the tent we have to wear our ski goggles all the time. The reason is not so much the bright light which would cause snow blindness in short order, but to protect our eyes from the cold and wind. Even 10 knots at -16 degrees Centigrade is intolerable to the eyes. So the last thing we do before leaving the tent is pull the goggles down over the eyes. Then, at the end of the day, the first thing we do when entering the tent is to remove the goggles.

We each carry a spare pair of goggles in our sleds. Should the lens of the primary pair ice up, we switch to the secondary pair.

In retrospect, it was a strenuous day, but the weather was perfect and the scenery was incredibly beautiful with the mountains nearby and the polar landscape extending away to forever. Never mind our short mileage, it was a day to remember for its beauty, and for the fact that we are in Antarctica!

Evening camp: S 85° 30.724' W 86° 40.558'

Today's mileage: 11.2

Wind: 10 knots; Altitude: 5170 ft., Temperature: -16 C

Day 34: White Out and Mild-Mannered Sastrugi

Dec 14, 2006

More fun and games at the junk yard. Actually, for the first hour we could see where we were going, and we could see the sastrugi. It wasn't very big, nothing over two feet high. But it was sharp-edged and ubiquitous.

As the cloud cover developed, the light slowly started to go flat. In what I call flat light, you think you can see fairly well, but every now and then you are surprised by something you did not see - a ledge, a shelf, or a projection stopping the sled.

Then, as the white out develops you can see virtually nothing. And getting through the sastrugi becomes extremely slow and strenuous. In good visibility you can avoid the worst spots by going around them, but in a white out you can't see the worst spots. You only can feel them, and by then you find yourself caught in the fray.

When you encounter what feels like a steep ledge, you can side-step and sometimes go around. More often than not though, there is a blockage to either side, so you have to go straight though. This may take up to a minute.

And always there's a projection that stops the sled. This happens 3 or 4 times a minute.

Fortunately the sastrugi today was mild compared to the last two days. A white out there would have reduced our progress to just a few miles a day. As it was today we covered 10.5 miles in 10 hours, almost 1 mile an hour.

In light of the circumstances, we think we did pretty well. Tonight in the tent we are tired but happy.

Also today, the cloud cover brought much warmer temperatures, and there was no wind to speak of. For a few hours, it was the first time we have not worn our face masks. For the last hour, Jenny took off her goggles and ski parka and used her sunglasses. It made me think she'd gone tropo. Except for the falling snow.

Finding a campsite was an interesting challenge. With Jenny ahead of me I could barely make out some terrain features within 2 feet either side of her sled. Finally we came to a small, flat, and level spot. We took off our skis and walked around it to get a feel for it. Also I tested the snow with our shovel to determine how frozen it was. That done, we pitched the tent, and then looked under it - whereupon we were dismayed to see small sastrugi that would have been too uncomfortable to sleep on and to hard to chop. As luck would have it, by moving the tent and looking again, and again, we found a tent-sized place that had sastrugi only in the vestibule.

Most of ground so far is so hard you cannot get a shovel into it. So we have to find soft frozen snow to camp on. With a little effort you can pry out a shovel-sized chunk of soft frozen snow. With these I cover the tent's snow skirt, all around the perimeter.

I also make a big pile at our front door, which Jenny then chops into pot-sized pieces for melting water. These pot-sized pieces she then piles neatly to one side of the vestibule for easy access.

Amazing to think that of this ice, we can make steaming hot cuppas at the end of the day.

Evening camp: S 85° 39.877' W 86° 40.702'

Today's mileage: 10.5 in 10 hrs Temperature: -5 C

Day 35 Antarctica: Difficult Terrain

Dec 15, 2006

Another slow day, and this time without the excuse of the white out. Difficult terrain. Seriously difficult terrain.

It seems that whenever we get within five miles of a mountain, downwind, the sastrugi have a field day. This time it was Lewis mountain and the expanse of low lying mountains to the south of it. This will be our last mountains from here, all the way to the pole, so we will have to come up with a new excuse next time.

Our present excuse is the three days we lost, more or less, detouring to the Thiels resupply. To reach this resupply, we had to go a few days, not south - which very generally is the direction of easiest travel because that is where the wind comes from, forming smooth "streets," but SSW rendering the streets unusable because we invariably had to cross them diagonally to stay on our heading. Normally this would not be a problem, but not this year of the monster sastrugi.

Then when we departed the resupply area, the route put us downwind of the mountains where the sastrugi were severe.

So the problem, at least this year, is the resupply is in the wrong place for us. It should have been directly south of PH or Foxy Pass.

Early this morning we encountered another problem. Upon rising we lit the stove, and because there wasn't any wind, we had to open both tent doors wide for ventilation. This was the first time that we had to do that, and it made the inside of the tent very cold, even with the stove going.

The stove was not going full blast, because of dirty fuel, so the whole ordeal of cooking oatmeal and melting water reeked of fumes. We couldn't even finish, so we had to go short on water today. Even then, we almost made ourselves sick. In fact, we were sick for several hours.

The company (ANI) is the sole supplier of the stove fuel used on these expeditions. They use Coleman fuel in one gallon cans, and at 65 dollars a gallon, one might expect brand new fuel in unopened cans. They buy some new each year, but also they use the dregs leftover from previous expeditions, and what-not. And unfortunately, they had not filtered the leftovers of the fuel we got, so we never knew what we might find when opening a can. We have seen clean fuel; and we have seen fuel contaminated with water and grunge. The most recent can we opened had black-colored fuel mold in it.

Unfortunately, we did not bring a fuel filter, but will have to improvise one tomorrow because I have had to dismantle and clean the stove almost every-other-day to keep it running.

Tonight I cleaned the stove yet again, and it is running beautifully for the moment, with minimal fumes. We are lying here like a couple of fat and happy cats in our warm tent.

I forgot to mention today's weather - it was very nice, some clouds, some sun, 5 to 10 knots of south wind, a bit cold at the rest stops. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking every time we turned around to view the mountains receding in the distance to the north.

Evening camp: S 85° 48.827' W 86° 39.556'

Today's mileage: 10.3

Altitude: 5515 ft., Temperature: -16 C