Claire of the Antarctic

And so Sledge Hotel completed it’s final day of winter trip. I am so glad that I persisted in manhauling for my trip despite other’s reservations that I may be unable to even haul my pulk up the ramp. Skiing across the snow gave me a greater appreciation for the silence that abounds, the expanse of the land and the majesty of the scenery.

Tom made this trip possible and I am incredibly grateful for his patience and enthusiasm. Thank you Tom.

As I reached Tom at his belay point he shouted out to look for the Brocken Spectre, not entirely sure whether we had discovered a new breed of mountain troll I was rather perplexed, until he directed me to turn round and look onto the clouds.

Below me lay a halo, with my shadow within the centre, and surrounding that three more halos. Apparently the spectre appears as a result of optical illision of a climbers shadow being projected onto mist, whilst the halo appears due to diffraction of visible light by uniformly sized water droplets.

A blanket of cloud had descended over the peaks and we had been climbing through cloud for the duration of the ascent, having quite impressive results in the formation of ice crystals on our hair.

As we approached the summit blue sky became increasingly visible, a great incentive to keep on climbing.

Photographs do not very easily convey the gradients that you are climbing, or rather it could be my limited position to take a photograph from, due to being locked to the anchor point by a clove hitch through my ropes.

Tom would climb up ahead of me, with me letting out the rope from the anchor as he climbed up. Once in a safe spot Tom would stop, create another safety anchor and I would climb up to him with him belaying me. We played this game of catch up about five times up the route. At each anchor we were using different types of anchor to hold us; little metal bolts with wires attached which fit snuggly into cracks in the rock, using ice screws into hard ice, placing a sling over a pinacle and also using snow stakes, each time securing two different anchor points and sharing the load between them using a sling.

Since we started our winter trip a day late we took advantage of the fine weather today to enjoy our final day of the winter trip, with an ice climb up North Stork.

Tom headed out in the front and started the ascent, heading up until reaching a safe spot to anchor from where to start the proper climbing.

With the fine conditions we hauled back to the caboose in quite good time, and so following a late lunch of Miso soup, another saved treat, we decided to do a little skiing without the pulks.

Ammo col descends down the Southern side of Reptile Ridge to the sea, giving a great view across to Anchorage and Lagoon with Jenny island in the far distance. You can see the sea ice broken down forming shallow floating bergs in the foreground.

Our final tent in the pyramid tent was one of luxury, not purely owing to the Earl Grey Tea, but also thanks to Sledge Kilo, formed of Alan and JJ.

Whilst we had been skiing on Trident the previous day we had seen Sledge Kilo’s skidoos approach our camp, but they had departed before we returned. They did very kindly leave two gifts, a tin of peppers and a nalgene bottle containing a couple of glasses of port! Tom and I had pared down our supplies quite thoroughly for manhauling, so for our final night we supplemented our ration pack meals with their gifts and enjoyed a manfood feast!

We had perfect conditions for hauling homewards; the previous days snowfall had filled in the sastrugi that had previously caused difficulty in pulling the pulks. Even the slightest bump of sastrugi had presented a challenge that needed to be summited, before the pulk then arrived over the top and then slammed into our backs.

I found it quite funny to take along with me one of the gifts I had received since coming South, tea from Fortnum & Mason! I had once read an article about the supplies for an archaeology expedition in the 1920s whose food supplies had been from these purveyors of fine foods! Unfortunately in this age of austerity such luxuries are not often found on base, so it was fabulous to enjoy the refreshing citrus tones in a bright orange tent!

The following day we ski toured up Trident. Although calm down by the tent, the wind increased as we ascended and by the time we reached the top it was really quite forceful.

The descent was great, perfect snow, although the contrast was so very poor it was quite tricky to discern which way the gradient was going! Tom rates this descent as the best skiing he has expeirenced in Antarctica thus far!

Once back at the tent it was time to enjoy our luxury item, the Tilley Lamp, remarkably effective at warming the tent and drying out our cold gear!