Antarctic Journal

1/10

"It is only fair to give clear warning to all our clients that they, like us and everyone else attempting to function in this extreme environment, are at the mercy of forces more powerful than any of us. A tight time-schedule in connection with an Antarctic expedition is unwise. Delays of days or weeks must be anticipated. We strongly advise that an open-dated air ticket be held for your journey home." from Terms and Conditions, Adventure Network International brochure

It is 8 AM on our sixth day of waiting for the Antarctica weather to clear so that we can leave Punta Arenas for camp. We have spent the last five days torturing friends & family back home with e-mailed lists and poems about our wait, eating salty high-fat meals, and calling Adventure Network International (ANI) every few hours for an update. Paul, our co-leader, is particularly impatient because of the news that a renowned planetary geologist has already been at camp for two weeks, with essentially the same objective as his.... to find meteorites in the Patriot Hills area. At this point, the concept of actually making it to Antarctica doesn't seem real anymore, and we have all set private internal deadlines for when we'll head back to the U.S. But the phone rings and we are advised that ANI will pick us up from our hotel in two hours - the weather is improving at Patriot Hills and they want to be ready just in case.

Our previously well-organized duffel bags have deteriorated significantly, and it takes us the full two hours to get ready. At the airport we weigh all of our bags and confirm that we are significantly over our weight limit of 50 pounds per person - we sign a form committing to pay the $30 per pound overweight fee. Fifty pounds seems to just about cover the recommended clothing and personal item list provided by ANI, but it definitely doesn't cover the cameras, PCs, satellite phones and antennas that our expedition will require. We have a chance to meet a few of the 16 mountaineers planning to climb Mt. Vinson, including aptly named Stuart Peeke from New Hampshire. We then gather to hear the news that the winds have worsened at Patriot Hills and we'll be returning to our hotels. We are asked to stay on continuous stand-by through the afternoon, so we read, nap, eat, do push-ups, make bad jokes. Still no break by 9, and we head to bed more discouraged than before.

1/11

Message sent from Punta Arenas 1/11/98 at 6:25 PM local time.

To Garriott friends and family,

Weather at Patriot Hills is finally suitable for flying...

Wind 010 magnetic, 09 knots, no gusts, UNL, NIL, tn SCT 18000, +1 degrees
celsius, 982 mb and steady, Ci, Horizon Good, Contrast Good

The Garriott's were off deck Punta Arenas Jan. 12 at 14:06 UTC and landed
at Patriot Hills 20:37 UTC.

from Rachel Shephard @ ANI

ANI calls at 7:30 AM.  The weather has improved dramatically and we'll have another pick-up at 9:30. Robert and I are so jaded by now that we stay in bed another 30 minutes before dragging ourselves out to re-pack our gear. But as soon as we hit the airport we can tell things are rolling - our duffel bags are quickly gathered and loaded on the plane, and soon we ourselves are walking up the rear cargo platform entrance and finding seats inside the cavernous LC-130 Hercules. On this flight and every other flight we will take in Antarctica, we have been asked to dress in full survival gear (boots, parka, mitts, hat...) and to carry our sleeping bags with us. If the plane has to make an emergency landing we have to be prepared to camp out a number of days before help arrives. So it's a tight squeeze into our seats, but the discomfort is hardly noticeable in our excitement. There is applause when the plane starts to taxi.

We take off at 11 AM, and the climbers quickly settle in for naps - they won't get much sleep the next few days. We're sitting in a few rows of seats that have been added to the front end of the cargo hold - behind us are boxes and barrels of camp supplies and our bags, secured with cords. We all wear ear-plugs because the noise level is quite high. There are only a few small windows in the cabin, though Robert and I don't happen to be sitting next to one. We and the other passengers take turns climbing up to the flight deck to get the view from the cockpit. Three crew members are flying at all times, and two are resting - they will be in the air for 12 hours today. The directional gyro is indicating 180 degrees as our course - due south. We're cruising at 20,000 feet, and will travel the 1800 nautical miles to camp in about 6 hours. Early in the flight, a cloud layer below us obscures the view of Tierra del Fuego, Cape Horn, and the Drake Passage.

By 2:30 in the afternoon, we are past the clouds, and we can see enormous icebergs floating in the Southern Ocean below - easily the size of a football stadium, some perhaps a mile long. When we next check the windows at 4 PM we're over Antarctica - we can see nothing but bright white out the window that makes us squint. At first we think we're just looking at clouds, but then we notice the occasional "nunatak" - the peak of a buried mountain sticking up from the ice. It is eerily beautiful. By 5 PM we can see the Ellsworth Mountains at the 1 o'clock position from the cockpit. Mt. Vinson, at just over 16,000 feet the tallest mountain in Antarctica, is located in the middle of the range; our camp is located at the southern end. The tallest mountains are completely snow-covered; the lower ones have both rocky and snowy areas. We circle for landing at 5:30, and then touch down smoothly on the blue ice next to the Patriot Hills. A long loud and bumpy ride ensues as the pilots slow the plane with the reverse thrusters - finally we come to a stop.

When I walk out the cargo hold, the scene is just too much to take in all at once - I am aware of having one sensation at a time in rapid sequence. The first sensation is the incredible brightness of the sun on the snow and ice, followed by a feeling of surprise that the temperature is so mild (around 32 degrees), and then by a view of the Patriot Hills themselves. I step off of the ramp - the ice is heavily ridged and unusually slippery today because of the temperature. Camp staff are quickly rounding up passengers for the walk or snowmobile ride to camp (about a mile) but I ask to stay until the plane takes off so that I can get a video shot. The cargo is quickly unloaded and new cargo (mainly empty fuel barrels, and full barrels filled with waste from the camp) are loaded. The crew tries to keep the ground-time less than two hours to avoid problems with temperature or weather.

I manage to find my new heavy-duty sunglasses and find that they have broken in half at the temple. The snow is too bright to look at with bare eyes, so I stand holding the two parts over my eyes, feeling kind of numb, and trying to get oriented. Though the Ellsworth range itself runs roughly north-south, the Patriot Hills at the southern end run roughly east-west. The runway and camp are on the north side of the hills, and the South Pole is 600 nautical miles to the far side of them. The "runway" is a long stretch of blue ice that parallels the mountains. The very winds that sweep over the hills from the south to keep snow from accumulating on the ice are the ones that also cause a problem for landing, because they form a direct cross-wind (ANI will only attempt a landing with winds under 15 knots). At last the cluster of waiting outgoing clients boards, the plane taxis for take-off, and is airborne. I have my shot, and a camp person swings by in a Ski-doo to give Robert and me a ride to camp. What starts out as a few black dots on the horizon becomes a collection of tents, and we are given a quick orientation on the routines that will become our way of life for the next week.

There are about 30 tents, spread over approximately 10 acres. The only permanent structure is the wooden hangar, used for storing the single-engine tail-wheel Cessna during the winters. There are separate canvas tents for medical facilities, radio communications, wash-rooms (a single shelf with a thermos and a plastic bowl), and a small library. Clients sleep in smaller 2-person tents, and the staff sleeps in even smaller single-person tents out a little distance from the rest of camp. A large igloo-style hut serves as the camp's bathroom, and an underground ice cavern is used for storage of camp food and emergency supplies.

The largest (and warmest and most popular) tent is the kitchen tent. The kitchen itself is at the back end, with long tables and benches up front. Hot and cold water (from melted snow) are always available, along with instant coffee, hot chocolate mix, teabags, etc. We first meet Steve, the camp manager, as he oversees the chicken and sausage sizzling on grills behind the tent. Temperature-wise, we are feeling smugly comfortable in our three heavy-duty North Face layers, but we feel a bit wimpy when we notice that Steve is wearing only shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Inside, Lisa, one of our field guides, asks if we want to eat outside since the weather is so "warm", but no-one takes her up on the offer. The mountain climbers have already left for Vinson base-camp, and so there is plenty of room and lots of food for all. After our leaden Punta Arenas diet, the food tastes quite fresh and good.

Over dinner we meet several of the people that are with the Carnegie-Mellon/NASA group camping about a kilometer away. Bill Cassidy, the meteorite expert, has left on the outgoing flight, but a number of graduate students and NASA employees remain to finish their studies. They are testing a number of components to be used in a prototype planetary exploration robot, and are also searching the area for meteorites. They have not had any luck finding meteorites in the two weeks since their arrival, and advise us that the immediate area seems to be at too low an altitude (we're at around 3000 feet, including 1000 feet of ice). The problem is that the temperatures get too high at these altitudes, causing the rocks and meteorites to slowly heat up and, over a number of decades, melt into the ice.

After dinner, Owen and Richard finish setting up the communications and PC equipment - we have taken over the library tent for this purpose. Richard's satellite phone works with an equatorial geo-stationary satellite, and so he hoists his antenna up on a 12-foot high pole, pointing close to the northern horizon. Owen's data communications equipment works with a satellite that has a north-south polar orbit, and so he will hold his antenna by hand, changing its orientation during the 10 minute pass to track the satellite as it passes across the sky. We also have two PCs running, and everything is powered by a combination of batteries and solar power. I am amazed at how quickly we are operational.

By midnight we are in our sleeping tent; the sun has shifted from the west to the south, over the mountains, and is still shining brightly. Our tent is a very comfortable size, with room for a couple of small mattresses to the sides where we place our sleeping bags, and a small plastic chair in the middle. The interior temperature is about 45 degrees (warmed by the sun), and we don't even have to zip up our sleeping bags to sleep comfortably. We put on our eyeshades and fall into a surprisingly deep sleep.

1/12
"Antarctica is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Its gigantic icebergs and ice shelves are found nowhere else on the globe. Its vast mountain ranges and the enormous emptiness of the polar plateau boggle the mind..... Weather and ice - not clocks or calendars - set the schedule." from Lonely Planet Guide to Antarctica

"Antarctica is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Its gigantic icebergs and ice shelves are found nowhere else on the globe. Its vast mountain ranges and the enormous emptiness of the polar plateau boggle the mind..... Weather and ice - not clocks or calendars - set the schedule." from Lonely Planet Guide to Antarctica

"Antarctica is the harshest place on Earth. The largest terrestrial inhabitant (one spending its entire life on land) is a midge, a wingless fly-like insect one-half inch long." from Science on Ice: Research in the Antarctic by Michael Woods

When we pull off our eye-shades in the morning, we're amazed at how bright it is even inside the tent. It takes a moment for our eyes to adjust. The snow we had tracked into our tent last night has melted by morning, and the nylon tent floor is wet and cold. Because there are no showers available in camp, we sit on top of our sleeping bags and try out our new hygiene ritual, involving Wet Ones, which have become Chilly Ones, and lots of moisturizer to counteract the dry air. We feel reasonably clean, if not "fresh".

The weather is still mild and sunny, winds very light. Steve would like to schedule our trip to the South Pole on the earliest date possible, but weather at the Pole is not cooperating, so the trip will be deferred. Instead, he suggests we spend the day getting oriented in camp, and exploring the near side of Patriot Hills.

We compose update messages for the schools that are participating in our electronic Q & A dialogue. During the course of the day, Owen tries three times to transmit our messages via the Healthsat satellite. He stands behind the library tent holding the 2X3 foot antenna, trying to track the passage of the satellite across the sky, getting feedback from Eve or another one of us at the receiver box inside. We have no luck with the first two passes, and then get a partial transmission in the third pass, but no received messages.

Lunch is rich tomato-rice soup and quiche - delicious again. After lunch our field guides bring three Ski-doos to the front of the kitchen tent, with sledges attached to the back for passengers and gear. We pile in for the short ride to a frozen pond at the base of the Patriot Hills. We are on the wrong side of the hills for meteorites (they are most likely to be exposed as ice sheets push their way up the south side of mountains in their path), but it's a chance for Paul to start evaluating the geology of the area. The ride is relative smooth over the snow, but jarringly bumpy once we hit the rippled blue ice. We climb out and start exploring the slopes of the mountain. By now most of us are all wearing "Stabilicers" (simple strap-on crampons) and we find that we have very sure footing on the ice - much different than yesterday just off the plane. My priority is to find a large rock for a private pee break, but just as I am positioning myself, a large crowd starts to gather on the other side. It turns out that Paul has found beautiful gypsum crystals spontaneously growing all over the front surface of the rock - a very unusual phenomenon.

We also quickly find evidence of the relatively high average temperatures of the area. For one, a small stream is meandering down the mountain-side - an extraordinarily rare sight in Antarctica. Paul and I drink some of the absolutely pure water. For another, we can see "sun-cups" scattered across the surface of the ice - clear circles with bubbly patterns frozen inside, and often a suspended rock visible a few inches below the surface - marking the progress of a few decades of sinking through the ice after heating by the sun.

We all comment on how we will need to readjust our judgment of distances and sizes here. Because the air is perfectly dry and clear, there is no haze effect proportional to distance. Nor are there objects such as trees or buildings to provide scale. Sounds from far away travel extremely clearly through the air (gossip in camp is clearly ruled out unless a wind-storm is raging). The perfectly defined peaks of the "Three Sails" nunataks on the eastern horizon appear to be about an hour's walk away - they're 10 miles distant. Time and time again we judge objects to be closer and smaller than they really are.

We return to camp, and I have time to talk with a few people about their experiences. Matt, one of the Carnegie-Mellon grad students, shares that when he first arrived, he moved around to the Science Camp on the far side of the mountains just as a big storm was beginning. He was stuck in his tent for four days without anything to do - and says he'll never travel anywhere again in his life without a book. Graham, an Australian in his 60s and one of our fellow clients, says that he had originally planned his trip here for sky-diving at the South Pole, but these plans have been cancelled because of the deaths of three divers there on December 7. He confirms that the three divers that survived that day had taken supplemental oxygen, and the three that died had refused it, apparently failing to open their chutes because of hypoxia. Their parachutes were not equipped with AADs (automatic activation devices) because they were using new larger chutes to compensate for the thinner air, and their old devices weren't compatible. He is concerned that their lack of precautions is giving sky-diving a poor reputation, and fully plans to complete his own dive whenever ANI starts supporting this activity again in the future. Durjoy, from India, is here to experience the environment in preparation for a cross-Antarctic trip he has planned for next year - though the sheltered ANI camp life is hardly a way to train for the travails of a journey across the ice.

As the day goes by, light winds come and go, and we're surprised by what a big difference they make in how warm we feel. A rising wind almost always means the need for another layer. And we're finding out that layering is hard work! We're in a continual adjustment process all day long - anytime the wind rises or falls, anytime we enter or exit a tent, get on or off of a sledge. We're getting a lot of practice manipulating zippers and Velcro with gloves on, and learning to add and remove outer pants layers without removing our boots.

Before dinner, Heather and I do a video interview of Kate Brown, the Australian camp doctor, inside the well-equipped medical tent. In her 30's, she was trained as a country doctor, and is qualified to deal with a broad range of medical emergencies. To her surprise, she has found that most of the medical problems that arise are from "trauma" rather than temperature-related issues such as frostbite. Heather asks her for examples of trauma, and she mentions broken bones from falls into crevasses or falls on the ice. She shows us her stretchers, manuals, and drug supplies. We ask her about the Russian doctor who had to remove his own appendix during a winter-over at Vostok (using local anesthetic and mirrors) and she says she is very familiar with this story, and that all doctors who winter over in Antarctica are now required to have their appendices removed before arriving!

We've now been able to follow the progress of the sun through a full day. In the morning it is about 45 degrees off of the horizon, to our north (toward North America, where it is day-time). Through the day, it rotates counter-clockwise until by late evening it is positioned over the mountains to our south (toward Asia), a little lower in the sky. In the morning the sunlight has a very bright white quality about it; in the evening it has a warmer more golden quality that brings out the colors of camp most brightly. To try and convey the movement of the sun in the video, I am video-taping Heather and her shadow in the same spot every hour. Her shadow moves counter-clockwise around her, shorter in the morning, longer in the evening. By midnight she is in bed, and so I video-tape a post in her place. As I walk back to my tent, I am the only person walking through camp. I am struck by how totally quiet it is, with everyone in their tents, and yet how bright and beautiful the tents and the surrounding snow look in the sunshine. We've had a long day, but I don't feel the slightest bit tired. It is a surreal and exhilarating moment. I find Robert in our tent still reading, sunglasses on.

1/13

"Do you have to wear special shoes to keep yourself from falling on ice or moving around in challenging terrain?" student at Walter Sundling Jr. High School, e-mail question

Ahhh, an improvement in my morning routine. Last night I slept with the Wet Ones and lotions inside my sleeping bag, and they are considerably warmer this time around. But my hair is looking decidedly matted, and I realize that I'm going to have to make sure anyone that is interviewed on camera is wearing a hat from now on. What a relief that there are so few mirrors around camp.

The weather is still bad at the Pole, so we decided to take Ski-doos around to the far side of the Patriot Hills. We have a bumpy hour-long ride to "Windy Pass" where we unload from the sledges to walk up the hill, since the Ski-doos can't pull our weight. Some of our group, including Robert, Richard and Heather, follow a guide up one of the hills bordering the pass - I turn around early because I can't keep my balance in the strong wind without a pole. The wind is gusting to around 40 knots, bringing the wind-chill temperature to minus 20 degrees F. Our clothes still feel warm enough, but it is sometimes hard to protect your face. Robert reports that the view from the top is spectacular - wide vistas of bright white ice spreading out from the mountains, everyone bracing themselves against the wind to keep from toppling.

After about an hour, we continue by Ski-doo to the southern base of one of the mountains. Although we still see evidence of the "sun-cup problem,", the geology is much more varied here than in the site we saw yesterday, and Paul excitedly gathers samples and tests rocks with his hammer. In the sedimentary layers he sees evidence of rivers flowing from past eras. Somehow the concept of a completely different terrain for this barren ice-land seems much more striking than the geological evolution we have heard about in North America. Antarctica moved into its polar position and started cooling only 45 million years ago, a small percentage of its total life. Our group spreads out, and Robert and I scramble up the rocks to the edge of a windy ridge where we can see some of the Carnegie-Mellon robotics equipment below in the valley. When we return, we hear that Heather has been hurt, and Lisa is busy fashioning a temporary sling for her arm as she sits on the Ski-doo. She had been crossing an ice pond without her Stabilicers on, when Steve asked for help because of his very slick boots. As they walked, Steve slipped and accidentally pulled Heather down on her side. She heard a bone crack when she hit, her collarbone breaking. Lisa gives her a pain-killer, and we caravan back to camp, amazed that Heather can take the relatively high speed of our travel.

At camp, she is whisked into the medical tent, where Kate treats her for..... a trauma injury. They manage to share a laugh over the irony of yesterday's interview. It is not necessary to set a collarbone break, but Heather now has to adjust to life with her arm in a sling - for the next 4 to 6 weeks. It's hard enough to cope with layering & unlayering with two hands; she'll need a lot of help with only one. But Kate feels that she can continue to join in the activities of the group, including the South Pole trip. Heather rejoins the rest of us in the kitchen tent, where we are warming up with hot chocolate; she receives a round of applause for her bravery!

Later that evening, Richard and Heather move their things into the library tent, which has a door that Heather can operate with only one hand. Previously they were assigned to the smallest sleeping tent, one low to the ground that had to be entered and exited by crawling. Richard is openly happy about the change, and can now abandon his ambitious project of constructing an igloo-fort out of snow blocks next to their original tent. However, he continues work on Snowhenge, a large sundial with blocks of snow placed in an ellipse to mark the hourly shadows from a bamboo pole.

I've started going to the radio communications tent at 8:15 every night, to hear the scheduled call to Vinson Base Camp at 7000 feet. The Vinson climbers have been flown over in one of the camp's two Twin Otters, and the pilot will stay at Base Camp until they return. Tonight he reports that most of the climbers have made it to Camp 2 at 10,000 feet, but that high winds are creating concern about getting to Camp 3. He himself has been fogged in since his arrival and cannot even see the plane 100 yards away. I am impressed by the humor and support conveyed by the radio operators to the people they contact - they know that this link is a lifeline.

1/14

"The clothes the men wore, now that they were sitting almost motionless, froze stiff. Not only were their garments wet from the spray and the snow, they were also worn and saturated with the oil secreted from the men’s own bodies during six months of constant wear. If a man shifted his position, even slightly, his skin came in contact with a new, unwarmed surface of his clothing….. But the dawn did come - at last. And in its light the strain of the long dark hours showed on every face. Cheeks were drained and white, eyes were bloodshot from the salt spray and the fact that the men had slept only once in the past four days. Matted beards had caught the snow and frozen into a mass of white. Shackleton searched their faces for an answer to the question that troubled him most: How much more could they take? There was no single answer…. At least, all of them had survived the night." From ENDURANCE: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

It’s hard not to appreciate how warm and comfortable our sleeping arrangements are after reading a chapter or two from "Endurance" each night, the account of Shackleton's two years stranded on the Antarctic seas. Up till now I have been sleeping in just my long underwear; last night was definitely windier and chillier, and I had to add an extra layer. With ear-plugs to block out the tent flapping noises, I slept very soundly.

Despite my constant use of SPF-30 sunscreen and hats, my face just keeps getting redder and redder from sunburn and windburn. My nose is starting to hurt, so Richard fashions me a nose-guard out of duct tape, suspended below my oval reflective sunglasses. I thought it would be hard to further degrade my by-now grizzly appearance, but I'm sure this will do the trick.

After breakfast (eggs, toast, cereal, stewed fruit), Owen and Paul decide to go by snow-mobile to Minaret mountain, a dramatically narrow peak visible from camp. Robert and Jim will join them, and the rest of us will travel six miles to a DC-6 plane crash half buried in the snow.

I join six other people that are making the trip on cross-country skis, while Eve, Richard & Heather decide to go by snow-mobile. Although I have been skiing for over ten years in New England, I have never evolved my technique to the smooth glide of experienced skiers - I sort of just take long steps in the skis. I am particularly clumsy on these skis because of the fact that we have strapped in our Sorels rather than using cross-country ski boots, and because of my inexperience on the sastrugis, bumps carved in the snow by the wind. But after only a few falls and strap adjustments, I hit a rhythm. The trip to the plane takes about two hours, and it is wonderful to reach the point where you can no longer see camp behind you - only wide vistas of snow in every direction, dotted by a few other skiers. The activity is definitely aerobic, and I'm dressed in only two layers. I eventually catch up with Durjoy in the lead, and we ski together for awhile, aiming toward the white lump ahead in the distance, the body of the plane. When we are about a mile away, the snow-mobiles catch up with us, offering water & a sunscreen refresh. Durjoy hops on the sledge for a ride the rest of the way, so I continue on alone, arriving at the plane about 15 minutes later. Once I stop moving, I have to immediately add more layers - the wind is biting cold. I feel glad to have experienced a tiny tiny fraction of what it's like to travel across Antarctica on your own power.

While we take photos and drink hot chocolate, Steve tells us the story of the crash. In the early 90's, a man in his eighties put together a climbing expedition. He had been in Byrd's crew for the original Pole flight, and a mountain had been named after him; he wanted to climb it. The DC-6 was his support plane, containing his supplies, dogs, and some support staff. The pilots attempted to land at ANI's blue ice runway in bad weather, crashing into the snow seven miles off-course. ANI assisted with the rescue operations; one person was seriously injured and some of the dogs ran off north, never to be seen again. A couple of years later, the mountaineer tried again, this time with flying provided exclusively by ANI, and he made it to the top of his peak. The plane is already half-buried, and in five more years it's likely that only the top of the tail will be visible.

We all return to camp by sledge, a wild bumpy ride with Eve and Richard and Pedro - at one point we yell for Kate to stop the snow-mobile because we are hanging off in all directions.

Upon their return, the Minaret mountain group report that it took them about two and a half hours of snow-mobiling to reach a potentially good meteorite site - the basin adjacent to Minaret that holds the contents of the glacier that flows into it. The altitude was higher there, and the temperatures lower, but the group had only an hour to look around. There were quite a few rocks from the mountainside scattered on the ice, and no meteorites were located.

Owen has been able to successfully transmit more of our e-mail messages, but we're still not receiving messages. I reach our Lands' End contact on Richard's satellite phone, and pick up the kids' questions over the phone. We can feel their excitement and support through their questions, and start putting together answers to transmit right away.

In the evening radio call to Mt. Vinson, Doug the radio operator patches in well-known mountaineer Conrad Anchor, who is climbing another peak near Vinson, solo. He has been stuck in his camp a couple of days waiting out high winds. Conrad reports that he has sighted Sasquatch, who along with Priscilla Presley have run off with his pee bottle. Doug jokingly radios Kate to ask if she has anything to prescribe for cabin fever, but she radios back that she'll have to check her manuals for "B.S." The Vinson climbers are still stuck in Camp 2 because of high winds.

Later that evening, Owen joins Art, the large bearded Alaskan pilot who maintains the snow-mobiles at camp, in his small tent for a ham radio call to Atlanta. The operator is able to set up a phone patch so that Owen & Eve can talk with one of Eve's daughters. Art makes ham radio calls almost every night, and is able to get patched through to his wife in Alaska on most nights.

Heather is not feeling much pain, and is still in good spirits. We all admire her tenaciousness.

On to the South Pole...  click here to continue

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