Frodo at the Journy's End

The third of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was on the other night and I caught some of it between hockey games. It was the scene where Frodo, Sam and the other two Hobbits have returned and are in the pub. It’s in either the Shire or Downton Abby, I always get those two mixed up. Anyway, they bring their beer to a table, sit down and look around. And I know that LOOK. They have been away and the world has swirled around them, and they might as well have been on the moon. It matters not that they have slain the dragon (both figuratively and literally) or have had great adventures.

Many of us have felt the same way upon our return from Antarctica to "The World". Like in a Colin Hay song, we only slay the dragon in our dreams, but the stuff we saw, and the things we did; no one can take it away from us. Turns out no one can understand it either. Take the picture above. Sridhar, Ginny, Huw and myself having dinner on the trail. It’s around midnight and we were doing a camp move by traverse about 80 miles. Ian took the photo. We had dehy (a dehydrated dinner with 400% of your month’s salt intake in one serving). It was on Whillans Ice Steam (83º40’S, 145ºW). We arrived at the new location around 3AM and pitched a couple of tents, then slept in. How do you relate this experience to anyone? Huw and I drove back to the old camp the next day for another load, camping out along the way.

The picture below is a Twin Otter near the Dufek Massif (82º36’S, 52º30’W) in the Pensacola Mountains. We were installing a seismic station. This is a million miles from nowhere. It took an airdrop of fuel (picture of the barrels below) and some slight-of-hand with fuel barrels to even get there. The only question I am likely to hear though is “Did you see any Polar Bears”. Really? Polar Bears? That’s the best you can come up with?

Maybe that’s why some of my Ice friends choose not to even mention that they work in Antarctica. It’s sometimes more trouble than it’s worth. I’ve found myself in that situation. Like when a loved one mentions to someone that I work in Antarctica and I get a blank stare. At lease with your Ice friends you can share “the look” then raise your glass and have a toast, no words needed.

Digging Antarctica

 

There is something odd about going to Antarctica to shoveling snow. Talk about your job security! Dig out, the wind blows and drifts form, dig out, and repeat. It is an inevitable part of life on The Ice. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you have a piece of heavy equipment and a good operator like Mark or James. More often than not you only have a shovel or are digging out tents or fuel bladders where heavy equipment should not go.

The shovel is also known as a D1. My favorite is the short handled, square ended steel shovel (not a stinking grain scoop). Good shoveling is as much an art as it is effort. I know very smart people who could not dig a hole in the snow to save their lives. As much of every shovel full goes back in the hole as goes out. There are very strong people who just don’t get it; the snow flies all over the place. You have to know when to use it to chop and how much snow to take on each swing. Too much and it doesn’t go where you want it. Too little and it is wasted effort. Lots of subtlety to it.

One of the trickiest tasks is digging your way out of a tent from inside. If your door does not have the proper orientation to the wind (and this season, mine did not) the door becomes drifted in. The trick is to open the zipper from the top enough to get your hand out and push the snow away till you can get your shoulders through the hole and dive out. If you can’t get the zipper open the trick is to go back to sleep and hope someone misses you either at breakfast or at muster. With luck, they like you enough to send someone to dig you out.