When Chris Weyers went on holiday, he didn't lay on a beach baking like most Pommies. He took on the harshest environment on earth, with a trek to the South Pole. This is an excerpt from his book about the adventure.
It was nearly two weeks since we had left Patriot Hills, our base camp, and I noticed signs that I was mentally acclimatising to my surroundings. My emotions had settled down a little and the landscape seemed less hostile. This had been helped by the run of amazing weather. There was a good chance this could
continue, as the farther we moved away from the coast towards the Pole, the greater the chance of the weather remaining stable. Storms and violent cloud systems off the Drake Passage and the Weddell Sea were the greatest cause of blizzard and gale in the immediate area. These ferocious weather patterns flew across the great Southern Ocean that separates Antarctica from South America and battered the coastal areas nearby. That was why Patriot Hills, a 4.5 hour flight from the southern tip of Chile, was so often in the path of trouble. Yet on calm days like this it was easy to be lulled into a sense that Antarctica was passive rather than dangerous.
Setting off, the others quickly pushed on ahead. I was tired, though, and in a bit of a daze. I felt an intense craving for sugar. I followed them as they picked their way through the ridges and past the sastrugi. Generally we headed to the right side of any obstruction as we were still left of our target line of longitude 83
degrees west. This was our chosen vertical highway to the Pole. I vaguely noticed Paul and Timo stopping and checking the ground. Once Paul poked a particular area with his ski pole and then moved on.
Two or three minutes later I got to the same patch. I recognised it by the large sastrugi hemming it in on two sides. The snow had a texture like the outside
of a sponge, which was a little strange. As I crossed between the two ice sculptures, the surface began to collapse beneath me. My pulse froze as my brain sounded the alarm. Crevasse! My reaction was all animal instinct, but it was too late. My left ski broke through the surface, splitting the ground in front and behind me. I slid my other ski forward in a frantic race against the disintegrating surface. That ski too began to sink through. I was now flailing through grainy snow, what constituted a crust above a deep hole in the ice. All this happened in a split second. The sensation was sickening.
I fought to stay above the disappearing surface. I got nowhere. It was a losing battle. As my weight sank through the bottom layer of old snow, my right leg now
encountered air. Instinctively I kicked out sideways with my left leg, feeling for a solid wall, and lunged up and out with my arm to the right_wedging my right elbow as far as it would go on the edge of the fragile broken surface. Luckily I found some kind of purchase with my left boot on the other side. I glanced down at my right ski dangling into blue depths, but my left heel was solidly locked into a wall of spongy snow on the other side. I could not turn around and had no idea of the extent to which the hole had opened up behind me. I prayed that my sled would not slide in and pull me down. As nothing further happened, I realised it must have stopped short of where I had broken through.
Luckily my right elbow perch held and with an enormous and frantic effort I pulled myself out of the hole and lay on my right side. My left leg still dangled in the empty space. I breathed quietly and dared not move. Would the surface next to the crevasse hold?
I glanced down at the leg with its ski still attached. Looking farther down I could see the crevasse was an old one and partially snow-filled, but the aqua-blue walls I saw below indicated dangerous depths just the same. I had been lucky; the patchy accumulation of old snow under the surface crust was the reason I had not plunged through instantly.
I looked up to see the others about three hundred metres ahead. I focused on them intently and Timo turned and looked back a few seconds later. This was a piece of luck as on the march there could be quite long periods between them looking back. I lay carefully in my position and waved my left ski pole as gently as I could, ever mindful of the fragile surface I was resting on.
Paul turned around as Timo alerted him. They both freed themselves from their sleds and hurriedly skied back. As they approached closer they skirted around to my right-hand side. Paul then reached down and pulled me up and onto my feet. I stood gingerly on my skis, which were still attached to my legs, and carefully felt my knees for any sprain. Apart from knocking my left knee, I seemed none the worse for wear.
Paul pointed out that I had not crossed the crevasse properly. I should have traversed it at a ninety-degree angle as they had done. Crevasses should always be crossed perpendicular to their length, as bridges of hard snow often span from one side to the other and usually permit safe passage. He inspected the area where I had broken through and kicked out more of the crevasse on the other side with his skis. A few metres away the snow crust tumbled down revealing a much larger fault line. Luckily my elbow had perched itself just on the edge of it.
"Why didn't you follow in our exact tracks?'' Timo asked me.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that's what you wanted me to do?'' I said. "On this kind of rough ground I hardly ever take the exact same line.''
I was not really sure what was going on in their minds. They had said nothing earlier to me about crevasses and this was the first time on the journey they had
told me to be careful about following so precisely in their tracks. Their warning was a little late.
"Are you sure you're okay?'' Paul asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine,'' I said as I brushed the snow off my clothes and rubbed my knees. Curiously enough, as soon as I had realised I was all right I felt a sense of elation. Paul did not seem to think it was a big deal. I was not sure he regarded the ``hole'' I had fallen into as any serious threat. It had certainly been scary enough for me. As he set out for his sled he warned me to follow him carefully.
Ten minutes later the shock hit me. I was trembling and ill at ease. It was hard to shake the sensation that the ground below me might give way at any moment.
If he and Timo had even the smallest suspicion that we were crossing crevasses, old or new, at the very least they could have hung around to warn me to take extra care. If I had been leading we would have travelled together whether roped or unroped. The whole incident could have been avoided and it left me feeling once again that I could not trust my teammates entirely
White Demon by Chris Weyers. Published by Macmillan Australia. $34.99. Available at all good bookshops
Pick up the current issue of RALPH for an interview with Weyers.
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