He said he’d be along momentarily, but it looked as though it might take a pry bar.
Sometime later, Red Rider appeared in my mirror. That made three of us headed north: Greg’s mob, me, and Brad, stretched out over two miles of trail.
Our passage back to Pole minus 13 was uneventful, save that I and the others marveled with each green flag we passed. Here, at last, lay a well-marked, safe trail linking McMurdo at one end to Pole at the other.
The D8 and its train had been at Pole minus 13 for some time. The flap on the generator’s exhaust stack clapped up and down over the pipe poking through the energy module’s roof. The food van parked in its usual position, its foot ramps down on the snow. The Elephant Man was plugged in. Two shuttle loads were in camp. Pole’s tractor remained back at Pole minus 19.
Russ met me while I refueled. “Ah … it was getting late, so we left one back there,” he apologized.
“Not to worry, Russ,” I said. “I’ll get it tomorrow morning. All else okay?”
“Just fine,” he allowed. And that was good news.
The evening meal was nearly ready. In the galley, Stretch looked rested, and glad of it. I mouthed my thanks to him. He nodded and smiled back. “Errr, uhhh, perhaps you’d better look at this, John.”
Stretch had been at Pole minus 13 long enough to field the incoming e-mails through our communal laptop. He called up one forwarded by his wife, Carol, who was back in McMurdo. The e-mail originated a few hours earlier, just as we turned around from the hold-back line. It was an all-stations, all-hands, all-facilities announcement originated in Denver from the contractor’s Chief of Staff: “Only minutes ago, the South Pole Traverse arrived at South Pole Station, completing its historic mission of delivering cargo over a 1,000 mile surface traverse from McMurdo to South Pole. Join me in congratulating …” Etc., etc.
“Carol said this went out to everybody,” Stretch explained.
I laughed. “Apparently, we’re the last to know we’ve arrived.”
We spread out after dinner, some to our bunks, some hanging out in the galley. But the bunkroom doors remained open. Our collective mood was to talk about going into Pole now, rather than waiting for tomorrow morning.
Tom and Greg had never been to Pole. Judy went to Pole once on a boondoggle flight in 1993. She was there for two hours. Russ had last been to Pole in 1983 as a heavy mechanic. Things would look and feel way different for him.
Stretch, Brad, and John V. had been to Pole more recently. We four were the most familiar with the place.
“We can expect a group to meet us at the hold-back line,” I explained. “I’ve told them when we’ll arrive. There’ll be a National Geographic photographer among them, and he needs to capture video of our arrival. We’re going to cooperate, but we’ll find out exactly what he wants tomorrow.”
Some eyebrows raised, and a voice or two repeated “National Geographic …”
I explained our discovery of the two-way radio problems. Stretch would lead the heavy tractors, but Greg would get to the hold-back line ahead of the rest of us to tell me what was going on. If there were any surprises in store, I needed him to be not just my eyes, but my ears as well. At least our radios could talk to each other. And we’d be met by a guide who’d lead us to our designated camping spot. Right after that, we’d get the Welcome-to-South-Pole-Station-Dos-and-Don’ts briefing. We’d change our living habits, too.
“We can’t do our dishes, which means we can’t cook. And we can’t shower the way we’ve done it on the trail. We don’t have a wastewater disposal setup that we can use there. And we don’t dare use any of the station’s snow in our own snow melter. It’s too contaminated with diesel to risk in our system. So … we’re going to depend on the station’s sanitary facilities and their galley for these things.”
The prospect of a change in our sanitary habits raised visible apprehension. Our collective speculations came to another awkward impasse, ending with mutual frustration: the crew with me that I had no immediate answers, and myself that I had none either.
“All I know is we’re welcome at South Pole Station. As guests, we need to fit into their way of doing things. That’s as much as anybody can hope for, until tomorrow when we actually get there.”
We turned in to our bunks, left to our own thoughts of what tomorrow might bring.
I rose at 0400, dressed, grabbed some snack food, then stepped outside and started Fritzy. The tractor noise would stir some in their bunks, but none would start moving until 0600. I’d be back about then.
A cloudless blue sky and perfectly calm air, everywhere around, made splendid weather for a solitary trip to fetch the Pole tractor. Yesterday’s tracks stretched out before me. Here were the D8’s. Over there were the Elephant Man’s, coming and going twice. Farther still were Brad’s and mine. Their braided patterns recorded our trials getting ourselves and our cargo across the Plateau swamp.
I arrived at the Pole tractor, recalling how the beast broke down four hundred miles out of McMurdo. We’d dragged the cripple over six hundred miles up the Leverett, across the sastrugi and the Plateau swamp. Now I backed Fritzy up to the spreader bar sled and stepped out to hitch that improbable rig to my tractor.
Camp at Pole minus 13 lay over the disk of my horizon now. Around the entire compass, only our tracks on the snow, and a line of green flags stretching due north and due south as far as the eye could see, gave any tangible sense of place. Heading back to camp, I added yet one more set of tracks to the lines we’d made.
From three miles out, our fleet was merely dots in the distance. From a mile, I could make out folks hitching tractors to sleds. By the time I pulled into camp, our tractors were already pointed south, idling in snuffy anticipation. The galley was still set up for breakfast and one last muster.
“Let’s all switch to 143.00 MHz for comms today,” I said. “Greg, you’re way out in front. Let me know what’s going on up there. I’ll be riding drag and won’t see or hear anything unless you relay it.”
“Got it,” Greg affirmed.
“Thank you. Stretch, you’ve got a track-packed road ahead of you today, and I hope it set up for you. If it didn’t, and you have to get back on virgin snow, best go to the left of the green flags.”
We’d give Stretch a head start. He’d radio back when he saw the first sign of the station on his horizon. That’d be in about four miles. The rest of us would catch up and go in staggered behind him. Judy first, Brad second, and me last. If it worked out, we’d all arrive at the hold-back line at about the same time. The National Geographic photographer might get a cool shot.
“No matter what happens, we’re going to stop at the hold-back line, pulled up alongside each other. We’ll get out of our tractors and gather in front of Stretch’s blade for a confab, see what they have in mind. Anybody have anything to say?”
No questions or comments.
“Then there’s just one more thing before we start. We’ve brought this American flag from my hometown of Silverton. This flag was flown at half-mast in Memorial Park on September 11, 2001. This same flag has traveled with us each year on this project. It’s been with us at each farthest south. Let’s secure the modules and set up our flagpole.”
We were still erecting the flagpole on the living module’s deck when an orange Twin Otter, belonging to the British Antarctic Survey, buzzed low over us against a deep blue sky. Once again, an aerial salute in several passes thrilled us. By their last pass, our Stars and Stripes were flying high. This was the beginning of our day.
Greg’s team left straightaway. Stretch lumbered forward on his head start. The rest of us hung back, patiently at first, waiting for Stretch to get ahead. By the time he’d made two miles, the rest of us felt stupid just standing around. We climbed in our tractors and started creeping slowly forward.
We’d not caught up with Stretch when he radioed: “Fritzy, I see something on the horizon to our right. Looks like a white structure of some kind.”
Str
etch was passing Pole minus 9. Shortly we caught up, slowing our pace to match his, often stopping to give him more ground, then surging ahead again.
I wanted more than anything now to be with Stretch and Russ and Judy. I wanted to hear what they might be thinking, to share the joys they must be feeling. But I could only be happy for them and be alone with my own thoughts as South Pole Station again rose into clarity.
We came over the hill with our horizons in collision. South Pole Station by its mere structure took dominion over every sastrugi, over every compass point, over every space and orientation in our monotonous surroundings. The entire Plateau ordered itself around that station. Wallace Stevens’s poem “Anecdote of the Jar” drifted into mind. Had Stevens been on the Polar Plateau, instead of on a mountaintop in Middle Tennessee, he might’ve written “Anecdote of the Pole.”
“Fritzy, Feleppa here. We’re at the hold-back line.”
Visions of a close order, en echelon formation of tractors smartly approaching the hold-back line was the stuff of fantasy. We were coming in spread out, but coming in nevertheless.
“Copy that. Whatcha doing, Greg?”
“I am liaising … with numbers of people who have come to meet us.”
“Very good. Who’s there, and what do we know?”
“There’re many of the same we saw yesterday. In addition, there’s a fellow from NSF…”
Jerry Marty. I wonder if he is too busy to talk?
“There’re several from station management…”
B. K. Grant and Jason, maybe Liesl Schernthanner.
“And there’s the National Geographic photographer who’d like you to go on by. He wants moving video of the fleet pulling into the station.”
“Copy that. Please inform our hosts our intention is to stop at the holdback line as we discussed this morning.” Things were about to get busy.
The D8, the Elephant Man, Red Rider, and Fritzy all parked shoulder to shoulder. Greg, Tom, and John V. met us in front of Stretch’s blade.
The crowd, twice yesterday’s size, waited at the five black panels. Jerry Marty stood among them, politely standing back, but I beckoned him over to join us. The sandy-haired fellow’s eyes sparkled. He looked like a surfer on a good day at Long Beach. I put my arm around his lean shoulder and said simply, “I’d like you to be here right now. It’d mean a lot to me. To all of us.”
“Thank you,” he said as a grin spread under his brush moustache. “This is great!”
Then Jerry and I, our backs to the hold-back line, faced the crew. In this last moment of privacy I addressed them:
“Today we have done something remarkable. Each of us knows the struggle we’ve gone through, so this will not be a windy speech. But we’re about to get into a whole lot of people, and a whole bunch of other stuff we don’t even know what it is yet. Before all that happens, I want to congratulate each of you on our achievement, and offer my hand in thanks. Allow me this formality.”
I sought Stretch first. “Thanks for everything, Stretch. You are the man who drove the D8 to Pole. How was your road today?”
“Umm … we made about three miles an hour. Pretty good, actually.”
Then to Russ. “Congratulations. This has been on your mind for many, many years. And here you are!”
“Yes, sir. And here we are!” Russ smiled back.
“Judy, you’re not for handshakes.” I hugged her, saying, “Thank you for all your help,” as she hugged me back.
“Brad, you’re great to work with. Thanks for being part of this.” We shook hands warmly, then I thought to ask: “Where’s your girlfriend?”
“Ah, she had to work today. But she hears us. She works at South Pole Comms. She knows we’re here.”
“Good. Good,” I smiled for Brad, and asked that he switch the milvan sled he’d just brought in for Snow White. That would make a better picture for the Geographic … going into Pole with its snow dump trailer.
I looked to Greg, Tom, and John V. “Think of it … a trail you’ve blazed across a continent! Simply magnificent!”
Jerry chimed in then. If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been wagging. “This is truly historic. This is a great day. My personal congratulations to all of you. We’ll make it official at 90 degrees South when you can muster your tractors there. Can we do that? Would that be all right?”
“We wouldn’t miss that picture for the world, Jerry.” I laughed for all of us. “How about right now we just mingle a bit.”
Our trail-worn travelers merged with the well-parka-ed group of Polies, mixing seamlessly and easily. B. K. Grant, the South Pole area director, was among the small crowd moving toward us. I’d always admired her competence. Though I’d little to do with her except on formal occasions, I identified her with South Pole Station itself. Now, I walked right up to the blonde boss-of-the-place. B. K. in turn approached me, bearing a sparkling smile and a hearty laugh. The formality I expected from her melted away the moment before we met. Both our arms, now suddenly outspread, clasped each other in warm embrace.
“B. K., I can’t begin to tell you how much your holiday welcome means to our weary crew. Thank you so much for that,” I choked.
“Oh sure! Your timing couldn’t have been better!” She was a frontier ranch woman declaring the latch strings were out to a gang of trail busters.
The crew joined me back at Stretch’s blade with Jason.
“He’s going to lead us into the station. There’s no air traffic now, so we’re cleared to go in. We’ve a quarter mile of virgin snow between here and Marisat. We don’t want to get stuck in that snow right in front of the photographer.”
As one, we rolled our heads back, nodding in understanding.
“Once we’ve rounded the corner at Marisat, we’ll be on packed snow from then on. Greg, your Marine Corps flag looks mighty good flying from the back of our PistenBully. Stretch, follow Greg with the Stars and Stripes. Judy, Brad, and I will follow you in the same order. As soon as we get parked, shut down and plug in. They’re going to show us where the bathrooms are, and then we’ll get the orientation. We won’t bother to refuel today. We won’t think about work for the next two days. The day after Christmas we’ll start our turnaround. Probably two days of that, and we’ll head back to McMurdo the next morning.”
That sounded strange.
Back in our tractors, each operator responded to my hail. No pedestrians lingered about our sleds. “Okay, Captain Feleppa, give Jason the go sign.”
Our procession swung into line. We crossed the last quarter mile of snow swamp at the stately pace of two and a half miles per hour. Once we got to Marisat, the D8 leaped forward to four miles per hour.
Jason led us through long, organized rows of huge cardboard boxes and metal machine parts stacked on elevated snow platforms. This was the storage yard on the station outskirts. Pole denizens popped their heads over nearby berms to wave their welcome. The workers on station were men and women dressed just like us: brown overalls and grimy jackets, faces protected by fleece mufflers, eyes hidden by omnipresent glacier glasses and goggles. They cheered when our flags passed by.
Around the next corner, a large cardboard sign lay propped up against the end of a berm. It read:
CONGRATULATIONS SOUTH POLE TRAVERSE!
FROM YOUR FRIENDS IN SILVERTON, CO,
ELEVATION 9,318 FEET—AMERICAN LEGION POST 14
I lost it then. Scotty Jackson must’ve placed the sign that morning. Scotty, from my hometown, worked with me the last year of the tunnel project. He’d since stayed on at Pole with the cargo group. He knew we carried our hometown flag each of these years. He knew we brought it into Pole today, fulfilling my old promise to Post 14. Today, Scotty’s sign brought home, and the remembrance of friends, to South Pole. Tears streamed down my face. I choked back sobs of thanksgiving.
Several hundred yards and a few twists and turns later, our fleet stopped in line at the base of a steep snow berm behind Summer Camp. Summer Camp above us was a collection o
f a dozen Jamesway tents: olive, canvas-covered Quonset huts just like the one we’d used at the Shear Zone that first year. Many of South Pole’s seasonal workers berthed at Summer Camp. Bringing our own berthing, we’d be their downwind neighbors for a few days.
The PistenBully crawled up the berm first and disappeared from view. Stretch went next with the D8 and the module train bearing the Colors. He disappeared from view.
My radio squawked: “Fritzy, you have any preference for how we park up here?”
“Negative on that.” I couldn’t see a thing from down below. “Just make sure we can turn around.”
Judy and the Elephant Man climbed the berm. She paused at the top, waiting for Stretch to settle into position. After Judy moved on, Brad and Red Rider climbed the hill.
In a few minutes, Greg radioed, “Come ahead Fritzy.”
The platform above opened to a broad flat surface, big enough to hold a soccer field. Our modules and tractors lined up just ahead to my left. The refrigerator van sled, a pair of fuel tank sleds, and Snow White sat sidetracked, well off to my right.
“Show me where you need me to park,” I requested over the radio.
John V. stepped out from behind the module train and motioned me forward. Fritzy, with Pole’s tractor in tow, pulled ahead.
Six hundred miles dragging that deadweight cripple … delivered. Forty-three days out of McMurdo. Nineteen crossing the Plateau … all cargo here. Two three-thousand-gallon tank sleds … one full, one nearly empty. All souls intact.
I gave up on thinking.
John V.’s hand signals guided me to parking. Through my windshield, a crowd of faces looked back at me. I leaned over Fritzy’s steering wheel and switched off my engine. The entire world’s noise stopped. I drew a deep breath, and rocked well back in my seat for a moment. Then I opened the cab door to my left. Slowly, I descended the side steps to the ground, making sure of my balance, making sure not to slip and fall when I touched down.
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