Blazing Ice

by John H. Wright

  After Christmas Day breakfast we entered our tractors in Pole’s annual “Round the World Race.” This was a colorful event in which runners, walkers, sledders, and skiers in zany costumes locomoted by their chosen means around the Pole monument. Three laps made a two and a half mile course. Mechanized entrants, such as our tractors and all manner of whimsical contraptions, took their laps outside the runners.

  Liesl Schernthanner organized the start with the foot racers gathered around her. The ponytailed skier from Ketchum, Idaho pointed her megaphone over them. The contestants may have heard her instructions, but the hundred or so entrants were more interested in laughing and socializing. Liesl herself was seldom seen without a smile

  I parked Fritzy to the side with the engine off and the side door open, listening as best I could. Liesl raised a starter’s pistol into the air, the unmistakable signal the race was about to begin. Runners and walkers faced the starting line. The snow absorbed all the bang out of the shot. Liesl’s gun poofed instead. The runners lurched forward with a cheer.

  Fritzy crawled ahead. Dave Watson, a big lumbering miner who’d finished the tunnel with me and stayed on at Pole as a heavy equipment operator, rode with me. Judy ran behind me in the Elephant Man with a gang of joy riders. Brad brought Red Rider behind Judy. Somewhere in the crowd, John V. piloted the PistenBully, pulling a sled-load of Polies on a long rope tether. Tom and Greg both chose to run their laps with the ground-pounders. Stretch and Russ walked their laps.

  In the chaotic fun that followed, the Round the World Race resembled more a comical scene from Mad Max. A fellow on the inside track took his laps on drywaller’s stilts. Earnest skiers and joggers weaved around him. A tractor passed us on the outside dragging a lounge couch on a makeshift sled. Aboard the couch, half a dozen beer-swilling partygoers laughed and waved to everyone they passed.

  “Here come the plumbers!” Dave called out when a snowmobile pulling a sled load of toilets passed us. A well-bundled body sat on each toilet seat, and each mittened hand held a shiny beer can.

  We passed Greg and Tom, slowing our pace to match theirs, honking encouragement with Fritzy’s snow-muffled beep-beep-beep.

  Checkers with clipboards kept track of each entrant’s laps. The race took an hour to complete. Every face glowed with smiles and laughter the entire time. At the race’s end, all participants gathered in the spacious galley for cocoa and cookies.

  December 26 was back to work for us, as for all the South Pole community. After another fine breakfast with them, we gathered in our own galley to divide our jobs for the day.

  Russ and John V. would spend the next two days turning over with the Pole mechanics. Pole needed to know all about the D8 and the MT865 and what we did to repair Snow White. Jason explained Pole was shorthanded on mechanics, so Russ and John could help them out on their own projects.

  “While you’re both around the shop, please locate the spare parts for Quadzilla. We’ll back-load them tomorrow.”

  “Roger that,” Russ agreed.

  Today, Stretch and Judy would move the bulldozer and the MT where Jason wanted them. Then they’d take Red Rider and a station loader to demonstrate the use of Snow White. Pole annually gathered drift snow from around the station and dozed it into enormous piles, some forty feet high. They pushed those piles well downwind of the station to get rid of the drift snow. These days, their push stretched to a half mile. That’s why the USAP designed and built Snow White in the first place. That’s why we brought it to them: to haul snow rather than push it. Stretch and Judy would finish their day hauling snow for Jason.

  “Brad, you and Greg are with me. We’re going to meet some folks from Cargo and off-load the Flat Rack while they officially receive the stuff. If you don’t mind, Brad, start up Fritzy. I’ll be along shortly. Tom, hang back a bit. I’ve got a couple assignments for you I need to explain.”

  To everybody I announced, “Meet back here at 1:00 p.m. We’ll gather up our tractors, take them to the Pole marker, and stand for the picture. Jerry Marty will make the ceremonial welcome. The National Geographic photographer will be there. Scotty Jackson will bring his camera, too. Plan your day around it. Otherwise, that’s all. Let’s go.”

  Tom and I stayed back. As our mountaineer, Tom was our first-line emergency medical caregiver. I asked Tom to find out all he could about the medical facilities at Pole, and about their procedures for a medevac. I didn’t know what they were, but wanted that knowledge traveling with us.

  “Anybody here you can to point me to, where I might start?” he asked.

  “The station Doc, or B. K., or Liesl. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re on your own and you can go with this wherever you want. Let me know what new knowledge you come up with.”

  “Okay. In a medevac, don’t most folks get flown out to McMurdo?”

  “Yes, of course. But in a couple of days we’ll be down the trail. My sense is as long as we’re on the Plateau, any medevac will go first to Pole by Twin Otter, and then to McMurdo by LC-130. But picture us with an emergency in Sastrugi National Park.”

  I shared my concern that a fixed-wing aircraft couldn’t find a safe landing in that region. As for preparing a landing surface in the rough stuff, our return traverse would be ill-equipped. We’d have only one twelve-foot blade on Red Rider and no D8.

  “Maybe a Twin Otter pilot can give me some wisdom. What was the other assignment?”

  “For some reason we don’t have two-way VHF comms with South Pole.”

  That had been an unpleasant surprise … a two-year-old plan, then finding out we couldn’t talk to each other. I’d be occupied off-loading cargo. I needed Tom to get to the bottom of it and fix it. Two-way VHF comms with Pole was essential to our mission safety.

  “I’ll start with South Pole Comms.” Tom took on the job. “Brad’s lady friend is on duty now. She may help.”

  At 1:00 p.m. we stood by our tractors at the Pole monument. There were actually two monuments at Pole. The ceremonial monument looked like the cartoon barber pole surrounded by flags of the Antarctic Treaty Nations. Nearby the geographical monument was a small, decorative brass cap, set on a slender metal pole planted upright in the snow. Next to it, a sign proclaimed: “Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 90° South.” We gathered at 90 degrees South. Downwind, the station edifices dwarfed us. Upwind, the plateau snows looked more familiar.

  Jerry Marty spoke the official words of welcome for NSF. We took turns displaying our flags: the Silverton American Legion Post 14 flag, of course, then Greg’s U.S. Marines Corps flag, and finally a surprise flag. From my parka’s pocket I pulled out the Canadian Maple Leaf. Master sled-maker Herb Setz of Peace River, Alberta, sent it to me at my request. Herb made all our sleds and was deeply involved in our redesign as we sought to build the ideal fleet. He’d be pleased to get it back.

  The photo session broke up. I quietly asked Jerry if we could meet the following morning. The risks associated with our return traverse, and how they might impact South Pole Station, needed to be well understood.

  “Risks?”

  “Yeah. We were nineteen days crossing the Plateau. If our return with three tractors is as rough as it was getting here with four—if anything goes wrong—you might be seeing more of us.”

  Jerry checked his book. “Tomorrow at 0930? Cheese Palace?”

  Jerry Marty’s office at South Pole Station was a heavily insulated, plywood building located close to Summer Camp. Jerry was a Green Bay Packers fan, a Cheese-Head. His digs had become known as the “Cheese Palace.”

  Jerry’s Cheese Palace sat next to the fuel pits. On my way over, I checked the tank sled we’d positioned there. It’d not yet been filled. I entered Jerry’s place and found B. K. and Jason there with Jerry. The Geographic photographer was also there with his big camera. They were all seated at a long plywood table bolted to the office sidewall. Overhead lights reflected yellow off the unfinished plywood into the room. It was warm inside. I took off my parka and tossed it onto
the pile of parkas shed by the others.

  “I hope you don’t mind that Geographic is here,” Jerry remarked after the good-mornings went around. “We’re collecting footage for an NSF film we want to release for the International Polar Year. It’s a couple of years out. Your traverse is of interest for that.”

  I greeted the Geographic photographer separately, then I turned back to Jerry. “I don’t mind. But you might mind. I’m going to acquaint you with some of our weaknesses … you might not want weaknesses on film. And I don’t want to mince words for the sake of a camera.”

  Jerry concurred. The camera would stay off for now. “What do you have for us, John?”

  “The first thing is right outside your door: our fuel tank sled. There’s a couple hundred gallons left in it. To fill it to capacity, we might need 2,500 to 3,000 gallons. If you can spare that much, naturally we’ll be grateful. If less, we need to know how much you actually do put in.”

  Jason said, “We’ll fill it. I’ll get the fuelies to attend to that this morning.”

  “Thank you. Aside from fuel, if things go bad for us that could also impact your operations here. You know that we hoped to come into Pole with six tractors and leave with four. Instead we came in with four tractors and a cripple. We’ll be leaving with three. Our fourth tractor is broke down on the Leverett. So even though we’re dropping a lot of weight here, three tractors going back will still be loaded heavy. If one of them breaks down, the two remaining ones won’t have a prayer of completing the Plateau crossing. And if that happens, we’d come back to Pole. That means wintering the fleet here, and the attendant drain on your resources.”

  “Understood. Anything else?” Jerry showed no particular expression.

  “If our road-building effort across the swamp doesn’t hold up for our return, then we’d certainly be forced again into shuttling. In that event, a return to South Pole for even more supplemental fuel is likely.”

  “Is there another?” Jerry asked.

  The catastrophic loss of one fuel tank sled, or its contents, on the Plateau section could again force our return to South Pole. We’d not seen such a loss yet, but we could make no guarantees for getting back across the sastrugi without damage. None of us, none among my crew and none at South Pole Station, wanted to see the traverse limping back to the station. Our nearest source of cached fuel lay at the base of the Leverett Glacier, 370 miles away.

  “What do you hope for, John? That is, what are your chances?” B. K. asked.

  “If we can get near that depot,” I answered, “then we’re home free. Any unexpected support we might need after that would come from McMurdo.”

  Jerry opened his notebook, speaking aloud as he wrote. “Nearest fuel at Leverett base, 370 miles.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I offered. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I hope you won’t hear from me with troubles on the trail. But when we do get to the Leverett, I’ll drop you a line to say all is well.”

  “That’s what we’ll hope to hear, then,” Jerry offered. “Anything else?”

  “Jason, what do you say to topping off our tractors’ tanks at the end of shift today? You know we’ve been using them around the station quite a bit. It shouldn’t amount to too much.”

  “We can do that, John.”

  “That’s most generous. Thank you, once again.”

  Our discussions now concluded, we re-created the meeting for Geographic.

  The afternoon saw most of our crew at Summer Camp back-loading for the return traverse. I sat at the comms booth in the living module, finishing up Field Report #6, when our radio squawked.

  “South Pole Traverse, South Pole Traverse, this is South Pole Comms.”

  It was an unfamiliar male voice. Apparently, Tom had solved our comms problems.

  “Go ahead South Pole Comms, this is South Pole Traverse,” I responded.

  “South Pole Traverse, I need Magsig, Vaitonis, Van Vlack, and Wright to come to the South Pole Comms office immediately and sign some papers.”

  We’d just come from lunch in that same big building. Now we were back at work.

  Magsig, Vaitonis, Van Vlack … the papers Dave brought out on the Twin Otter? Naw, can’t be … and now me?

  “Is this a joke?” I asked earnestly over the radio, while looking out the comms booth window. Stretch was craning gear into the flat rack. Russ and John V. were probably in the heavy equipment shop.

  The voice came back: “I assure you this is no joke. Please send your men right away.”

  Looking queerly at the microphone, I asked back, “Right. Who is this?”

  The voice gave a name I do not remember, then added: “I am the contractor’s human resources representative for South Pole Station.”

  Enough! “And we are four, and scattered about your station. You are one. You may bring these papers to our camp yourself. Traverse clear.”

  I turned off the radio, now that it was working.

  The papers arrived later that afternoon, brought by our friend Jason. They were identical to those we’d signed on the Ross Ice Shelf. The three signers had not initialed each page of the document.

  Jason also brought a single page for me to sign. It was the last page of a document titled “Pre-Season Performance Expectations.” That document normally contained several pages. The one page contained no text, no discussion, no expectations, no space to initial … just a line to sign and date.

  16 Return to McMurdo

  “It’s been lovely here,” Judy smiled. “And today is a fine day to go.”

  December 28 was a fine day: bright blue skies, a scattering of high cirrus, and not a breath of wind on the ground. Judy walked with me across the station’s campus toward Summer Camp and our waiting fleet. We’d just enjoyed our last breakfast in the South Pole galley. Her mood was important to me, important to all of us.

  She’d once commented back down the trail, “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in close quarters with seven husbands!” She spent a lot of time with Myers-Briggs analyses, seeking enlightenment on different personality types. However, Judy got along with each of us guys through her innate strength and goodness. But seeing her lady friends, faces without beards, had been a blessing. “We had Christmas gifts for each other. My friend showed me all around the new station. And we just talked and talked … We had the best time!”

  Talking was a job requirement for me. The contractor mandated safety talks each day at the start of shift. These became our morning briefings. We held them while our tractors warmed up. Some were more useful than others, particularly those that laid out terrain intelligence. Now I wearied of the sound of my own voice. The others wearied of it, too.

  As we neared our tractors, Judy peeled off to start the Elephant Man. Red Rider and the PistenBully were already running. I went to start Fritzy, making a mental note to stow the flagpole before we broke camp. Today our flag hung limp. Direct sun had vaporized the ice that froze it the other day.

  The others were as ready to go as Judy, but in our galley their faces wore blank expressions, braced to endure another briefing. They knew what I was about to say. But I had to mark the moment of change.

  “We have established and proved a heavy haul route to South Pole. We have delivered eleven LC-130 loads of cargo as evidence. We have one more task to perform, and that is: get back to McMurdo and get back safely. A safe and successful roundtrip completes our mission.”

  I added new information: “We’re anxious to get home, although I can’t imagine a meeting or an e-mail in McMurdo I regret having missed. But charging for the barn is when we get careless. That’s when one of us gets hurt. So do build this into your thinking: we will make several planned stops.”

  We’d grab our sidetracked sleds on the move but take at least a full day back on the Leverett with Quadzilla. We’d make another stop at ASTER 2, rig for radar and prospect a shortcut to FORK. That might take a day or two. We’d stop at SOUTH where we stashed an old sled loaded with fuel drums last year. I’d d
ecide whether to leave it or retrieve it to McMurdo then. Finally, we’d stop at the Shear Zone as usual and radar the crossing before bringing the fleet over.

  “Our job is not yet done. Now let’s go finish it.”

  One of my shorter briefings, it broke up immediately to the sound of stools scudding across the galley floor and feet shuffling out the door. Greg and I collided at the doorway.

  “Hoo-ahh!” I mumbled. “Did I say it right?”

  “That would be Ooh-Rah!”

  From Fritzy’s cab, I spotted no stray legs wandering around Red Rider which was hitched to the module sleds. “Brad?” I radioed.

  “Ready.”

  “PistenBully?”

  “Two aboard and ready.” Greg and John V. would bring up the rear this time. The PistenBully was now stripped of its radar boom. All of that was stowed in a sled behind me.

  “Judy, what do you got?”

  “Elephant Man has four on board and we are ready.” Stretch, Russ, and Tom rode with her. She pulled the refrigerator van, a full tank sled, and the empty spreader bar rig. No stray feet around her train, either.

  “Judy, anybody milling around behind me?” Fritzy and I hitched to the milvan sled, the flat rack sled, and the second full fuel tank sled.

  “You’re clear.”

  “South Pole Comms, South Pole Comms … South Pole Traverse.”

  “Go ahead, South Pole Traverse,” Brad’s friend acknowledged.

  “South Pole Comms, South Pole Traverse is departing South Pole Station for McMurdo. Request permission to proceed across the extended center line of the runway.”

  “South Pole Comms copies all. Proceed as requested. Have a good trip.”

  “Thank you. Brad, take off!”

  A small group of Polies at Summer Camp waved good-bye. Another workday for us all.

  We awoke the morning of January 3 in the Parade Grounds, under the headwall of the Leverett Glacier. A thick ice fog filled the basin. Wet snowflakes drifted tentatively through the still air. We saw nothing of the Plateau’s rim. We could not see the stony faces of Mt. Beazley, nor Magsig’s Rampart. We saw neither a flag ahead, nor a flag behind. A month’s worth of new blown snow obliterated all signs of our outbound track. Thirty miles below sat Quadzilla, alone and waiting.