Blazing Ice

by John H. Wright

  The evening’s e-mail brought a personal note from Rebecca Hooper. She expected our arrival and asked if I could give an ETA. She said that the director of the contractor’s company “and others would like to meet you … if you don’t mind.”

  I remembered the solitary laborer who cheered us from the cargo lines at Williams Field a year ago. I remembered the pickup truck passing us on Scott Base hill, its driver absently lifting his hand an inch or two above the steering wheel. Rebecca’s note suggested a more generous reception. As for our crew, each was deeply tired, all were happy to finish, half were eager to get back, others less thrilled, and one of us who was in pain needed to get back.

  “Becky,” I wrote, “if all goes well, we’ll pull into Williams Field mid to late afternoon. My first concern is getting the fleet safely back across the Shear Zone. Once we do that, we’ll be three hours from Willy. I’ll call you from the McMurdo side of the Shear Zone when we’re clear and heading in. One among us needs to get to the doctor without lollygagging. Of the others who might be there, please keep their numbers smallish. But among them … we’d all be pleased to see you there, Becky!”

  And I wrote, “If George Blaisdell and Dave Bresnahan are on hand, it would be nice to see them at the finish line. Those guys have stood by us from the beginning, through thick and thin … And if you could arrange for Carol to be there as a surprise for Stretch, that would be something special.”

  January 14 brought crystalline clear weather. Featureless horizons floating before us for days now washed onto the shores of familiar land. Yesterday brought us to the margins of the Ross Ice Shelf. We passed the rocky Minna Bluff to the west. Snow-covered Mount Discovery rose behind it, then Black Island and White Island. As we neared the Shear Zone, those landmarks do-si-do-ed into their McMurdo-bound perspectives. Mount Erebus to the north glistened in the bright sun, showing off every crevasse on its glaciered slopes. A plume of white steam rose vertically from its summit against the polar blue sky.

  We gathered in our galley for one last briefing. The small space felt unusually crowded with half of us standing, half of us seated, and all fully dressed and ready to go.

  “Indulge me please; I have some things to say. And I have been waiting, even hoping, for this moment to say them. I want to say them while it is still just us, before we get back to McMurdo and all those people.”

  They graciously, if reluctantly, gave me their patience.

  “One day last summer, I enjoyed a cup of morning coffee with my wife. We talked about me going away one more time to finish this job. The strangest thought came to me as I gazed out our bay window, overlooking Memorial Park. I asked my wife: ‘Do you suppose anyone has ever done this before? I mean, who has ever traversed from McMurdo to Pole and back?’”

  The question hung for a moment. In our galley, the expressions were the same as my wife’s: Surely yes. Someone has done it.

  “We went through the list as best we knew, all the great ones: Amundsen, 1912? Started at Bay of Whales, not McMurdo. Shackleton, 1909? Started from McMurdo but turned back a degree and a half short of 90 degrees South. Lack of food. Survived, though. Scott, 1912? A McMurdo start, got to Pole. Died on the return with a couple hundred miles to go. Lack of food again. And cold.”

  Stretch sat at his customary end of the galley table. He interjected with a touch of cynicism, born of enduring yet one more briefing: “Hillary drove his tractor to Pole.”

  “That’s right, Stretch. And my hat’s off to him. But according to the New Zealand press, he doesn’t think much of what we’re doing now, though his particular gripe with us is not clear. Yep, he had a McMurdo start, Scott Base if you want. Got the first tractor to Pole with little gasoline to spare. But he flew back to McMurdo. Didn’t bring his tractor home. We, meaning the United States Navy, flew it out for him a couple years later. Now it sits in a museum in Christchurch.”

  Looking to the others I continued: “As part of that same expedition, Fuchs brought his tractors across the continent from the Weddell Sea … again, not McMurdo. He crossed to Pole then retraced Hillary’s route back to McMurdo. I think he was pissed that Hillary ran into Pole ahead of him. Hillary later flew back to the top of the Skelton Glacier to guide Fuchs down.

  “Even the army-navy expeditions of the late fifties and sixties, they made it to Pole. Took them three years. Started at Little America, near Amundsen’s Bay of Whales, made an end run around the Transantarctic salient. Little America ain’t McMurdo, and they didn’t drive their stuff back.”

  I hadn’t spoken of these things. Such had no business distracting us from the vigilance we kept up to ensure our own success. Its mere mention might have jinxed us. But now, emboldened by the proximity of our goal, just tens of miles and a Shear Zone crossing away, I made my declaration.

  “I researched it, and now I’m sure: No one has ever traversed from McMurdo to Pole and back. And I reckon the last man to try it died in the attempt in 1912.”

  The pronouncement brought silence in its wake.

  “What we are about to do today may be considered by some, even by us, a minor Polar record. But consider what we’re doing for the United States. The support contractor was lucky it hired us. NSF’s been alternately supportive, or retreating from the prospect of our failure.

  “Think beyond all that: McMurdo has long been viewed as the best port site on the continent, strategically and logistically. Sir James Ross spied it, and much later the Brits sent Scott and Shackleton down here, as if it were British territory. But our U.S. Navy built a base here. We built McMurdo to support our construction and occupation at South Pole. Up to today, Pole’s been supported entirely by airlift from McMurdo. Never before has a surface supply route from McMurdo to Pole been established.”

  Not even the wind whistled outside. The land itself hushed.

  “Today we’re poised to complete the roundtrip traverse from McMurdo to Pole. We’re doing it in typical American fashion: big tractors, big sleds, heavy cargo. No one can ever take this achievement away from you. You will be the first.”

  Heads nodded now, accepting and pleased with the truth. Those standing, leaning back against the kitchen counter, folded their arms proudly across their chests. Those seated remained deep in thought, staring at their clasped hands.

  It had long griped me that the first three claimants to win the North Pole were all Americans and that each of their claims was clouded: Cook, Peary, and even Byrd whose bust was over there behind the Chalet. In truth, the first person to even see both poles was Amundsen. All those other guys were in the hero business. They had to be famous to win patronage. We were neither heroes, nor famous. We were unimportant working stiffs in the USAP scheme of things, and we were supported by the awesome power of the U.S. taxpayer.

  “If anybody wants to question our achievement …” My tone rose defiantly. “They can start at that first green flag we planted, and follow the flags all the way to Pole and back.”

  “That’s the end of that speech,” I said. “I do have another one for you … Thank you for your help.”

  I started ’round the cramped room, shaking each one’s hand, offering a personal word of appreciation.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Before midday we reached Home Free South. Others switched sleds around for the narrow passage, while Greg and I went into the Shear Zone with the PistenBully. Greg steered. I sat next to him, operating the radar. In my lap lay the printed record of our October crossing.

  “The place doesn’t change that fast,” I instructed Greg before we started. “But it’s a small matter to spend an hour making sure there’re no surprises. I’m thinking of what another marine once told me: ‘Do not trust anything in that place.’ He ought to know.”

  In four years, things here had changed, but we hadn’t done a lick of maintenance. One day that’d catch up with us. I wanted Greg to learn where the worst problems were. “You might be back this way sometime. What you know might save somebody’s life.”

/>   Greg’s eyebrows knitted with the unspoken question: are you going somewhere?

  “Let’s go the first mile, then stop at the milepost. Three miles an hour. Stop if I holler,” I told him.

  “Right, Boss.”

  “Jeez …”

  We crawled down the road and kept up a running dialog. Greg called out when we passed green flags and signposts. I flipped through the printed record and kept one eye on the radar screen. We found nothing new in the first mile. Greg stopped at GAW+2, while I arranged the printed file for the next mile.

  We found nothing new in that mile, either. But I stopped Greg just short of Personal Space.

  “Look at this picture.” I showed him the radar screen with the printed record alongside it. “There’s no change here since October. Notice these dipping surface layers this side of Personal Space. We filled Personal Space the first year. But these sagging lines just east it of tell me something’s under here, too. We’re parked on top of it now.”

  It had to be something big, and it probably had one hell of a thick bridge. CRREL gave us guidance that year on bridge strengths. But it was my decision to cross it. We had crossed it ever since then without incident. Greg studied the displays, raising an eyebrow.

  “We drilled it and drilled it, and never found a void to blast into. But each year these sagging lines get saggier. Now … you see that black flag standing all alone, ten feet left of the road?”

  “I see it,” Greg confirmed, looking south.

  “That first year, Rick Pietrek and I found a more thinly bridged crevasse right there. That’s what the radar showed. Man, we were crevasse-finding fools! Tom went down in Personal Space up ahead of us, but never found the connection. Anyhow, I think the crevasse under that black flag is part of a monster right under us.”

  Greg captured the area in his mental map.

  “We never drilled over there. It was off our road. But if we ever come back here to reinforce this crossing, make it wider—which would be very smart of us—you go over to that black flag and shoot an access hole. Send a mountaineer down to look around; you’ll find out what this thing under us is. Now you know. Remember that black flag. Let’s go on.”

  We came to GAW+1. I got out the last mile’s worth of printed records. Within a hundred yards after starting again, I hollered, “Stop!”

  Greg braked immediately. I froze the image on the computer screen. We’d just passed a green flag between Crevasse 7 and Strange Brew.

  “See these weird, squiggly lines on the screen? Now look at this printed record,” I pointed to where the same green flag beside us was marked on the printouts. “This thing on the screen wasn’t here in October.”

  It didn’t look like a new crack. But next year, it might grow up. I penciled a note on the printed record, and then we moved on.

  At GAW, I radioed back to the fleet. “Judy, tell the others to stay in their cabs the whole way across. If anybody needs to get out for any reason, call. We’ll come out and make sure their area’s clear.”

  “Roger, copy.”

  “Brad, how much fuel do we have after last night?”

  “We drained the tank we were using, John. We’re pulling one more full tank.”

  “That must be South Pole’s fuel. I guess we owe them now.”

  “As a matter of fact, it is the tank we filled at Pole. Fancy that,” Brad replied.

  We’d get to McMurdo on what’s in our tractors, and never tap that tank. I never thought we’d cut it that close.

  “Tom, got your radio on? How’re you doing?” I asked. The approaching fleet was now a mile away. Tom rode in the living module with a walkie-talkie at the ready.

  “I’ll make it.” Tom sounded whupped.

  When the whole fleet passed by GAW and lined up in the Shear Zone Camp, I breathed a sigh of relief that was four years coming.

  We stopped long enough to off-load our surplus flags. Brad and Greg would come back in a few days to dress up the Camp area. They’d cache our ten-footers, protecting them from larcenous McMurdo-ites.

  Rebecca wasn’t at her phone when I called, so I left a message on her answering machine. Outside, Stretch was antsy to get down the road, but I asked him for one last thing: “Please help me set up the flagpole.”

  “You bet I will,” he said, reawakened to our purpose. Stretch imagined searching for Carol back in town, but I knew she’d be waiting for him at the finish line. Stretch would look mighty good coming in under that flag.

  All set now, my thoughts turned to Tom. In three hours we’d have him at McMurdo General.

  When the first of us arrived at the post marking the start of our road, the last of us trailed two miles behind—Russ, proudly bringing Quadzilla back to town.

  From that post, another half mile on a well-established snow road took us to the Williams Field road at the city limits. Another nine miles led to Ross Island over snow roads that pickup trucks ran with ease. Two more miles ran over dirt roads into McMurdo.

  As each tractor rounded the post, we gathered up to go in line together. One last stop. One last chance to stretch our legs. Tom joined us.

  I started to climb back into Fritzy when he stopped me.

  “John, would you mind if I rode in your cab with you?” Tom would not cross the finish line in the living module. I understood.

  “Tom, I’d be honored.”

  In our cabs now, I radioed to Greg, “Proceed.” Moments later, Brad started rolling. My hometown colors flew above him. Ahead, a small crowd waited for us on the Williams Field road.

  At precisely 1514 hours on January 14, 2006, a Navstar satellite overhead signaled my GPS receiver. I grabbed my radio. “Mac-Ops, Mac-Ops … South Pole Traverse.”

  “Go ahead, South Pole Traverse, this is Mac-Ops.”

  “Mac-Ops, South Pole Traverse has arrived at Williams Field with all souls. The concept is proved. This will be our last transmission. Over.”

  “Copy all, South Pole Traverse. Welcome back. Mac-Ops clear.”

  “Traverse clear.”

  Fewer planes would fly to Pole now. United States Antarctic Program logistics would never be the same after our quiet victory.

  There had been no other job. That was the job.

  Behind us, one thousand miles of green flags led through crevasse fields, across snow swamps, over sastrugi and mountain ranges to South Pole and back … safely, because we proved it. East of us, Linda’s steely carcass drifted toward the Ross Sea.

  INDEX

  Alger, Russ “Alger,” 80–83, 108–9, 132, 134, 166–67

  American Legion Post 14, Silverton, CO, 256–57, 269

  Amundsen, Roald, 12, 66, 108, 156, 185, 200, 246, 258, 285–86

  Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 269

  Antarctic Peninsula, 14, 54

  Arcone, Steve, 83, 85–88, 149, 183

  Arnesen, Liv, 213–14

  ASTER, description of imagery, 139

  Atwood, Don, 57–60

  Axel Heiberg Glacier, 200

  B-15 iceberg, effects of, 160, 276

  Bancroft, Ann, 213–15

  Barnes, Eric, 42–47, 49–53, 56

  Bay of Whales, 285

  Beardmore Glacier, 3, 212

  Bindschadler, Robert 121

  black blobs and voids, 48–49, 51, 77

  Black Island, 188, 284

  Blaisdell, George, 33, 35, 37, 80, 95–96, 109, 111, 113–15, 121, 123, 133, 137–40, 142, 145–46, 148, 151–52, 155–57, 168, 180, 215, 218, 221–22, 230–31, 284

  Bresnahan, David, 15, 31, 33–34, 37—38, 83, 87–88, 91, 94–95, 109, 115–16, 121, 133, 138–39, 150, 155, 157, 167, 175, 180, 186, 195–96, 217–18, 227, 230–31, 235, 284

  Brest, France, 33–34, 37

  Bright, Colonel, 191–92, 194

  British Antarctic Survey (BAS), 54, 253

  Brunt, Kelly, 211

  Burma-Shave, 131

  Byrd, Richard E., 286

  camp circle, description of, 134–35

  Cam
pbell, Rick, 174–76, 178, 185–86

  Cape Crozier, 13, 43

  Cape Prud’homme, 33

  Carr, Steve, 34

  Castle Rock, 57, 63

  Chalet, the (in McMurdo), description of, 161

  Chaucer, Geoffrey (Wife of Bath’s Tale), 125

  Cheese Palace, 270

  Chiang, Erick, 31, 34, 94, 133, 157, 161–65, 168–70

  Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), 10, 12, 33, 42, 53, 56, 79–83, 91, 95–96, 96, 102, 108, 110, 116, 121, 124, 133, 181, 183, 232, 287

  Concordia Station, 38, 73

  Cook, Frederick A., 286

  “Cookie” John, 266

  Crary, Albert, 12–13, 121

  Crary Ice Rise, 11

  Crist, Gerald, 72, 86, 89

  daily report, description of, 93

  Dal Vera, Anne, 216–17

  Deception Island, 54–55

  Defense Contracts Audits Agency, 169

  Delaney, Allan, 53, 56–58, 60–61, 63–72, 74–79, 81, 85, 96, 98, 101–2, 119–20, 149

  Detweiler, Susan, 136–38, 140–41, 143–47, 149–50, 152

  Dome C, 30–31, 33–35, 38

  dorniks, descriptions of, 100, 215

  Dumont D’Urville, 17, 30–31, 33–35

  Dunbar, Steve, 30, 32

  Dunbar, Colonel, 190–92

  Elephant Man, naming of, 96, 132

  energy module, description of, 93

  Evans, John, 10–12, 14–15, 50, 142, 147–49, 166–67

  Feleppa, Greg, 91, 174, 176, 178, 180–83, 185–89, 196–99, 201–3, 205, 207–9, 219–20, 223–29, 233, 237–39, 241–42, 244, 246-57, 264, 266–69, 274, 278–79, 281–83, 286–89

  Fritzy, naming of, 95, 131

  Fuchs, Sir Vivian, 216–17, 285

  GAW (Grid A West), description of, 41

  Godon, Patrice, 30–36, 38, 180, 238

  Goldsberry, Judy, 95, 132–35, 138, 140–41, 143–44, 146–48, 153–54, 173, 176, 181–83, 185–86, 188–89, 196, 203, 205, 208–10, 219–20, 223, 226–27, 233–34, 237–42, 244, 247, 249, 251, 253, 255–57, 264, 267–68, 273–75, 278, 280, 288

  Grant, B. K., 254–55, 262, 266, 269–71, 279

  Griffiths, Trevor (The Last Place on Earth), 258