Part 5: Truly Arriving

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Part 5: Truly Arriving

November 16, 2005: I write this account from Clark Glacier. It is 4:13 PM, sunny, no wind, small puffs of cloud playing chasies below the peaks.

The trip out here:

The AStar helicopter dances a bit more than a Bell Jet Ranger or a Hughes, the only other types of helo I have flown in, but pilot Paul Murphy handles her with great delicacy and joi de helicopter. “Make sure there is a dashing English pilot in your book,” he tells me in his lovely British lilt as we fly out over the frozen sea that stretches between Ross Island, on which McMurdo Station is nestled, and the mainland.

We make happy small talk as we hum along above the astonishingly large expanse of flat ice. Paul is an excellent tour guide. “Ah, look just there: See that iceberg? Everyone has something named after them here except me, so I named that one after myself. That is Murphy Iceberg.”

Murphy Berg is a tabular berg frozen into a solid expanse of sea ice. One differentiates here between ice that started out its life as snow that has compacted into a glacier and perhaps flowed out onto the water, making a shelf, such as the Ross Ice Shelf, and that which began its life as ocean that just plain froze. Glacier ice comes in various thicknesses, from miles thick up on the Polar Plateau, to a thousand or hundreds of feet thick where it shatters and flows out toward the edges of the continent, then floats out onto the Ross Embayment and calves off into icebergs. The sea ice in the Ross Embayment is currently 80 inches thick, is far less brittle, and breaks up most Januaries only to reform as the sun sets in March.

Murphy Iceberg

My dashing English pilot takes the AStar lower as we approached the berg. “It doesn’t look very big from here, but in fact it’s hundreds of feet high, and we aren’t anywhere near it yet. How far do you think we are?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “A few miles?”

“Twenty,” he replies. He is a sweet young man who informs me that he has lived in Australia, South Africa, England, and now Texas. “Austin,” he adds quickly, as if I need reassurance that he’ll be okay.

Murphy

After buzzing along beside the 200-foot-tall cliff that is the part of Murphy Berg that sticks up above the sea ice (and remember what they say about the proportion that’s below) Paul takes the little whirlybird in for a landing at Marble Point, where the helicopters refuel. It’s just a small assemblage of portable buildings on a bald, rocky point. In the middle of this lonesome space, someone has stuffed a set of hooded coveralls and arranged it in a seated position and has erected a fabricated palm tree to give it shade. The fabric fronds shudder in the wind. “We’ll be stopping here for half an hour,” he informs me. “I’ll be shutting down. Please wait over there by that set of steps.

A petite form completely encased in canvas overalls and quilted jacket, head enshrouded in hat, neck gaiter, and goggles starts pulling the fueling hose toward the helicopter, the massive nozzle carried on her shoulder. I can tell it’s a woman by the size, the proportion of hip to shoulder, and by the finesse—rather than brute strength—with which she handles the equipment. I stop to stare. “Just over there by the steps,” Paul prompts.

I climb the steps, which form a style over a system of fueling pipes and wander out onto the rocks beyond. The ground is littered with shards that have been plucked up and transported by passing ice. The first bit I examine is a glorious specimen of amphibolite, a glossy black crust of crystals that glittered in the Antarctic light. I am enthralled. Then it hits me: I am standing at last not on an island off the coast of Antarctica, but on the continent itself.

I turn and look across the 50 miles of empty ice we have flown over from McMurdo, where Chris Siddoway is back at work organizing her field party after coming down to the helipad to wave goodbye. I was already buckled in when she showed up all grinning to see me off, but Gifford the helo tech reached up from the ground and opened the door again so Chris and I could share an excited hug. It is Chris beyond anyone who has gotten me to Antarctica. “Just get there,” she kept telling me. “You’ll love it.” In the darkest moments of bureaucratic miasma, her husky voice would resonate in my adventuresome, possibly over-romantic heart, and I’d take another step on the path that led me south. She is a person whose heart belongs to this continent. She teaches geology at my alma mater, Colorado College, and has come this year—her seventh visit—bringing three incredibly lucky students who will help her study metamorphic rocks in Marie Byrd Land that will help unravel the timing of major tectonic events of the continent. And, like a lead bird in a migration, she has also brought me.

Five minutes into the half hour, Paul calls me back to the helicopter. “Done already?” I inquire.

“Yes, certainly. I’m just supposed to tell you half an hour. Fueling doesn’t take but a moment. Shall we get on, then?”

We load back in, adjust our four-point harnesses, and lift off into a long, glacier-studded valley that leads us to the high ridge on which Clark Glacier is perched like a saddle on the back of a mare. With adoration, Paul points out his favorite ice formations. “See that one? It’s just hanging there. They’re just fantastic.”

I smile. I am being taxied over fantastic scenery in a sports car of a helicopter by a private tour guide. Life is good!

The lower end of a glacier passed on the way up Wright Valley. This one is fantastic to look at but holds no appeal to land on!

We slide up over Clark Glacier and turn for an approach to the camp, which is at first just a string of tiny dots in the white landscape. I realize that I am already clean out of adjectives that might describe such features: broad, expanse, wide, gigantic, huge, enormous, put me in my place…none quite describe it anyway.

Approaching Karl Kreutz's camp on Clark Glacier...yeah, it's those little black blips in the middle of all that ice!

We come in for a landing next to a 36-foot-diameter geodesic dome tent. A trim man in gray snow clothes comes out to meet us. This at last is Karl Kreutz, with whom I’ve been corresponding for over a year but have never met. He is as I had imagined him: sturdy, competent, a man to inspire confidence. “Welcome to Clark Glacier,” he says.

I step down over the skid and grab my bags. Paul takes a quick look around the camp and heads back to toward Ross Island, “Home in time for tea and medals.”

The AStar at Clark Glacier...and that's all of my gear just in front of it: ECWs in the orange bags, sleep kit in black duffel, computer in marvelous "Brain Case" backpack provided by Tom Bihn (www.tombihn.com), and skis.

I can't not send this picture. I can see the headline: "Mad Helo Woman Goes for Size XL!"

I am writing this episode now from inside a tent whose architecture was most likely inspired by a pill bug. It is about eight feet wide and 21 feet long and I can stand up in it. It is made of alternating red and blue panels that stretch crossways supported by aluminum tube arches. This is the cook tent at Karl Kreutz’s field camp on Clark Glacier in the Dry Valleys of southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Life is good. The men of Karl’s crew have decided that the tent issued by field supply was inadequate and have pitched a better one for me, with a view that can’t be beat.

Home Sweet Glacier

There is already much to tell you about life on a glacier, but it’s time to help make dinner, so I’ll close for now and go learn what it means to pull together in this extreme environment.

With peace and happiness,

Sarah

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