Blazing Ice (39 page)

But all of that we'd do tomorrow. Today, the hold-back line was our goal. I'd told Greg to abandon GPS navigation when he spotted the panels and set a visual course directly for them. Given ice movement and the convergence of meridians, the panels might not be on the 132 W meridian now.

“Excellent,” I radioed back. “When you get to the panels, tell me what you see.”

“Roger, Boss.”

Jeesh …

By Pole minus 6, the full sweep of station structures stretched well left and right of us. The towering elevated station dominated them all. That new station had been the focus of all construction activity for the past several years. Now it neared completion. Presently it resembled a collection of two-story plywood shoeboxes elevated on massive pedestals.

Our horizon collides with the Station's. But we're still outside the city limits, in wild country.

At Pole minus 4, my radio squawked again: “
Fritzy
, this is Feleppa. We're at the hold-back line and have planted the last flag. There're a couple of folks on snowmobiles who've come to greet us. A PistenBully's headed our way from across the skiway.”

“Well done, you guys!” I smiled, imagining a thousand miles of flags leading to this spot. “I'm going to contact South Pole Comms. Switch to 143.00
MHz. South Pole Comms, South Pole Comms … this is South Pole Traverse on 143.00 MHz … how copy?”

After thirty seconds, hearing no reply, I resent. Another thirty seconds passed, and still no reply. “Brad, Greg, you guys get anything from South Pole?”

“Negative,” Brad confirmed. We were a mile from the hold-back line, still headed south.

“Negative,” Greg responded, adding: “There's a guy here from South Pole with a radio that hears you. And he hears South Pole Comms acknowledge your hail with
clear copy
.”

“South Pole Comms, South Pole Comms … this is South Pole Traverse … we have negative copy on your reply. Be advised our intentions to drop our loads at the hold-back line and return to our camp over your horizon. We will be coming in tomorrow. Traverse clear.”

Moments later Brad stopped at the panels. Moments after that,
Fritzy
and I pulled up alongside Brad.

The structures of South Pole Station loomed enormous. Directly right, one quarter mile away, stood the Marisat dome. Half a dozen Polies had come to meet us. But I strode purposefully toward the five black panels where Greg, Tom, and John V. beamed beside our PistenBully. The last green flag stood right in the middle of the five black panels. I congratulated them.

“Thanks, Boss,” Greg said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes, giving up on it.

“Tom, I assume you've stowed the radar?”

“With great pleasure and finality!” Tom smiled. Tom's achievement in keeping our radar working to the end fulfilled a vital mission. I deeply appreciated his vigilance.

Brad had already found his girlfriend. She was a pretty brunette, svelte even in her overstuffed parka. Brad had introduced us back in McMurdo. Keen intelligence looked back at me then through her big, round, dark eyes. Now, I just smiled and waved at both of them. Brad grinned and waved back.

Turning to see who from Pole might've come out to meet us, I awkwardly looked over new faces after seven weeks on the trail. The boss of the South Pole cargo crew stood back a bit. I was fond of her. Soon we'd deliver her cargo, but for the moment, she stepped forward and we heartily embraced.

A guy with an enormous, shoulder-mounted camera hung back at the fringe. This was the
National Geographic
stringer who wanted footage of our arrival. We were not “arrived” yet.

Standing close by was a writer-photographer for the
Antarctic Sun Times
, an NSF-sponsored weekly of USAP doings. I knew that guy. I liked his work, though at present all I had for him was “Hello.”

A tow-headed, clean-shaven fellow walked up. I'd met Jason Medley eight years earlier at Palmer Station when I'd wintered there. He had inherited a construction job, and despite a lack of materials that season, he rallied his crew and got a lot of good work done. I admired him for that. Jason now served as South Pole operations manager and would be my point of contact. I offered my hand.

“Jason, we have some radio difficulties. You're aware that we are
not
coming in today?”

“We weren't certain when we spotted you coming over the horizon. But I understand tomorrow's the day. We do have some papers for you to sign.”

“Whatever that is, it can wait,” I laughed. “Are those tracks coming out from Marisat the path we'll take into the station tomorrow?”

Jason had no objection to us parking our loads there, so I pulled forward on the new line. Brad pulled alongside to my left. His lady friend rode with him.

I was kneeling in the snow pulling my hitch pin, when a voice close at my back announced, “Jerry Marty wants to speak to you.”

Jerry Marty was NSF's station representative. His enthusiasm for all activity at Pole was infectious. I liked him a lot. But I fretted over Stretch, Judy, and Russ. Jerry was not among the crowd, and I didn't want to go into the station for a parley. Without turning, I hollered over my shoulder:

“I'm working here! I haven't got time to talk to Jerry Marty!”

Moments later I had the pin out, swung the draw bar to the side, and freed my tractor from its sled. Straightening slowly, I turned and looked right into Jason's slack-jawed face. He'd been holding his walkie-talkie to my back, keyed to transmit. Jerry, wherever he was, and everyone else at South Pole Station, heard every word I'd just grumbled.

“Aw, shit. Jason, please tell Jerry we'll be in tomorrow at 1300. We're getting out of here.” Jerry, I hoped, would understand.

We had a road to pack. I climbed back in
Fritzy
and radioed to Greg to start back for camp. Brad had already unhitched from
Snow White
, but was still
standing on the snow in passionate embrace with his sweetheart. I hollered at him out the open door of my cab, jerking my head in the direction of the trail behind us.

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.