Current Position
Position Date: 2012-12-23 01:15:03
Position Lat: -80.8843
Position Long: -79.8154
Listen to Eric's latest audio update.
I suppose at some point in the future, I will look back on
today and smile - the effect of time and distance having fully pared
down my memory to a few mildly amusing vignettes, but until then I am
rooted in the here and now staring across one of the most remote and
inhospitable places in the entire world and a goal I'm not sure I'll
be able to achieve. (Image: Yours Truly).
I have to remind myself, 'don't make any decisions at the end of the
day when you're tired.'
By all accounts it wasn't a terrible day - I covered 26 nautical miles
despite a variety of weather conditions. I managed to intersect with
an old ALE cat-train trail and for a while things seemed good, but the
trail drifted over and I alternated between riding along side and over
the drifts.
At some point early on, the light turned flat and it was hard to see
much of anything. Then, it started snowing. I couldn't believe it. I
burned about 20 minutes trying to set up my camera to take pictures of
myself actually riding my bike (not easy) until the visibility
improved enough to start riding again.
I've had to amend my travel schedule slightly to accommodate the
substantial effort of biking in Antarctica. As it stands now, I bike
for an hour then take a break and eat a Clif Bar. After four and a
half hours, I pull out my Stanley vacuum food jar and eat some soup
(probably the highlight of my day). The hard candy that Skratch made
for me has also been a life saver. All told, I was on the 'trail' from
9 to 6:30.
(View current position by clicking on map).
I spent a better part of my day trying to manage the overwhelming
nature of the task at hand. I am far enough away (plus I couldn't see
in the whiteout) from the Patriot Hills so all that stretches between
me and the South Pole is a whole lot of snow and ice. In the late
afternoon, the sky cleared enough that I could see a rise in the ice
in the distance. I will need to climb over 9,000 feet to the pole. For
the next 300 miles, I will bike up the somewhat rolling ice sheet of
Antarctica.
I spent nearly an hour thinking of an old high school friend, Scott,
whose young son, Noah, died tragically in an accident. It put my own
troubles in stark perspective. Scott told me last year, 'it's like a
burn, and even though the wound heals slightly, the pain never goes
away.
He sent along Noah's picture and this quote, 'May each of us have a
part of ourselves that never grows up and lives life without training
wheels.'
I couldn't agree more.
