Forty-Six - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 85

anything larger than a pair of knickers but I considered that
underwear was probably a priority after two weeks of travel. I
swished my underwear around in the bag of hot water, doing
my best to recreate the spin motion of a washing machine,
stopping when I judged they were clean. I wrang out the flimsy
material before hanging them up over an elastic line on the
sunny side of the tent vestibule feeling very pleased with my
afternoon's work.
I was less smug when I checked on my drying laundry a few
hours later. Although at first glance they seemed to be airing
nicely I soon realised that they had actually frozen solid. When
I lifted them off the line they remained bent in half and were
so stiff that they could stand freely on the floor of the tent like
a bizarre modernist sculpture. All that had been achieved by
the drip dry was a row of short stubby icicles hanging from
the gusset. I chipped off as much of the ice from the material
as I could before placing the frozen knickers back in the sun,
unsure what else I could do. The fate of my underwear was in
the hands of Antarctica and cold temperature physics.
The next day was as gloomy and windswept as the last and
even though the devil on my shoulder whispered alluringly
that I would be perfectly justified in waiting another day,
that the weather was clearly too bad for travel, that I still
had little hope of seeing any crevasses, I reluctantly ignored
it. The weather had been more or less unchanging for more
than a week and from what I knew of Antarctic weather, it
was more than likely to continue for days. I couldn't afford
to hide in my tent indefinitely. Emboldened by a day's rest I
made the decision to move on. Concentrating on the practical
details of my preparations for the day ahead, I was careful
not to let myself dwell on thoughts of the weather, the cold,