Life Raft - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 110

building to the outlying science facilities like extreme subzero
commuters. Huge cargo planes arrive frequently, landing
spectacularly on a broad skiway running along one side of the
station, their sucking engines beating the air while they are
unloaded. The engines are never stopped for fear that they will
never start again in the severe cold.
This was to be my third arrival at the South Pole though each
occasion had been very different. The last time I had arrived
at ninety degrees south I had driven into the Pole with my
Icelandic friends and a convoy of vehicles but my first, and
inevitably most precious, sight of the South Pole had been when
skiing in with the team of women I had created and trained
myself. The station had been distinctly visible as a dark, hard-
edged dash on the horizon from a distance of just over twelve
nautical miles. Now, as I drew near to this magic number once
again, my eyes darted restlessly between every hint of light and
shade in the distance. Every time I saw a suspect dash I'd glare
at it fixated, remaining sceptical that it was the Pole and yet
simultaneously hopeful.
Towards the end of my twenty-fifth day of skiing, the dash I
had been glaring at since my last break refused to disappear. I
deliberately looked away several times, each time challenging
myself to find the same dark shape on the horizon. I moved
my goggles to make sure it wasn't simply a scratch on my lens.
After an hour it disappeared. I'd had too many false alarms
to feel either surprised or disappointed. Instead I registered
my sledge growing heavier - a sign that I was climbing an
undetectable incline. After a while, the sledge grew lighter
and, once more, I spotted the same dark grey dash. It hadn't
disappeared at all, it had just been temporarily obscured from
view as I climbed uphill. I stopped in my ski tracks and stood