Life Raft - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 129

intrusive as a powerdrill. I could hear the sharp squeak of my
ski poles piercing the snow pack in turn and the rush of my
breath was clear enough to make out the slight rattle of spit
and the resonance of my heartbeat.
Out of this imperfect silence rose a burble of numbers. They
gathered in my brain like swarming insects and intruded on
my contented emptiness. The number of days, the number of
kilometres, the number of miles, the number of degrees, the
number of kilometres divided into the number of days, the
number of weeks divided into the number of degrees, the
number of ration bags, the number of hours until I stopped
for the day, the number of minutes until my next break, the
number of strides in each minute - and then back to the number
of days. It was an endlessly absorbing cycle and I stretched
my arithmetical ability to its limit with the complexity of my
calculations. No matter how I manipulated the numbers, what
was clear was that I didn't have enough time to reach the far
coast before the end of the Antarctic season.
I knew that on 26 January the camp at Union Glacier would
close and everyone on the ice would leave before the planes
ran any risk of getting caught in the onset of winter. The date
was my absolute deadline. Wherever I was in the days leading
up to 26 January, regardless of whether or not I had completed
my traverse of the continent, a plane would be sent to fetch me
and I would be leaving Antarctica.
It was now 22 December and my original plan had been to
be far beyond the Pole by this stage but as well as the weather
delay to my start, the first leg of the expedition had taken
me six days longer than expected. I was seriously behind
schedule. So far, I had skied 625 kilometres but I still had at
least 1,100 kilometres to cover. It had taken me twenty-six