Every Step - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 3

radiance, although not as bright as daylight, seemed to make
every detail sharper, like a perfectly exposed black-and-white
photograph. Those metallic evenings were the Peninsula at its
most beautiful.
I was at the station as one of the meteorologists responsible
for monitoring climate and ozone. One of my regular jobs was
to measure the accumulation of snow using a grid of snowstakes
that had been established a significant distance from the base.
Travelling out to the snowstakes on snowmobiles was one of
my favourite weekly chores. Usually I took someone with me
but a few months after I arrived, I decided to go alone for
the first time. It was nearing the end of the summer season
and the chill of an oncoming winter was in the air. I coaxed
one of the station's elderly snowmobiles into life and stashed
my notebooks and records under the seat before setting off.
Following a line of flags I motored away from the station
buildings, past the aircraft hangar and the outlying depots
of fuel drums and sledges, onto the steep local glacier. As my
snowmobile ground uphill, the land to my left fell away into ice
cliffs, revealing the blinding glint of open water. It stretched off
towards the only straight horizon visible from Rothera - that
of the sea. Veering right, I followed the flagline beneath a spiky
wave of dark rock called Reptile Ridge that towered overhead
as it curved inland. After a few kilometres the route opened
out onto a large plain. I knew that if I continued around to the
left I would come to Vals, a gentle slope on the side of Reptile
Ridge that we used for skiing and snowboarding, dragging each
other to the top on long ropes towed behind snowmobiles.
But today Vals was empty and I was travelling away from the
ridge across the open space ahead. My snowmobile was heavy,
more metal box than high-performance machine, but with my