Sundogs and Haloes - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 173

my head, so that I had to spin 360 degrees in order to see it all.
The sun sat in the middle of the arrangement like the crowning
jewel of a celestial diadem. On the horizon directly beneath
it was a semi-circle of vermillion shine rising from the snow
surface, as if the light that hit the ground was throwing up a
geometrically perfect plume of dust. I'd seen this blaze before,
my guardian angel on the way to the Pole. The sprite was back,
and I took it as a good omen.
I had other reasons to feel positive. I was approaching
the eighty-sixth line of latitude and I knew that as soon as
I crossed into the eighty-fifth degree I would be within sixty
nautical miles of Thiels Corner, the place where I expected
to collect my second and last resupply and the goal that had
become the focus of all my mental energy since leaving the
Pole. The target that had seemed so impossibly distant now felt
impossibly close - close enough that I almost dared to believe
I would reach it. Almost. My superstitious fear of jinxing
the outcome prevented me from allowing myself to believe
anything until it had happened. I was still on high-alert, my
hope and anticipation tightly restricted, my concentration
spent on trying to foresee what could go wrong and how I
could reduce the likelihood of any potential disaster occurring.
Sixty nautical miles was still a long way.
My only distraction was the thought that within the
eighty-fifth degree I might stand a chance of spotting the
Thiel Mountains away to the west. The idea of seeing some
geography filled me with improbable levels of excitement. It
wasn't just having something to look at that appealed to me,
it would also be proof of my progress. Every night I continued
to mark each camp faithfully on my map (a series of crosses
which now traced a wonky, twitching line across the page) but