Sundogs and Haloes - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 175

Twitching on their skis, they were pulled impatiently by the
kites bobbing in a holding pattern overhead as we swapped
news. They laughed about their bad luck with the weather and I
marvelled at how they had been able to cross the rough ground
in the eighty-seventh degree with kites. I couldn't imagine how
they had been able to find a route through the immense rubble
while travelling at speed without smashing their sledges (and
themselves) to bits in the process. I explained that with music
in my ears I hadn't heard them approaching and they told me
that I had appeared as a dark spot on the horizon a few miles
back and that they had diverted off their route to investigate.
We didn't speak for long. Unlike my last surreal meeting in
the wilderness, this time I was eager to be gone. The banter
and the laughter between the group felt, to me, to be too
sudden and too harsh, like the shock of a loud radio turned
on accidentally. I skied away as the team began to pull their
kites out of the sky so that they could stop for a break, but
within half an hour they had already overtaken me. I saw
them pass me by several kilometres away to the west, a long
line of toy-soldier-sized figures pulled by red kites that looked
stunningly bold against the delicate blushes of Antarctica. I
watched the arc and dive of the kites in the distance as I skied,
admiring the grace of the movement - and the speed. Within
minutes the figures of the team were indistinguishable from
the texture of the landscape and my head began to whirr with
mental arithmetic as I tried to calculate what kind of distance
they would cover that day. I'm sure kiting long distances has
its own frustrations and drawbacks but as I watched the agile
sails swoop and spiral toward the horizon it appeared to be
the most magnificent and elegant form of motion ever devised
and I scorned myself bitterly for deciding against using them.