Every Step - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 6

In the hours after arriving at the bottom of the world, I sat in
the cramped hospitality tent drinking tea, listening to the rest
of the women excitedly announce our success to their families
over the satellite phone and feeling myself relax in a way that
I hadn't been able to for months. Fatigue gradually overtook
each of my team-mates in turn and they drifted off to our tents
pitched nearby. I was enjoying the moment too much to submit
to sleep just yet so I walked back to the South Pole a few hundred
metres away. The spot was marked with a red and white striped
pole topped by a glossy silver sphere surrounded by the flags of
the original Antarctic Treaty Nations. Apart from the snap of
the flags in the wind, all was quiet. I had the end of the Earth
to myself.
I stood for a moment gazing at the horizon we had skied
over, letting my memory trek backward over the miles we
had travelled. The cold burned the exposed skin on my face
and made my eyes water, so I turned out of the wind and
studied the opposite horizon. My imagination instinctively
raced over the kilometres of wind-furrowed snow, creating
mental visions of the landscape beyond that I had only seen
on maps: an immense empty plateau, then a wall of serried
mountains where the ice spilled between the peaks onto the
ocean, forming a great floating platform - the Ross Ice Shelf.
Absently, I wondered how it would feel to set off towards
those mountains. I felt a gentle pull toward that imagined
landscape. Tired and aching though I was, I knew with
certainty that I could continue beyond the Pole if I had the
opportunity - but could I make it all the way to the mountains,
and then on as far as the Ross Ice Shelf? Could I ski across
the entire continent from one coast to the other - and could
I do it alone?