Skiing in the Dark - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 199

the snow, from my heel and the curve of my arch to each of my
five toes. From my tracks it would appear I had been out in the
snow in bare feet.
The sight snapped me back to my senses. I turned to see that
my tent was nothing more than a dark smudge in the distance.
With sudden clarity I became aware of my own dangerous
stupidity. I was running around a potentially crevassed area of
Antarctica, completely alone, inadequately dressed in thermals
and a light windproof shell. I'd had the sense to grab both my
GPS and satellite phone before leaving the tent but if I fell into
a crevasse at that moment it is likely that neither would do
me much good. If the fall didn't kill me and if, as was likely,
I couldn't get a signal on my phone from within a fissure,
it would be hours before I missed my first scheduled call to
Union Glacier. Only then would anyone start looking for me.
The chances of managing to keep myself alive for all that time
in an excruciatingly cold crevasse without full clothing or even
a hat were minimal.
More alarming than that, I remembered that I had stepped
out of the tent without turning off my stove. I had been
wandering around in the snow while, inside my precious and
highly flammable Hilleberg, I had left a pan of melting snow
simmering on an open flame. It would only take a gust of wind
to nudge the tent fabric too close to the stove and it would
take mere seconds for my tent and everything inside it to be
consumed by fire. I would be left alone, without shelter and
without clothing in an Antarctic whiteout.
I don't think I have ever done anything quite so stupid in my
entire life.
I raced back to the Hilleberg tense with alarm, expecting it
to combust in front of my eyes at any second. Reaching the