Getting Out of the Tent - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 214

ruddy brown that looked gaudy compared to the pastel shades
I was used to. With another short climb I finally approached
the higher summit of Wilson Nunatak. The wind greeted me,
blowing hard from the open space ahead, and I stepped onto
the lip of a dreamy skyscape of pearlescent cloud. Below, the
glossy snow was streaked with ribbons of blue ice. Above it,
surrounded by a delicate silver halo and gossamer cloud, blazed
my friend the sun in triumphant approval. I nodded my grinning
appreciation in its direction before turning my attention to
the horizon on my left which was bristling with dark purple
mountains, low and triangular, crowded together in a dense
band. The extent of the Ellsworth Mountain range took me by
surprise. My private panorama of mountains that had seemed so
extensive as I crossed the narrow open neck of Horseshoe Valley
had been, in reality, barely a glimpse of the range's toenail.
I sat on a boulder and breathed deeply in quiet satisfaction.
The whole of Antarctica seemed to be mapped out below me.
Shifting my position I turned my back to the wind and gazed
southward at the horizon I had skied over. My mind led me
back over the miles to where I had begun all those weeks
before, and then continued back in time over the longer path
that had brought me here. I thought about the anguish over
the decision to walk away from conventional employment, of
the endless search for ways to make expeditions happen and
of creating a viable living around them. There had been no
roadmap and yet looking backwards it all seemed so obvious,
every step appearing to be part of an ordered sequence of
events designed for the sole purpose of enabling me to be on
this summit on this day.
It hadn't seemed so clear and ordered at the time. In hindsight,
I had spent much of my twenties floundering in uncertainty