Getting Out of the Tent - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 219

ahead became covered by snowpack and low sastrugi. The
snow would conceal any further crevassing in the ice beneath.
The planes being sent to collect me wouldn't be able to land
on a slope; I had to reach flatter ground so I continued down
slope after slope but I felt taut with nerves, worried that each
step might send me plunging into a dark void. I ached to pitch
camp, to be able to stay put and be safe rather than bear the
excruciating suspense of what each stride might bring - but I
couldn't stop where I was.
'Almost,' I told myself, noticing that my teeth were clamped
tightly together in angst, my jaw taking the brunt of the
nervous stress I felt.
The gradient ended abruptly on a narrow but flat plain
surrounded on three sides by steep escarpments. This, I realised
in amazement, was Hercules Inlet. The snow surface I stood
on was ice floating on water (which is why it was so flat), a
slim tongue extending from the main Ronne Ice Shelf to the
east, whereas the surrounding escarpments were snow-covered
shoreline. I could see a crease of colour in the snow at the base
of the escarpments - as clear a sign of the coast as I was going
to get in Antarctica - and by skiing across it I had completed
my traverse.
I had arrived.
The numbers on my GPS confirmed that I was significantly
north of the eightieth line of latitude which traced the coast
and had therefore moved beyond the edge of the continent -
but still I kept skiing. I headed onwards towards the centre of
the inlet, feeling that I needed to reach something that was a
definitive endpoint, but there was no clear finish line, no camp,
no people, no silver globe to touch as a finishing post. I spied
the low profile of an island in the middle of the inlet, pear-