Every Step - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 12

An Icelandic colleague met me at the airport in his
outrageously large orange truck with wheels the size of circular
hay bales. When my substantial sledges were loaded into the
back they looked like nothing more than children's toys.
Driving into Reykjavik we talked about my nascent
expedition and that's when I heard about Valdi, a local barber.
Not only does he (apparently) give an excellent haircut but
he had also been a driver on the Moon Regan Transantarctic
Expedition the previous year which had taken modified Ford
6x6 trucks across Antarctica from one coast to the other. The
expedition had used a glacier called the Leverett to travel from
the central plateau of the continent down onto the Ross Ice
Shelf. I tracked the Leverett down on a map, a tiny zigzag of ice
tucked into the very top left-hand corner of the Ross Ice Shelf.
A bit of research revealed that it was part of the route used
by the South Pole Operations Traverse (SPOT), a tractor train
that travels from the American base McMurdo on the coast of
Antarctica to the South Pole.
This convoy of huge belted vehicles transports 100,000
gallons of fuel and 20,000 lb of cargo on each trip as well
as towing large cabins on sledge runners that serve as living
accommodation for the staff that drive and maintain the
vehicles - a sort of heavy-duty Antarctic caravan. With a top
speed of just 10 mph the tractor train is a slow and steady
operation taking some thirty days to make the journey one way.
The SPOT traverse had become an annual endeavour in recent
years and I read stories of four-day blizzards, huge machines
completely submerged in snow that set as hard as concrete
and winds so strong that it was impossible to leave the safety
of the cabin-caravans. Every account of the traverse I could
find revealed a tough journey. Ground Penetrating Radar was