LOO-JW - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 45

visible indicator of the Antarctic coast. Located just north of the
eighty-fifth line of latitude, the post stood almost exactly over
the coastline marked on the few available maps of the region
- a coastline that was otherwise completely undetectable from
the surface. Nobody seemed to know what the initials 'LOO-
JW' carved into the top of the post stood for but Valdi and the
Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition he had been a part of
had used it as the endpoint of their transcontinental journey,
and so it became the official start of mine. Just to make sure
there could be no doubt that I had started my crossing on ice
floating on the ocean and not on the Antarctic landmass, the
plane had flown me a little further north to be well beyond this
unassuming coastal marker.
I balanced my small pocket camera on the top of one of the
sledges and posed for a photograph leaning against the LOO-
JW post. Looking again at the weathered signatures I fished a
black map-marker out of my bags and added my name. I dated
it then, after a pause, wrote underneath, 'Alone - On Skis.'
I stood back and looked at my signature. It looked brazen
in fresh black ink on the muted wood and I felt a flicker of
remorse. Scrawling my name had irreversibly announced my
presence. I had declared my intentions in brutal black and now
there would be no slinking away.
Over the following hours I established the routine that
I would follow for the next two months: skiing for ninety
minutes before stopping for a short break to eat from a bag of
snacks I kept in my pocket and to drink from an insulated water
bottle that I kept nested within my down jacket at the front of
the leading sledge. The familiarity of the routine - which was
very similar to that of past expeditions - soothed some of the
unease of the morning and allowed me to be less sensitive to