LOO-JW - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 51

was impossible to deduce anything at all about the gradient.
I had skied up several hills in the last few days, the weight
of my sledges making each slope a hard, sweat-inducing slog
of patience and tiny increments. Yet none of the hills I had
encountered so far had been acknowledged on the map with
so much as a single contour. In contrast, the rise ahead of me
was ominously represented by a cluster of tightly spaced lines.
That evening as I went about my regular routine of chores in
the tent, trying to ignore the heavy weight of silence, I became
aware of a regular tap of an unseen corner of tent material
vibrating in an otherwise quiet wind. The noise became a
constant distraction, like the repeated hammering of a drill.
Unable to ignore the irritation any longer I threw down the
bag in my hands in anger and turned to the source of the noise.
'Shut up!' I yelled.
No sooner had the words escaped me than I was laughing at
my own absurdity. First I couldn't stand the stillness and now
I was in a fury at the slightest of sounds. In any case the tent
continued to flap remorselessly for the rest of the night. I might
have enjoyed the relative silence more if I had known that it
was to be my last evening of calm for more than a fortnight but
as I set off the next morning the weather didn't betray any hint
of what was to come. The sun was so hot that I wore nothing
but thermals under my padded salopettes and I stopped several
times to plaster more suncream onto the tip of my nose which
protruded slightly from under my face mask. For the first
couple of hours I skied in a gentle arc around the towering
flanks of Mount Beazley and then quite suddenly, within the
space of no more than a hundred metres, I moved out from
behind the shelter of the mountain into a cold and determined
wind flowing down the slope of the narrowing glacier ahead.