LOO-JW - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 56

over and over in rhythm with my measured steps, sometimes
aloud and sometimes silently in my head:
'Keep moving forward.
Just keep moving forward.
Keep moving forward.'
The wind grew stronger as the glacier became steeper. The
intervals between each wave of wind shortened until I was
permanently immersed in a howling rage of air currents and
snow. Regularly a particularly violent squall would hit me with
such force that I would have to stop and brace myself with skis
and poles, leaning forward into the wind to keep my balance.
Several times a gust caught me off guard and I stumbled, my
sledges sliding backwards over hard-won ground. Eventually,
on the brink of losing my temper, I decided to take off my skis,
hoping that walking would give me a better grip. I was aware
that skis were my only defence against crevasses (by spreading
my weight more evenly over the ground, wearing skis made it
less likely that I would fall through any unseen snowbridges)
but I couldn't bear the slipping and lurching any longer. I
fastened the skis to the top of my sledge, taking care that there
was no possibility of them working free and sliding all the
way to the bottom of the glacier. Setting off again though, I
was disappointed that the strength of the wind still made me
stagger, even with the extra grip of my boot soles.
I thought about my tent. Pitching a tent in stormy conditions
with a team was hard enough but now I would have to manage
alone. The lightweight fabric seems to come alive in even the
slightest of breezes, writhing like a tethered animal wanting to
be free. It's both awkward and tiring to keep the tent pinned
to the ground while placing poles and anchoring guy ropes.
In preparation for the expedition I had thought hard about