Forty-Six - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 81

Although I had travelled nearly 200 kilometres from my start
point I was still not clear of the brutal weather that broiled
around the mountains. A few times during the previous week
of bad weather the clouds had parted briefly to allow a glimpse
of the world beyond, like looking through a wormhole to an
alternative universe. I was allowed ephemeral views to my
left of the snow sloping away in undulations, ending abruptly
like the lip of an unseen waterfall as it met the heavily ice-
covered peaks of the Transantarctic Mountains. Now that I
had climbed way above 2,000 metres only the very tops of the
mountains were visible over the horizon, as if I was walking on
a level with their summits, but I was a little disappointed that
they appeared to be so close. It was a reminder of how little
progress I had made and of how far I still had to go.
There was another reason to be uneasy at the proximity of
the mountains. One brief clearing in the clag of cloud revealed
the ground nearest to me. My eyes widened in alarm as I
picked out broad parallel indentations in the smooth snow
over slopes to my left - the zebra-stripes of crevassed ground.
It was difficult to judge size and distance but they could have
been as little as a kilometre away. Seeing such fractured terrain
so close made my skin crawl with anxiety. As the view was
slowly obliterated by the cloud and I was once again cocooned
in oppressive gloom I was effectively blind. With my only
protection against crevasses being my own vigilance I felt
frighteningly vulnerable. It suddenly seemed extremely foolish
to be blundering across this landscape in such bad visibility
before I'd reached the relative safety of the plateau where the
ice is more solid and crevasses are less common. My nerves
slowed my pace and my eyes ached with the strain of glaring
at the snow in front of my ski tips for any sign of crevasses. I