UK / Polar Challenges / Expeditions / The Wall

DISPATCHE 1 : 2 - 9 December

Saturday December 9th: first frights (from Capetown)

Last Thursday, there was a small accident on one of the Cape Town beaches. Which did not inspire confidence. And which could easily have handicapped the project's progress.
Still waiting for the departure and taking advantage of this dead period to carry out all kinds of tests, the group decided to go to the beach, but not for the purposes of lounging about and getting a tan. But to test the sails. The Powerkites no longer have a leading role to play in this expedition, unlike the situation three years ago at the time of the great crossing. But still: from Blue One, part of the team was to get to Holtanna, a distance of some 80 km, under sail. A question of saving the cost of the Twin Otter and of getting familiarised with the icy environment. So the sails were on the journey. They had not only to be tested one last time but also and especially the people who were still unfamiliar with this contraption had to be taught how to manipulate it. The wind was fairly strong (50 kph), as always on this town beach. And suddenly, when it was Ralf Dujmovits' turn to try the Powerkites, he was carried up into the air to a height of more than three metres above the ground.
Exactly the same misadventure happened to Dixie, on 04 December 1997 (see details) during the transantarctic crossing with Alain. With one difference, all the same: the fall is less brutal on sand than on ice. Nevertheless, Dujmovits was not moving. He was quickly taken to the nearest hospital, and cerebral concussion was diagnosed; for more than two hours, Ralf could not remember anything, and was all the time asking his companions what he was doing there and why he had to go off on an expedition in the Antarctic!
At the end of the day, no harm was done; the next day, the doctor gave his green light for his participation in the expedition. Hubert gave me one of the explanations for this just this afternoon: the new sails taken by the expedition were far more vicious than the earlier ones. More efficient, but also trickier to handle. On Saturday afternoon, the group did it all again, because the Illyushin had still not arrived. And this time all went well.

Here is a short story written by Lisa, a guide who is located at Blue One Station ; together with Ronald Ross, they went on a small balade to collect lichens near a nunatak.

Lichens in the Snowstorm
There were four of us as we set off; one in town shoes with magic little chains added to stop him slipping on the ice, one armed with a data logger and crampons to disturb the peace of the lichens, one skiing and dragging a sledge and one who thought her mukluks alone would be fine on the ice. The last one came back with big bruises on her knees, the sledger had a very exciting sideways slide down an icy slope with no bottom, the town walker took videos of the whole outing including the death slide and the data logger came back happy.
The mission was to find some more lichen on the 'wall nunatak' and leave a data logger at the site for the next year.
Not long after setting out the snow started to fall gently but it was still warm enough to sweat as we walked along as a jolly little bunch, chatting about we were going to become famous ecologists. As the snow became thicker we looked back at the camp, but that had gone long ago along with the blue ice which was now disguised by two centimetres of soft, fluffy snow. We carried on, the snow quite thick in the air, the visibility down to ten metres or so. We called the camp on the handheld VHF, to tell them we would carry on and don't worry, but no one was listening. The sledger pushed out in front, misunderstanding(?) the advice NOT to take his sledge on to the knife edge ridge ahead while the others bunched together to approach the tricky bit. The sledger had to stop when his sledge slid off to the left (the right was certain death) and was pulling him where he didn't want to go. He froze. The one in mukluks tried to help by grabbing the traces attatching the sledge to the puller, but she couldn't grip with her boots on the steep icy slope. They wouldn't let the one in crampons help in case he was dragged off too. The sledger was told to take the traces off, let the sledge go and save himself. He didn't, he pushed on! He started to slide sideways as the sledge pulled him downwards. He fought against the pull but it was no good, he was going down. The others just watched, unable to help, unable to say anything, only thinking "oh no!" He stopped at the bottom, only 10 meters away on easy ground, laughing. The others laughed nervously with him. The sledge was left behind to recover and they walked on into the thickening sky; it was getting cold and very white. The lichens were quickly found, a cairn of rocks built nearby so that we would identify the site again. They went home a different way.
Lisa.

Source : Ronald Ross's website www.thistle.org
Photo : Upper side view of Umbilicaria aprina, the more common umbilicate lichen in the Antarctic interior © R. Ross

Friday December 8th (from Capetown)

Since two days, the luggage of the expedition have been transported to Capetown airport in order to be ready faster when Iliouchine arrives. No need to say that the Team is impatiently waiting for the last phonecall informing them that finally, the only have to take a taxi and rush to the airport.
Last night, ANI's logistic people told them they should be ready in a few ours. Having already accompanied Alain Hubert in november 1997, when he left with Dansercoer for their big traverse, I know that this kind of situation may last for ...days.
And apparently, that is what's happening because tonight, Friday December 7th, no sight of the plain coming (it has to fly from Punta Arenas).
That said, during these last days, Hubert and his companions have tested over and over the communcication material ; everything seems to work OK.
Meanwhile, American Ronald Ross is still waiting in Blue One for the team to arrive. No time to get bored, he is busy with his satellite communications and his collecting of the lichens (see press communiqué n°4). Tomorrow, we'll publish a story on a day collecting.

See in the meantime antarctica.org's follow up and the progression (on the maps) of the other expeditions struggling with antarctic ice. Solo skier Stane Klemenc, who had the project to cross all Antarctic unsupported, has already abandonned, having not gone further than about a hundred kms from Blue One. See here the details

Our plane departed Zaventem at 11 o'clock and we arrived at Johannesburg at 10 in the evening.

What we feared most happened : three pieces of our luggage had disappeared. We checked it, again and again. But we had to leave Johannesburg without those three pieces of luggage.
The day after, Alain made a few phone calls and the luggage was found, thye should arrive in Cape Town in two days. Problem solved.
Arrival at Cape Town at 2 o'clock in the morning (local time). Check out - waiting - squashed car ride to town ….. at 4.30 in the morning we saw finally our beds. The view out the window of our apartment is great. We see the sea, which is rather cold, a marvellous beach and the silhouette of the Table Mountain.
The following morning we slept long and tried to find some food. We discovered the surrounding streets, and then in the afternoon did an interview with Alain.
The moral is perfect in the whole team. We laughed a lot and there is quite an ambiance in the group. The only problems we have for the moment concern the doors - they wont open, or they are broken or they were stuck.
Today (Saturday), we will do some tests with Inmarsat and try out the computers. Maybe I will take some sound recordings and mix it using the computer program - just for practice.
Temperature and weather : great ! Sunny and warm (about 30 °)
Kathelijne Van Heukelom