Anyway, as I left the ship this morning, I had these layers:
Top: 1 (skin) to 5 (waterproof outer)
Bottom: 1 (skin) to 3 (waterproof outer)
We landed at Danco Island and started a hike to the top.
Let me better explain what I mean by “hike” in this blog. Firstly, I am wearing knee-high rubber boots and three layers of socks any time I leave the ship. The boots have decent traction on the bottom, but the important thing is that they’re waterproof. Every time we exit the Zodiac, we step into water and then wade to the land/ice/beach. The snow here is interesting – the best description I have is light powder that has been frozen. Sometimes you can take a step and stay on the surface, but more often than not your leg sinks a foot or so into the snow. Pulling that leg out requires that you place your weight on the other leg, which sometimes also sinks in the snow. At times, it takes 5 minutes to walk a few paces.
We learned the “trick” to walking in these conditions is to tread lightly and prep the snow first. Take your foot and stamp it a bit in front of you where you’d like to walk, and then lightly place your foot there as evenly as possible (toe-first or heel-first nearly guarantees that you’ll sink). Do it again for the other foot. You can imagine this isn’t very quick. Add to it that when you start hiking up the side of a hill or mountain, you need also worry about traction so you don’t slip. But the best way to ensure traction is to dig your boot into the snow a bit, which often causes you to sink. It’s quite challenging and a good workout. Sometimes, you’re better just to hike in the foot holes that others have made. It makes for an adventure either way.
Today, I sunk into the snow a lot for the first 50 yards. Then, I caught some good snow and made good progress before happening upon a smaller section where most of us sank. After only 100 yards, I was hot. I needed to take off some layers, but it’s not as easy as it sounds when you’re on a slope and you need to keep on your outer layers. It took me 5 minutes, but I finally did remove layers 1, 3, 4, and 5 from my top and layer 2 from the bottom. I felt like one of those logic puzzles where you move certain animals in a certain order to get them from one side of the river to another on a raft that only holds so much weight and with animals that eat each other. Here is what I did:
I removed my coat and laid it on the ground, then sat on it to remove my boots one at a time. Right boot off, remove outer pants and layer 2 pants, boot back on. Left boot off, remove outer pants and layer 2 pants, put outer pants and boot back on. Remove right boot again, put outer pants on, replace boot. Remove all layers on top, then put layer 2 back on.
We placed all our clothes and backpacks in a huge pile on the side of the mountain, and hiked up the rest of the way without coats, hats, and gloves. I picked up some fresh snow along the way and ate it – it was pure and delicious. The view from the top was spectacular, and this was the place where I finally experienced pure serenity. The dome mountain was kind of like a mushroom, and there were only ~30 of us up top. We each picked a different direction to walk down, and as you walked down the outside of the mushroom, you easily got to a place where all the people and sounds disappeared. I was all by myself, with the pristine beauty of Antarctica. No penguin calls, bird sounds, or people – complete and beautiful silence while I enjoyed the water and icebergs below and the gorgeous mountains on the other side of the channel. It was certainly the most peaceful time I’ve had in years, perhaps ever.
On the way down, we opted to slide again. It wasn’t as easy, since my coat was down the hill, but I tried to stay mostly on my pants. I twisted and turned a bit, picked up some nice speed, and just had a great time. Sliding down hills in Antarctica is even more fun for me than waterslides!
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