December 27, 2012
Day 9: Uphill and into the Wind
Despite all the hardship, the experience of this place is not lost on me. Imagine walking outside your house and looking around, and for as far as you can see in every direction, there is snow. Today, I stood dumbfounded, at the scale and vastness of Antarctica.
The wind picked up today and made travel exponentially more difficult. Obviously, a headwind makes travel slow but a stronger wind also creates more drifts. The drifts and wind have been my biggest nemesis here as I spent most of the day grinding away at a little over 2 mph spinning to a stop in one soft section of snow after another.
But the sastrugi continues to amaze me. It's hard to describe all the shapes and forms, but each is unique and interesting in its own way.
I have been pushing hard to get to 82.30 South for two main reasons: first, it was the location of my resupply. And second, to evaluate the feasibility of continuing forward. As it stands right now, I am not overly optimistic about being able to make the pole. I have been riding about 1.5 mph slower than I anticipated. Extrapolating my progress forward, I'm not sure that I will have enough time to make the pole within a realistic margin of time, food and fuel that I have available.
Still that is a decision for tomorrow after I load up my newly acquired food, fuel and hat!
In the mean time, I will take one long last look out the tent door to soak up the incredible scene then fall asleep in the arms of Antarctica.
Image: the ALE staff left me a new Bike helmet in my resupply.
The wind picked up today and made travel exponentially more difficult. Obviously, a headwind makes travel slow but a stronger wind also creates more drifts. The drifts and wind have been my biggest nemesis here as I spent most of the day grinding away at a little over 2 mph spinning to a stop in one soft section of snow after another.
But the sastrugi continues to amaze me. It's hard to describe all the shapes and forms, but each is unique and interesting in its own way.
I have been pushing hard to get to 82.30 South for two main reasons: first, it was the location of my resupply. And second, to evaluate the feasibility of continuing forward. As it stands right now, I am not overly optimistic about being able to make the pole. I have been riding about 1.5 mph slower than I anticipated. Extrapolating my progress forward, I'm not sure that I will have enough time to make the pole within a realistic margin of time, food and fuel that I have available.
Still that is a decision for tomorrow after I load up my newly acquired food, fuel and hat!
In the mean time, I will take one long last look out the tent door to soak up the incredible scene then fall asleep in the arms of Antarctica.
Image: the ALE staff left me a new Bike helmet in my resupply.