Michael Becker, a doctoral student at McGill University, was a scientific diver on an expedition to Lake Untersee in Antarctica.
?Dec. 18, 2012
The last flight off the continent for two months is just days away. With a large storm approaching, we?re stuck at Lake Untersee without much time to spare.
We had delays getting to the continent, delays getting to camp ? it only makes sense that we?d have delays leaving.
I started writing this sign off three days ago after our ?last? dinner in the field. Sitting in that cramped kitchen tent for one last night, it felt like the right time to reflect on an intense month in the field.
But about three sentences in, our nightly weather update via satellite phone informed us that our scheduled pickup to go back to base was no longer happening. The weather would soon hem them in ? and us out. The base, Novolazarevskaya, and our camp at Lake Untersee were predicted to have sustained 60 mile per hour winds and limited visibility for three days. The trucks needed at least a 13-hour window of decent weather for the return overland trip.
The winds are a bit of a concern for travel, but the real danger comes from limited visibility caused by the snowstorm ? the drive out here involves crossing numerous hidden crevasses. The prospect of leaving while unable to see these huge holes could mean getting stuck, a broken axle, or worse. These situations are dangerous enough in good weather ? traveling during a storm would not be sensible to say the least.
With the weather going down and a sinking feeling that we?d miss our flight off the continent, I stopped writing and hunkered down for a few days of tent-bound living.
Time Passes
The winds grew strong, our visibility dropped, and the mountains around us filled in with clouds and snow and darkness.
Despite the drama of an approaching storm, my biggest worry was that I?d run out of television to watch. I was four seasons into ?The Wire,? with only 10 episodes to hold me over until the storm passed ? it was terrifying.
In truth, our main concern was the wind. Throughout our time here we?d been very proactive about keeping the camp tidy and were fairly confident that we wouldn?t become victim to any flying projectiles. As the storm approached we had packed loose gear, retied tent guy-lines, put heavy boulders inside out tents to keep them down, and restocked the kitchen tent.
When the winds hit there wasn?t much excitement aside from the difficulty of trying to sleep in a vibrating tent. At times the tents can vibrate and move so much that you can even feel a bit of motion sickness.
But we lucked-out, with the only real action happening around 3 a.m. on the first night when a large, sustained gust of wind much stronger than the rest blasted my tent. With it came the sound of something large moving quite fast, followed by a booming crash.
Putting down ?The Wire? and pulling my boots on, I quickly went outside to catch whatever was flying around, as any flying object is a potential hazard.
It was the top of one of our storage boxes. This top was a piece of heavy plywood the size of a doorframe and had been hammered down on all sides by metal stays. It had also been over 150 feet away. The winds had ripped it off and sent it sailing to the frozen earth just feet from my tent and another.
We were lucky ? a slight change in wind direction and that plywood would have gone right through one of our tents. That would have seriously disrupted my evening.
I ran out in a sleepy-daze, grabbed the top, and hammered it back to the box with one of my coworkers. Piling a few hundred pounds of rocks on it, we ran back to our tents and to a few more days of sleep.
But that was it for excitement. The next three days went by in a strange sleep-eat-sleep stupor. I waited for time to pass and tried to keep my cabin fever at bay before I killed the village.
But no crimes were committed, the storm passed, and tomorrow we head back. Back to Novo, back to Cape Town, and back to trees and green and nighttime.
Exit, Antarctica
Leaving this time is a very different feeling than when I left after my first time in Antarctica three years ago. That first season was the conclusion of a year?s worth of blood, sweat, and tears trying to get my first polar job, followed by an intense four-month field season. It was much more emotional ? the end of something I had wanted for so long, worked so hard for. It also felt like an accident ? both a luck of the draw and a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
The conclusion of this field season will mark the end of my fifth polar trip. I?m still a lightweight by the old-timer standards, but I?m certainly inching toward the point where my presence here is no accident.
While the end of this trip might lack the emotional gravity of the first one, it makes up for it with the comforting, confident, and exciting feeling that I?ll be back. Maybe not to Lake Untersee, maybe not the Dry Valleys, but sometime, somewhere I?ll be back in the Antarctic.
I?m not a spiritual person, but I will be the first to admit that this place has a special energy and an allure compelling me to return. The idea of coming back still excites me as I write from this tent: tired, worn, and dirty from not showering in over a month.
But you don?t have to come all the way here to experience that. You can find that sense of excitement and adventure lingering in just about any part of the natural world.
I?ve never understood those who don?t feel that twinge of excitement when they look at a world map ? those who don?t feel compelled to walk out their front door and see something new; or to hike to their destination rather than drive; or to see something just because it?s there; or to experience even the small adventures this world has to offer.
But that?s what I want for us all to feel, and that?s the sense that I?m left with tonight: excitement. Excited about what an experience this has been, excited for whatever destination lays ahead, and excited for that damned shower. With that, I leave you at the end of this Antarctic season with this concise summation of my thoughts, and I thank you for reading.
??I?m bored? is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you?ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless ? it goes on forever inwardly, you understand? The fact that you?re alive is amazing, so you don?t get to be bored.?
?Louis C.K.
Follow Michael on Twitter: @Michael__Becker or on his blog, ?The Dry Valleys.?
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