“I went to Antarctica!”
With the imminent onset of middle age, I wanted to have one last adventure before I gave up.
I pulled the trigger on the Iceaxe Antarctic Peninsular Cruise after reading a blog by Andrew McLean about the cruise in September. It got me excited about skiing again, and after skiing the bunny runs with Page for the last few years, I thought I deserved to spend some time me-skiing.
Getting all the right gear and putting it together was my focus for the month leading up the cruise. The gear list included skis, boots, whippet, ice axe, ski crampons, boot crampons, carabiniers, harness, ice screws, prussik loops, ropes, climbing skins and a hand-knitted blue beanie.
Then, I had to get myself to Antarctica. This involved a flight to Los Angeles, on to Lima, and into Buenos Aires, where I had nine hours to get across the city to the domestic airport (and sit in a bar and drink Malbec and eat steak). As well as focussing on gear procurement, I had also been learning Spanish for the last month. Alex thought it was funny, yet it was useful in many ways in transit. I even was able to have a conversation about politics with a taxi driver, and art with my neighbours in the bar.
I got to Ushuaia, Argentina a couple of days before getting on a ship to Antarctica. Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world and is set in a beautiful location on Tierra del Fuego, overlooking the Beagle Channel and surrounded by an impressive mountain range which we skied one day before leaving.
There are two ski resorts with lifts near Ushuaia. It being November, and springtime, they were closed so we took a taxi up as high as we could go and walked and skinned up the remaining snow to the cirque above.
The views of the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia below were fine. The skiing, was good enough for November, and good enough to get my legs in.
Argentina is still sulking about the Falklands War. This sign says “I prohibit the mooring of the English pirate boats”. There were other big memorials around town as Ushuaia was the headquarters of the Islas Malvinas region that temporarily included the islands.
The Drake Passage lies between the Beagle Channel, south of Ushuaia, and the Antarctic Peninsular. It is reputed to have the worst seas in the world. I had a three day crossing.
After one day, I saw my first iceberg closeup. This iceberg was much further north than is normally expected. We didn’t see another iceberg until the next day. This one was extra special.
Ice Axe Expeditions organises the cruise and the ski guides (20 of them) and put that organisation on top of Quark Expeditions, who provide the ship and their staff who do the normal Antarctic tourist cruises. The Quark staff are all experts in something. This chileno, Santiago, is an expert in wildlife, and as well as a number of lectures on the topic, he provided bird-watching expertise on the deck for the crossing.
This is a Petrel.
and this is an Albatros. Birds are very difficult to photograph. They move so fast that you have to manually focus on them.
We were allowed on the bridge of our ship, the Sea Adventurer. Although I was disappointed by the lack of a wheel, I was impressed by all the technology.
As we got closer to the continent we had a sighting of some Fin Whales, and the first penguins, sitting on icebergs which got thicker as we headed south.
We were slowed in the night by quite thick sea ice. Our 100m ship was not an ice breaker, though it had a reinforced hull for ice and could navigate through a sea of 70% ice. Our slow going through the ice meant that the first day’s skiing was delayed until the afternoon. Visibility was poor, though the skiing was on good snow. (for specific details on each day’s skiing look at Andrew’s Trip Report.
For each day, the plan was for the ship to anchor or drift in a sheltered bay, and then each of the ski groups would be taken ashore on Zodiacs with their guide to ski for the day, with the Zodiac picking up the groups when they were done and taking them back to the ship.
Ski groups were assigned in a few different ways. Some people were not skiing, so they were assigned a guide to show them penguins each day. This was mostly parents of skiers (next year, Dad). Then some other groups were with a guide whom they had skied with before. The rest of us were put in groups based on our surveyed abilities. I was very lucky to be roped up with Andrew McLean’s group. Roped up, because the terrain in Antarctica is very complex and filled with crevasses.
Although my , the group’s focus was on skiing, there were often penguins and seals at our dropoff and pickup points.
Tim FitzGerald skiing a pitch on our first clear day. Light makes a huge difference when shooting skiers and I was able to get a good contrast with the bay, rather than the grey on grey on grey of the first couple of days.
Even though the terrain was already very complex, Andrew’s sick personality made him take us all over the slopes to the most interesting ice walls, crevasses, and cliffs. Made for more adventure, which made me happy.
Our skiing was always being controlled by the weather. On the Antarctic Peninsular the weather is always changing, and always changes rapidly. We missed a bit of skiing most days because of high winds, low visibility, or ice threatening to lock the ship in a bay. Most of the time when we weren’t skiing, the ship took us to amazing places. One of these was through the Lemaire Channel where we pushed through icebergs and sea ice to get to a narrow channel bordered by huge mountains that came straight out of the sea.
Tim FitzGerald gearing up.
Our guide, Andrew.
My roommate, and the brobrahiest skier on the planet, Austin Porzak.
George Wilson IV.
Ken Lucas. My camera loved him.
I carried around a big lens and Alex’s Canon 5D for the first few days while skiing, then I switched to the 50mm lens.
Of course, I was not the only one with a camera, though mine was the best and people on the ship who didn’t think I was a guide with my excellent beard, thought I was the official photographer. That reputation wasn’t helped by following Austin around taking pictures of him for his fans, but it faded when anyone asked me anything technical about the big lens I was holding. So, some of the photos in the blog post were not taken by me.
One of our best objectives was Mt. Mill, above the Wiggins Glacier. The top slope was over 50 degrees and icy. Our group was (always) the first one up. You can see the some of the other groups changing from skins to crampons down below.
On another day, we didn’t get to ski. The consolation prize was that, after dinner, we had stunning sunset tour of a penguin rookery as the changeable Antarctic Peninsular weather changed again.
Despite what your preconceptions, the Antarctic Peninsular is not cold. The cold parts are in the east and in the interior. Being surrounded by sea means that the water regulates the air temperature to not much less that freezing in Springtime.
Our last two ski days saw us skiing powder, a very rare occurrence in Antarctica, where most snow is windblown. After the snow showers cleared, and as we left the South Shetland Islands to the north of the Antarctic Peninsular we were treated to an other-wordly sunset with the view of scores of grounded icebergs.
It was sad to leave Antarctica. I wanted to spend more time there. To ski more, and to explore more. I hope I get back there again with Alex.
It’s nice to be home.
