Hollinger in Antarctica

Yesterday evening we set up camp knowing that it would be very brief. The fine weather and continuous daylight giving us the opportunity to reach Patriot Hills before the unpredictable Antarctic weather changed again, perhaps trapping us for yet another day on the Glacier. We ate and drank as much as we could and bedded down for about two and a half hours before striking camp and setting off towards the still-distant line of Patriot Hills at about 11.50 (just before midnight). This time we walked in Mukluks, rather than using the skis on our sore and blistered feet. Of course the weather did deteriorate. A phenomenon of low contrast – sometimes described as being in the inside of a ping-pong ball – causes difficulties seeing any features on the glacier. Heaving heavy pulks over sastrugi that you can’t see until you fall over them is a pain. However, we had the incentive of the end of our journey and pushed on through the night, leading in turn through the murk, until at last we got our first clear view of Patriot Hills camp when we were about 5 km away. Eventually, we all walked into camp at about 5.00 am. We had dragged the laden pulks over 32 km in 17 hours (including our break for food and sleep). We all now have an enormous sense of achievement and relief. In spite of fearing that weather and terrain would not allow us to do it, we did indeed walk all the way back to the base.

After lots of hot drinks, we all caught up on a few hours sleep and then started working away packing up the gear that will need to be flown back to Punta Arenas. We have also been weighed by Phil for his project and we have nearly all lost some weight. We are now trying hard to put it back on as we will spend the next few hours catching up on more sleep and eating! Tonight the staff of A.L.E. at Patriot Hills have asked us to tell them all about our expedition, so preparing that will be our next job. In some ways this marks the end of the main part of our expedition but there is still a huge amount to do – and some time to go before we will make it back to the UK. I will try to carry out some further research on the blue ice near Patriot Hills tomorrow. Our scheduled departure from Patriot Hills back to Chille is tomorrow however the poor weather is unlikely to allow this. Carl has just pointed out that this could be our home for the next ten days as we wait for a weather window to enable the plane to fly in. Right now we are all dreaming of a proper wash and the flight home. Let’s hope that the weather is good to us!

To answer your question Neill – Yes we melt the snow for cooking and all our drinking water. Happy Birthday to Elizabeth 13CO and Robert 11DV.