We flew back into base camp at 11pm last night and were treated to a sumptuous feast along with the incredibly brave guys who’d gone solo for 44 to 50 days. Today we just hung out and had drinks in a stunning igloo. Tomorrow is the centennial celebration and party for Robert Falcon Scott’s arrival at the South Pole. After that, hopefully the Ilyushin will fly us out.
Woke up to a stunning morning here at the South Pole. Had a leisurely breakfast at the campsite, then wandered back down to the pole to take some more photos. Then we were taken on a tour of the scientific foundations, which explained the scientific research being undertaken by the community of scientists lead by the Americans looking at neutrinos, climate change, global warming and a range of other scientific activities. It’s like a giant dorm with different pods, a gym, a library and a music room, and it was quite fascinating.
We then returned to the camp site, and started to prepare for our departure back to base camp. Our plane is just landing, and we are about to head off. So I wanted to say thank you to everybody for your kind thoughts and your fabulous messages and thoughts. It’s been such an adventure, I feel extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to ski to the South Pole unsupported, taking all our own gear and food in our sleds, with a wonderful team, great guides, and of course all of you who have been following this adventure. I want to thank my wonderful family and extended family. I love all of my friends, many thanks to all of you, and my smart and talented colleagues. I look forward to sharing my adventure in spirit and in person when I return.
Woohoo!!!! Woohoo!!! We have arrived at our destination at the South Pole! I really can’t believe it myself.
We headed off at a brisk pace this morning with a bitter cold wind blowing out from the east across our faces. It’s quite hard skiing because of that wind, and the temperature dropped quite dramatically, but we knew we were on our last leg. As we started to get closer we could see the scientific station off on the horizon, and then we had to make kind of a maverick traverse before heading down the snowy path marked with red flags. We bolted down there, to the camp site, where we were greeted by Hannah from ALE with open arms and a giant hug. It was so exciting to see the campsite, and so exciting to see other human beings.They invited us in for hot chocolate, but we decided we had to head straight off to the South Pole, which is about another 0.8 kilometres from the camp site.
We left our sleds behind us and just went with our skis and poles, and went down to the South Pole. We arrived there at 4:50pm. I really have to pinch myself that I’m here at the southernmost point of the whole globe, the axis of our world, the South Pole. First of all we went to the ceremonial South Pole, where I’ve seen so many photos of that round, mirror, disco ball. In truth, it’s a bit of a shonky looking monument, but it does make for some great photos with the flags of the nations that signed the Antarctic treaty behind us. From there we skied another couple of metres to the actual, geographic South Pole, and the 2012 Pole and Plaque, which was designed by the scientific community.
We were all getting a little freezing and hysterical, so we headed back to the camp site, and filled ourselves with some fabulous smoked salmon, cheese, crackers and loads and loads of hot chocolate.
So here we are, that part of our journey completed, feeling strong and really unable to believe that we are truly at the South Pole.
Another Audio update. -Tom
Hi guys. I had trouble deciphering this message, so I thought I’d post it for you to listen to, instead of cutting out the bits I couldn’t grab. Thanks, Tom.
Our co-ordinates today are 8936.011 S and 8115.473 W. We’re over half way. We’re really on our way to the south pole now. We had another awesome day, a little cooler than yesterday, so a little harder, but we all got into our rhythms and it was just a fantastic day on the ice. Keith knows that we’re counting songs on our iPods, and on the last push of our last leg, when the wind was really coming in, the weather had really picked up, he yelled at us “Only 3 songs to go!”, which we all thought was very cute and we were very happy when we came to our tent site.
As I was skiing along today I had plenty of time to think, so I thought about those early polar explorers. Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton and our very own Mawson. I have to take my hat off to them, it must have been quite extraordinary and hard living for those early polar explorers, coming in off the coast, and dealing with the coastal ice and crevasses, and then coming up onto the polar plateau. The plateau is so vast that any wind that comes along just roars across the plateau and just rams into anything in its way (which is usually the people who are just skiing along), so I can’t even begin to imagine what those early explorers would have gone through. Notwithstanding that I’m getting a small taste of it here and I have read extensively of their endeavours.
I’ve also been thinking about those other two teams who flew in from basecamp on the little ski plane onto the polar plateau with us. One team was a British team, two highly entertaining British guys, James and John, and another guy, Neil, who climbed Everest with no less than Bear Grylls. I look forward to seeing them at the South Pole, along with the other team that is somewhere out on this plateau with us, who arrived with us, the remarkable young man called Grant, who broke his spine in a snowmobile accident, and he’s with a camera crew who are making a documentary. He’s skiing to the South Pole in a specially designed seat, and he just pulls himself along with his arms, which we saw him testing at basecamp. That is some extraordinary courage. I have to say, I use both arms and both legs, and it is very very hard work.
So they’re somewhere out on the plateau, we haven’t seen them since we landed, and the could be anywhere. It’s quite extraordinary, you just never see anything. Not a tent, not a sign of life.
We’re in our tents now, it’s really really windy, and Keith, our guide, says that more is coming and that tomorrow we are going to be ‘whipped’. I’m not really liking the sound of that.
In case you’re interested in some of the finer details of expedition living, we remark that here we are on this vast polar plateau, and our only shelter is a thin nylon tent. We have our thin Therma-Rests on the ice, then our -40° C sleeping bags, and then Wendy and I sort of huddle up in here, with our stove going. We finally mastered the very fine art of our stove, which is harder to use than you’d think to just boil some water.
Our food consists mainly of dried food, nuts, cheese, salami and anything you can add water to. A lot of things we add boiling water to, which is not so tasty, but keeps you going. When we’re out skiing, we just have our pockets stuffed with Snickers Bars, nuts, some cheese and of course Water.
As for clothes, from the ground up, I have two pairs of socks on, a very big, heavy, thick pair of ski boots, which are rated to -40° C warmth, and they click in to our skis. Our skis are like a cross-country ski, with skins underneath, to prevent you from sliding too far and colliding with your heavy sled. I have a pair of thermals on, fleece pants and wind pants. On the top I have thermals, a fleece, wind stopper jacket and a wind stopper anorak. On my hands I have two pairs of gloves, and a pair of Plunge Mitts, which are really big windproof gloves that hang around my neck so they don’t blow away. On my neck I have a buff, and another buff on my head and across my cheeks so that not a tiny bit of skin is exposed, and of course my goggles, and I have a specific face mask and my beanie.
The challenge with goggles, as those of you that ski would know, when you’re hot and it’s cold outside, they fog up. Here the fog instantly turns into a deep frost, and your goggles are almost totally useless, because you can’t defrost them until you get back to your tent at night. So as the day goes by, you feel your vision get smaller and smaller, sometimes at the centre of the goggles, and sometimes out the sides. On my rest breaks I change all my goggles, so it’s quite a process.
As beautiful as Antartica is, it’s a ferocious beauty, the minute you expose one little finger it turns to a cement block, or the wind whips across your forehead giving you brainfreeze, or it whips across your cheek and tries to caress you with frostbite. So that’s expedition living. Since we all have a commitment to keeping this pristine, beautiful land as clean as it was when we arrived, we have a few interesting ways to manage our waste. We pee in a bottle and then… there’s the wag bag, and perhaps I’ll leave it at that.
I’d like to thank Tom Evans for his help with this blog. While he’s asleep at night I leave him a message on his voicemail, probably highly garbled and incoherent after a long day skiing, and he transcribes it and puts it onto the blog. So great thanks to Tom, the gorgeous son of my great friend Nicola Wakefield Evans.
We woke up to a stunning blue sky and a relatively balmy -15° C. Before we headed off, Keith asked me if I’d like to try and lead the group, which I agreed to, so he handed me the GPS and explained how it works. It’s not very complicated, you just have to point it south and walk in that direction, checking it every so often and keeping it warm. He also explained to me where my shadow should be relative to the time of day, which was actually an easier and quicker check.
So, off we headed. Everyone was feeling really good and really strong, and we just headed off. I think I finally got it, being in front and looking at the entire vista of the landscape with no one in front of me was just extraordinary. I really drank in it’s unbelievable beauty, and for once nothing was too hot, nothing was too cold, nothing was hurting, the sled and I were one, and I just sort of romped along, endorphins popped, angels sang and I thought “I get it. I finally get it!!!”
So it was a spectacular day, I really really enjoyed myself, really enjoyed having the brain engaged and riding up front, as well as being responsible for making sure the group wasn’t going too slow or too fast. We had a bit of excitement during the day, because it was a bit warmer, we would hear a loud crack, and feel the snow beneath us drop. It only ever dropped a tiny bit, but it had that feeling of an elevator dropping. Keith
explained that there was 2 miles of ice below us, but it was just settling. That happened about four or five times, but we felt the drop three times.
So it was a stunning, awesome fabulous day. We did four pushes and arrived at camp in really good time. As I was skiing along, I was also thinking about climate change, and how pristine and how gorgeous this divine landscape is, and how privileged we are to have this gorgeous freezer at the bottom of our earth with another matching one at the top, and how we must take care of it. Apart from it’s beauty, it’s also so clear, there’s a real clarity of vision. Colours are brighter, when I look at our team, with our red and orange and blue, it’s as if I have a new lens, a new pair of glasses on. Everything is so bright, and the air here is so clear and so clean, it’s something we really have to respect.
So we had a gorgeous day, and pulled up into camp just in time, because as soon as we got our tents set up, there was the most unbelievable white-out and the temperature dropped to about -25° C and there is a very fierce wind flapping at our tent from outside. So hopefully it blows itself out before our next push tomorrow.
Today was a glorious, magnificent, unreal, fabulous day, and Wendy and I are currently enjoying our tent time, where we talk non-stop and laugh non-stop. So it’s been a fabulous, fabulous day.
After a freezing night in tents with howling winds, we woke up to a relatively balmy -20° C with a gentle breeze of 2-3 knots. After melting snow to boil water, having breakfast, collapsing the tents and packing the sleds, we headed off again under a brilliant blue sky.
One foot in front of another in a vast sea of white. Skiing towards the ever elusive horizon. It’s a hard slog, the sleds are heavy and the cold zaps our energy. It’s a game of endurance. It’s also a game of self preservation, making sure not a tiny bit of skin is exposed for fear of frostbite, as well as ensuring that we are dressed with enough layers.
Other teams have heroic names like Cas and Jonesy “Crossing the Ice” (I really admire those guys, what an epic expedition), or “Great Polar Express” or “Shackleton’s Reenactment,” but I’ve been teaching the team a little bit of yiddish, and we’ve agreed our team name is “Schlepping the Sleds”!!!
Given that there are no land markings or anything to mark the distance we’ve travelled as there is nothing - nada - zip - zero, we’ve taken to measuring distance in different ways. Every 2500 steps we take a rest break, which takes approximately one to one and a half hours. Wendy and I listen to our iPods and count 25 songs.
In the relentless monotony of our long march, I even found myself chatting to my shadow, sort of like Tom Hanks and that volleyball, Wilson. After 6 hours schlepping the sleds, we arrived at camp, which looked identical to the camp we had just left 6 hours before. This is polar groundhog day!
And it’s really hard work!
If any of you would like to show your support to Schlepping the Sleds, it would be great if you could visit the charitable foundations on the right sidebar of my blog and show your support to them.
We woke up this morning to bright blue skies, bright sunshine and quite a stiff wind,. We were all feeling a bit better having acclimatised a little to the higher altitude and thin air and even a little to the cold. So we rugged up and headed off on the next part of our journey to the south pole.
As we headed off across the plateau, in the bright sunlight, wherever you looked, forwards, backwards, left or right, all you could see was flat white heading up to the blue horizon. It was almost like being on a big white flat plate, covered by a bright blue dome. And of course because there are no landmarks, it feels like you’re not really going anywhere. It’s almost like being on a big white treadmill.
You’re working, working very hard, pushing yourself, hauling the sleds, and also the extreme cold zaps your energy. So it’s just one foot in front of another, it really is like a treadmill (or one of those elliptical machines) because you’re skiing for 2 hours at a time, but you end up in the same place you began!
So the day looked something like this, we headed off, we ski for about an hour and a half, have about a 10 minute break, and do it all again another 2-3 times depending on the day. It’s actually quite funny, because as you’re heading in towards the break you think “Thank god, we’re about to have a break, I can eat and drink!” But as soon as you stop, you think “Oh my god, I have to start skiing again, this is just way too cold!”
Our position is 89 1 1.852 South 85 3 7 West, see you tomorrow!
Today was our first day hauling the sleds along the polar plateau. The plateau has an elevation of about 2800 metres above sea level, but due to the really cold air mass, the effective air pressure elevation is much higher than this, so it feels like we are at a higher altitude.
So we took it a bit easier today, it was slow going, the beautiful sunlight of yesterday has gone and it is overcast and grey, so all before us was the white of the snow and the grey of the sky. Looking from every direction, all we could see was the grey horizon. The temperature was -27°C, with a light breeze, so we were in full balaclava and face masks, trying to deal with various digits as the tried to freeze!
So we hauled our sleds, and skied for about 6 nautical miles today. At times skiing and hauling the sleds behind was relatively easy. You could hear the sound of the snow all around you, and the sound of your skis gliding on the snow, your poles keeping time with your legs and the sound of your sled behind you. Some times it was pretty easy going, and other times your sled would veer left and right and feeling very heavy, almost like a supermarket trolley at times!
I’ve had plenty of time to think (maybe too much time), and I think it’s almost a metaphor for life. We all have our burdens, and we can take them easily, and just keep moving along, looking at the horizon, or we battle with them, as they bounce around behind our knees. Maybe I’ve had too much time on my own, thinking.
We’ve arrived in camp, it’s quite cold because there’s no sun out, as it is overcast. We set up our tents, gathered snow and have been furiously melting water and trying to get warm and rehydrated, because tomorrow is going to be a big day.
From the polar plateau, goodnight, and wish us luck for our big push tomorrow.
Join Cheryl Bart as she skis to the south pole. Daily blogs via sat phone from 3 January 2012
The Mawson’s Huts Foundation looks to the past and celebrates one of the most extraordinary Australians…Sir Douglas Mawson. At school, we were barely taught about him (or indeed other extraordinary Australians like Sir John Monash), and it’s time we celebrated his outstanding contribution to Australia’s history. The Foundation aims to raise awareness of his scientific, conservation, and exploration achievements and to preserve the historic huts that are the birthplace of Australia’s Antarctic heritage. 
