People Die Out Here

I stepped out into a blinding light, into the whitest world under an impossibly blue sky. The naked sun seared me right through my polarized goggles. The next thing that hit was a cold so deep and complete it was surreal. My first breaths torched my throat and chilled my lungs. It was cold from another dimension, from an ice planet in a distant galaxy. And this was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. *

She's an achiever, little doubt about that. Meagan McGrath on a year's leave from the Canadian Forces where she is a major, is now in Chile, awaiting a flight home to Canada. She has, on her own, managed to ski to her destination, the South Pole. When she had started out on her trip from Hercules Inlet on the coast of Antarctica in early December she had fallen into a crevasse, and was unable to extricate herself without assistance. After her rescue by a team from Patriot Hills, she took time off for introspection, to determine whether she felt herself prepared to continue.

Finally, the conclusion she reached was that she would go on. She completed her Antarctic Odyssey of 28 kilometres on January 15th 2010, having set off on her original trek on December 1st of 2009. It was, in fact, on her second day out that she had fallen into the crevasse. Her confidence in her ability to resume her odyssey led her to set out again. "I shut out the world for a few days and tried to make my own decision about whether I wanted to carry on. And I carried on, and it seemed to be the right decision."

She finally caught sight of the South Pole base roughly six kilometres distance over the horizon on her penultimate day of solo skiing. Having arrived, she was congratulated and treated to a hot cup of tea and cookies. The day she arrived at her destination the temperature stood at -36-degrees, with a whipping wind. This determined women demonstrated to herself and the watching world that she was able to surmount loneliness, fatigue, extreme cold and the literal unknown on her way to achieving yet another life-time goal.

Ms. McGrath pulled two sleds, each weighing roughly 200 pounds, while carrying about 40 pounds of fuel and supplies on her back. She skied about ten to twelve hours each day. Some of the challenges she faced included white-outs and diminished battery charge due to the lack of sunlight. She was in limited contact throughout with the South Pole Expedition Agency, Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, reporting her status. A slight cold slightly hampered her progress as she made the final push for the Geographic South Pole, crossing the 89th Degree.

After a few stabbing gulps of thin air I was quickly reminded that I had gained almost two miles in altitude during the three-hour flight from McMurdo. While the plateau was flat as a griddle, it was also as high as the Austrian Alps. The South Pole Station rests on a nine-thousand-foot thick slab of ice soaring ninety-three hundred feet above sea level. I immediately felt light-headed, lead-footed, and slightly nauseated, but I still had to drag my bags and the cooler of vaccines to the Dome. I forced my body to move, even though it felt like I could not.*

"I have shown I'm able, quite capable and knowledgeable about how to function in a polar environment. So I was really happy with that side of things", she said. She also mentioned that the hardships she had faced and overcome had reminded her of the struggles of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and other early Antarctica explorers. "When I think of these guys, I think, 'What drove them to want to do this so badly?' Because back then, of course, it was so much more difficult. They challenges they must have faced. Holy crap, you know? People die out here."

And they did. They hadn't the space-age technology available to them back then that modern-day adventurers do now. The high-tech gear, the warm clothing, the speciality foods. They attempted to estimate where they were, they had no GPS devices, no satellite telephones, no way where they could conceivably communicate their status, and their dire situations, requiring emergency assistance. None of which takes away from this woman's feat of courage and strength and creative ability.

The effects of chronic hypoxia, a syndrome caused by oxygen starvation, and hypothermia at the Pole have never been adequately studied. Since enzymes and coenzymes work properly only at certain temperatures, it would be interesting to find out what happens to the chemical reactions in our bodies when our core temperature never rises above ninety-seven degrees, as seems to be the case here.

The history books call the times of Scott and Amundsen and Shackleton the Age of Heroes - an age that ended with Shackleton's fatal heart attack in 1922. But there were still heroes on the Ice: They were here, battling fire and deadly cold to keep us all safe, or for that matter, flying into the deep Antarctic night to drop a precious cargo into a small crescent of burning barrels. * (Ice Bound - a doctor's incredible battle for survival at the South Pole. Dr. Jerry Nielsen.