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Are you dreaming of a white(out) Christmas?
Photography By Molly Loomis
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Christmas in Antarctica. It sounds like a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie waiting to happen: a cheery carol about the joys of walking in the ultimate winter wonderland, or a pageant where an igloo takes the place of the manger. But what happens when the actors are unwilling participants? When it feels more like an episode of Lost than a line from “’Tis the Season to be Jolly”?
I once heard my boss at the expedition company I work for say that the most challenging part of our job is not transporting people to Antarctica and then guiding them to the likes of the South Pole, penguin colonies, or the summit of Antarctica’s highest peak, Mt. Vinson. Nor is the hardest part hosting an international marathon or searching for meteorites. What’s most challenging is simply putting Type A personalities in a Type B environment. Regardless of what rung our clients occupy on the corporate ladder back home, in Antarctica it is nature that reigns. For many, an Antarctic storm may be the first time in their lives that they can’t buy their way out of a situation.
The following is a tale about a group of strangers stuck in Antarctica for Christmas and the unlikely ways the holiday spirit can persevere to cross an ocean, through a raging storm, and over expanses of barren ice—surviving all the way to Patriot Hills, Antarctica.
This storm starts with a gentle wind from the south. During breaks, the kitchen staff, a group of accomplished kite skiers from Norway, unfurl their sails and rip back and forth across the sastrugi, as the wind-formed ridges of hard snow are known. Meanwhile, approximately twenty marathon runners recuperate in the dining tent, recounting their 26.2-mile tour of the Patriot Hills, grateful they’d had the fortune to run in calm conditions. A group of Japanese, intent on collecting countries (181 is the record held by one of them), keeps busy playing cards.
The flight from Patriot Hills back to Punta Arenas, Chile, isn’t scheduled for another three days, but already the wind is a concern. Patriot Hills’ runway is a two-mile-long patch of blue ice scoured clean by a crosswind. The wind is a mixed blessing. Sure, it keeps the runway clear of snow, but when the crosswind gusts at over twenty-five knots, the plane, a hulking Russian cargo jet, cannot land.
Departure is scheduled for December 16th. Without the cover of night to distinguish one day from the next—it’s light twenty-four hours a day in Antarctica at this time of year—the date slips by with little fanfare. Delays are the norm here rather than the exception, so I know better than to worry. I’ve guided in Antarctica long enough to have developed comfort with the undercurrent of uncertainty that permeates every aspect of life, yet as the days creep by I can’t help but wonder. It’s not Christmas I’m concerned about, but my dear friend Maria’s wedding. Although I’ve allowed a twelve-day cushion, I’m not sure it will be enough....(Continued)
