Field Notes: The Traverse to the Pole

In 2003, one of the biggest stories for Antarcticans was the construction of a 1400-km "ice traverse" from the American McMurdo Station to the South Pole. I wound up writing very little about this track in the final version of THE ENTIRE EARTH AND SKY: Views on Antarctica, and that was a difficult choice. On one hand, the discussion of this track dominated talk at Gateway Antarctica during November and December of that year. On the other hand, the project crept along, plagued by the problems posed by Antarctica to "track builders" -- ie shifting ice, deep crevasses, extreme cold, and very little was really known about the implications of the track for the larger environment.

There was also the feeling that the ascendancy of Antarctica as the key lab for monitoring global climate change meant figuring out ways to gain better access to more its formidable interior. More scientists on the ice would mean more information and maybe a better fix on how the Earth's atmosphere is changing, or has changed in the past.

I try to keep a balanced view of so-called progress in the name of science. However. It was stunning to me that whole features of the ice -- crevasses for instance -- had been modified using explosives. This "filling in" was heartbreaking to imagine. Yet when the Americans came and talked about their scheme, they argued that the track allowed them important options for better science -- and negated the reliance on planes as the sole way to the South Pole.

It was reported that airplanes pumped out more carbon dioxide and other pollutants than the track vehicles would. In 2003, the US made 293 polar flights, to the station that sits on the ice on top of the pole. They also needed the traverse to backload old gear -- and not leave it laying about in a junk heap.

As I considered this icy thruway, it struck that a little less than 100 years earlier, Roald Amundsen led the first successful expedition to the pole. In the ensuing years, the Antarctic interior remained as pristine as he found it. There are fewer than 4,000 people in the summer months, and they cling to the coast lines for the most part. Imagine this on a continent nearly twice the size of Australia or the size of the US and Mexico combined.

The term "sparse" doesn't begin to cover. It's just wide open green and blue ice ripped across by katabatic winds.

In winter, the population dwindles to about 1,000 and the ice doubles in size, making the whole place -- land with ice covering -- twice its summer size. Ninety-eight percent of the continent is covered with a permanent ice coating. Seventy percent of the Earth's fresh water is contained in this ice.

And yet, this ice track felt like some sort of essential defeat to the wilderness. Here we go, I heard one scientist say. First they blast their way across the ice to make their track, then they continue to use their bloody planes anyway. And the whole place is ripped with the sound of engines.

Rather a dire view, but something to consider.

In 2005, the first vehicles arrived at the pole on the traverse. It is described as establishing a "proof of concept" that indeed, one can make and maintain an ice road in Antarctica. The focus in 2007 seemed to be repairing and maintaining the traverse -- remember the ice flows down from the South Pole to the coast. It is in constant, slow motion, gently shifting with the cycles of the moon, they have learned.

So here we are five years after the big, loud debate about the road -- simply Google US traverse to south pole and you will find the press coverage from around the world.

Things happen slowly in general around Antarctic projects -- so much staging, so much time needed simply to stay alive down there.

As Bryan Storey, the noted Antarctic geologist and head of Gateway Antarctica once noted, Antarctica decides what you get to do once you get there.

Interesting place to stop for a moment and ponder the ice and all its mysteries.

10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ANTARCTICA

What a great day for Antarctic news: The last supply ship in dumped off about 16,000 condoms to make it through the winter. Good on ya, mates, as my Kiwi colleagues say. The first part of THE ENTIRE EARTH AND SKY is a "gazetteer" of Antarctic facts. And then there are facts strewn around the book. How about this one: 46,800 cans of beer are ordered each year for Scott Base, the New Zealand base in the Ross Sea. (Wine, you ask? 2,268 bottles.) At any rate, I plan to include fact lists each week over the austral winter, in honor of our colleagues toughing it out in the 24-hour darkness of the deep south. While some might call such lists random, there is also an argument that all of these ideas were carefully selected from the tens of millions floating around out there -- do you see the link?

1) Antarctica is the only continent where people compete on an annual basis for the chance to reside and work there.
2) Antarctica was once the center of the Gondwana supercontinent, which included Africa, India, South America, and Australia.
3) 98 percent of the continent is covered by ice; with a volume of 30 million cubic kilometres.
4) The weight of the ice has depressed continental bedrock by 600 meters.
5) Antarctica contains 70 percent of the Earth's fresh water in the form of ice.
6) When winter darkness descends, the community shrinks to 1,000.
7) Ice crept across Antarctica about 40 million years ago and has remained largely intact since then.
8) On Nov. 29, 1929, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd of the U.S. Navy became first to fly over the South Pole.
9) At the South Pole, the ice is 2.8 kilometers thick.
10) People who live and work at the South Pole are called "polies."