What an adventure!This is an adventure. It’s an incredible adventure. We’re tired and we’re cold, and we won’t pretend we rejoice every time our skipoles hit the snow. But the big picture is that we are both humbled and grateful to be experiencing these days.
“HH & Bj. had found an excellent route up the glacier. There were many crevasses and chasms, but we found good bridges everywhere.”– Amundsen on this day 100 years ago (Read more …) 
It’s only a few days since we saw the first subtle hints of land. Now the Transantarctic Mountain Range covers most of the horizon in the south. Like a film set they loom up slowly in front of us, becoming a spectacular panorama. The world’s widest widescreen. The only thing missing is the soundtrack. We have no difficulty imagining how exciting this must have been for the first person who came here. From where we now stand, the mountain range looks like an impenetrable barrier blocking the way to the South Pole. Amundsen had no way of knowing if it was possible to find a path forward. We don’t have that uncertainty to deal with. As the day progressed, the wind fell to dead calm, the snow glittered and the temperature was actually pleasant. Today we skied 36 km. Position: S 84 10.255, W 163 35.243
Temperature: -16°C Wind: calm Distance traversed: 36 km Distance behind Amundsen: 179 km Did you know that Oscar Wisting was the 'seamstress' of Amundsens's South Pole expedition?
Oscar Adolf Wisting (1871–1936) was head-hunted for the expedition to the South Pole after having test-flown kites designed to lift a man. |
South Pole 1911–2011 is an informational outreach project run by the Norwegian Polar Institute
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