XC Ski-ing in Antarctica

Hey guys! I've had a wicked busy day on Tuesday my time, Monday your time. Today was so intense and busy I'm breaking this post up and only covering half of what I did! The beginning is more XMAS related and of course, you know that I will have an entry dedicated to that. So around lunch time, I met up with 4 other guys from the firehouse. We decided to rent XC (Cross Country) skis and do one of the trails around here, actually the biggest trail around here. The trail is known as the Castle Rock trail, and it is 9.3 miles or so.
With this trail, one must go through all the safety checks and procedures before embarking on it. This trail has claimed several lives because it is prone to crevasses off and around the trail. Our group filed an "E-foot plan" and grabbed two radios from the firehouse and set our checkout and check in time. This was only my second time doing XC, so I was a bit rusty. Well actually, I was very rusty, but I did get the hang of it eventually. The trail starts off of the hut point loop and loops around from McMurdo to Castle Rock and then to Happy Camper area and then to Scott Base rd. The whole trail should take the average person in between 5-6 hours to complete. We had several people who were in our group that this was their first or only second time doing XC, so we were hoping to complete the whole trail in 7 hours.

Along the trail every 3 miles or so are "Apples". Unfortunately they are not the delicious and nutritious fruit we are a custom to. These are better, they are small shelters that are filled with supplies, so if one had to survive in bad weather they could. There have been several cases where a bad storm has rolled through mid-hike for people, so they just hunker down in the Apples until the storm passes. The Apple has several days worth of food, blankets, sleeping bags and of course, a stove and a phone. The Apple is useful to get out of the wind and the cold. Our group had a snack in one of them and we talked for a little bit while we warmed up. It was good to have a little break during our hike.







The next part of the trail was wicked steep. I don't think this photo does it justice, but you will have to take my word on it I suppose. If you haven't ever climbed a steep hill in XC ski's, you are very fortunate. It was a great workout because you can't have your ski's parallel to the hill or else you start to side down. Once we hit the top of the hill/the bottom of Castle Rock, we celebrated. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I am an eagle scout. And the Boy Scout motto is "Always be prepared", so of course I brought beer. We each had a celebratory beer and began our decent. I will try to get the photo up here. We had Tui, which is pretty decent New Zealand Beer. Since we don't have access to American beers, with the exception of Bass, I have grown a custom and really like New Zealand beer now.
The hill, on the way down, was very steep. I was taking my time when I took a spill and lost my ski. No joke, I literally lost my white ski. I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but honestly people. White Skis? Who makes these? Don't they realize that you may fall down and loose the ski, in the WHITE SNOW. God that is like flying a white plane in a snowy white continent...*Ahem* South African Airforce *Ahem* Anyway, back to my story. So I fell, and my binding came loose and my ski decided to travel down the hill, all the way down the hill. We believe it went over a mile away. I would normally just walk off the trail to retrieve my crazy runaway ski, but we were in a crevasse zone. Mostly a lot of the crevasses are hidden in this area. A couple are marked by black flags which basically alert you that there is a crevasse in the immediate vicinity and you are taking your life into your own hands if you stray off the trail. This is also the reason why there have been so many deaths on this trail. Some people in the early 90's decided to take a short cut back to town, and they didn't make it.
So, in the interest of my personal safety I decided that this harsh continent has claimed yet another ski from McMurdo's Gear Issue Dept. I walked the rest of the way, and did a little one leg ski-ing. It was funny to follow my trail because it would go "Heel kick, heel kick, heel kick, toe kick glide". That was what the rest of the hike was like for me. Fun Fun stuff, let me tell you.

The views were great on this hike, I really can't stress that enough. Once you go out of McMurdo the shear vastness of the entire area grabs you. I do miss colors, but the beauty of the white snow is breathe taking. My favorite part of the Castle Rock trail, besides the Castle Rock itself, was the Kiwi ski hill. I'm telling you if things continue on the downward spiral in the US, I'm moving to New Zealand. Those guys know how to have fun and get the job done. The Kiwi's installed their very own downhill ski area, complete with a rope tow. Americans can only go and downhill ski if they are invited by Kiwi personnel. I would love to downhill ski on the ski hill, it looked like a lot of fun. The Hike continued all the way to the Happy Camper area and then to Scott base Rd. Can't really say much about that portion because it was pretty standard.

I think that this was one of the best hikes ever down here. I got to do it with a good group of people, and we had a lot of fun goofing off with our skis. And this hike has brought me one step closer to doing all the trails that they offer here. Once I complete all the trails here I'm buying a T shirt that has a map of the entire area's trails...yea basically this all boils down to me wanting to have bragging rights with a T shirt, I'm selfish like that. And Hiking is wicked fun, with the right people. I think I might try to get back into that when I get back in MA.


We'll that's all I have to say now. Don't worry there will be a Christmas Post to follow shortly this week. Oh and to all my jewish readers out there, Happy Hanukkah.


Happy Hanukkah, from all the Penguins here at McMurdo