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32 Antarctica High spirits A kiting adventure in the heart of Antarctica culminates in a rare summit of The Spectre, a prominent spire in the Gothic Mountains. Story and photography by Mark Sedon — January/February 2019 33 January/February 2019 — 34 Antarctica THE RADIO CRACKLED INTO LIFE. IT WAS kite, ski, climb, can take two months off without ICY DEPTHS Leo, panic in his voice. pay, has Antarctic experience, photography and Jean Burgun in a crevasse, helping to “My pulk’s in a crevasse and is pulling me cinematography skills, and can join at such short extricate Leo Houlding’s pulk. towards it, HELP.” notice?” he said. It was the call we’d been dreading. A pulk is Coincidentally, I was returning from guiding a type of toboggan, and ours were full of climbing a ski tour on the Antarctica Peninsula, to Ushuaia, Leo, French kiter Jean Burgun and myself and camping gear, kites and enough food for up Argentina, just a few hours bus ride from their were heading on the adventure of a lifetime: to 70 days in Antarctica. Weighing nearly 200 team’s meeting point in Chile, on the day their a 10-week, 1,700-kilometre kite-ski and kilograms each, they were easy enough to pull trip started. man-hauling expedition to climb one of the most behind us across the ice with a kite, but swinging “I can,” I casually said, not expecting him to remote mountains on earth, Te Spectre. below in free space, they were a literal deadweight. take me seriously. The trip cost US$350,000 – with a pre-paid He gave me an appraising look, then simply rescue bond of US$100,000 on top – all of which * * * said “You’re in!” Leo had raised through sponsors and supporters. Even so, we’d had to economise. With another Leo is Leo Houlding, a professional climber and * * * US$100,000 we could have fown to the mountain, adventurer from Britain. He’d been speaking at but instead we planned to use kites to pull us the the 2017 New Zealand Mountain Film Festival In early November 2017, we flew from Punta last 350 kilometres there, then all the way back in Wanaka, which I organise. We were catching Arenas, Chile to Antarctica on a chartered to Union Glacier. That meant kiting upwind at up over a beer when he got bad news. The third Russian Ilyushin jet, landing at Union Glacier least some of the way, something never before member of his team bound for a kiting and Camp on a blue-ice runway. So polished is the ice attempted with such heavy loads. climbing expedition to Antarctica had to pull out from a millennium of Antarctic winds, we could Afer a few days sorting food and re-packing to spend time with his terminally ill father. hardly stand upright as we stepped off the plane gear, on November 20 we boarded a Twin Otter “Where can I possibly fnd someone who can into a fresh -15˚C. to fly on as far towards our goal as we could get. — January/February 2019 35 SCENES FROM THE SNOWS Far left: The author, flanked by Jean Burgun (left) and Leo Houlding. Left: Houlding packing up. A stove fare-up could melt our tent, or a gust of wind could rip it apart, and we’d not survive for very long. Our tent was a fragile cocoon, like a lunar capsule, protecting us from certain death in the intensely hostile atmosphere outside. On day fve the clouds parted, and the winds eased to 20-25 knots. In bitter cold we rigged up our nine-metre Ozone kites knowing that we’d be over-powered, but that they were the smallest we First we made a four-hour hop to what must be of the journey sunk in. had. Te heavy pulks needed a fair bit of power to the most remote gas station in the world, Thule As we set up the tent in bitter cold, I noticed get started but we had eight-metre traces on them Corner, which consists simply of several barrels of a few thin clouds on the horizon and told the so that if we crashed, the pulk would hopefully aviation fuel buried in the snow. others: “Looks like a storm brewing”. Tey looked stop, or at least slow down before running us over “Nothing is easy down here,” said our pilot up at a near-perfect blue sky and then back at me, like a speed bump. We also tied knots in the rope, in a thick Canadian accent, as he bashed at the clearly thinking I was nuts. a standard glacier travel technique, so that if a frozen fuel cap on a barrel with a steel wrench in I was keen to make sure it was only the pulk fell in a crevasse, the knot might catch in the an attempt to open it. His voice stuck with us and beauty and serenity of the Polar Plateau that blew snow and keep us from being pulled in. we would repeat his phrase almost daily on our us away, so we finished with the tent as fast as Jean launched first while I filmed and was journey ahead. possible. Then, the cold seeping into our layers, promptly hoisted several metres off the ground, We flew onwards, the pilot taking us close we dived in to brew up dinner. before getting the kite under control. Leo went to ‘the point of no return’, where he had to turn Sure enough, I woke during the night into a next and was hoisted even higher. back or risk running out of fuel. There he set us full-blown Antarctic storm as 40-knot gusts drove We kited for three to four hours that first down on bumpy hardpack. We were 3,000 metres snow near-horizontally into our tent. I knew how day, moving quickly over the rough snow, and above sea level and 200 kilometres from the weird this was: the Polar Plateau is a desert and it sometimes encountering metre-high sastrugi. South Pole. Te cold smacked us in the face as we barely snows all year. We’d had our frst lesson in Sastrugi is a wind-etched snow formation as hard disembarked. It was -35˚C, with 10-15 knots of not making assumptions about the conditions. as wood, frozen into waves that would sometimes wind. It was galling to contemplate the months of After breakfast we went outside to check on flip our pulks if we hit them too fast, or at an this – and doubtless worse – that lay ahead. We the tent and gear, and shoot some footage for the angle. A flipped pulk meant side-stepping or had to steel ourselves to not turn round and get movie we were making of our trip. Filming with kiting back to right it, which when we were so back on board. down mittens in temperatures approaching -60˚C over-powered wasn’t easy as the kite was always We unloaded the plane and then the pilot with wind chill is not much fun, but we kept our trying to drag us in the opposite direction. waved goodbye and few of back to the comforts spirits up with jokes and banter – banter that drew We still had much to learn– and afer a while of Union Glacier. I had to fght down the urge to thin as the storm then raged on for four days. We my goggles froze up reducing my vision to a panic as the sense of isolation and the magnitude all understood the precariousness of our situation. blurry haze. I got on the radio and told the others GOOD TIMES AND BAD Winds that were helpful while kiting took the windchill way down when trying to rest. January/February 2019 — 36 Antarctica — January/February 2019 37 I had to stop and I ejected my kite. Unfortunately day we’d set out in high hopes, every evening It was about day eight when things really the others were in the same position and we crawling, completely spent and beaten up into our spiced up. We were kiting down from the Polar ended up 500 metres apart, causing us to spend tents. It became known as the ‘Spectre spanking’! Plateau, slowly losing height when the terrain an hour dragging the pulks together into what ‘Nothing is easy… ,’ as the man said. in front of us dropped out of sight. The surface became a hastily convened camp. Still we were We had 8,000-metre down suits to keep our turned to concrete-hard blue ice with car-sized stoked to have got moving afer the storm. bodies warm but despite ski boots three sizes ridges and truck-swallowing crevasses. I had an From then on, we covered as much ground too large, lined with special liners and with a idea of what was ahead and called Leo on the as we could each day. The winds were stronger neoprene over-boot, our feet ofen got really cold. radio to say we must be off route, as this looked than anticipated. We’d been told about polar Frostbite was a real concern. “I can’t feel my toes,” like an icefall. Te wind was strong, over 25 knots high-pressure systems that give clear skies and said Jean one morning and I quickly laid his bare and we couldn’t stop, the kites lifting us off the 10-12 knots. But we were battling 20-plus knots feet on my stomach for 30 minutes to re-warm ground if we few them overhead.

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