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Cecilie Skog at one of the crevasses in The Devil’s Dance Floor (click to enlarge)
Cecilie and Ryan “greeted by a beautiful ring of brilliant light”. Above live images over Contact 4.0 courtesy of humanedgetech.com/expedition/an2009 (click to enlarge)
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Antarctic wrap-up: Cecilie and Ryan on The Devil’s Dance Floor; Meagan expected at the South Pole
Posted: Jan 15, 2010 11:47 am EST
Cecilie Skog and Ryan Waters encountered monster crevasses on the high Antarctic Plateau beyond the South Pole. They did the conservative thing and backtracked.
Solo woman Meagan McGrath is due to arrive at the South Pole today or tomorrow.
Unassisted, Unsupported
Cecilie Skog and Ryan Waters
– Berkner Island Start
Cecilie and Ryan is heading towards the Ross Ice Shelf on their crossing of Antarctica.
Ryan explained about this massive crevasse field “affectionately known as The Devil's Dance Floor”
“We knew it was out there and tried to avoid the area by staying West of our bearing.”
But they hit “the vast area of huge crevasses that has given pause to Amundsen, and worried every other explorer to get near this location.”
So they did the conservative thing, Ryan continued, “and backtracked out of The Dance Floor, being cautious and end running the whole section. Too close now for careless mistakes.”
He said they had positive days recently, even skiing 41.4 km in one day.
Ryan reported the and Cecilie are “skiing their butts off… literally.” He said there is not much left of them after so many days of constant calorie burning. They have been skiing since 13 November 2009.
“We take in several thousand calories but are always thinking of food.”
Position 14 January 2010:
86.2683S,168.1634W
Meagan McGrath – solo, Patriot Hills
The last time that Meagan has left a voice report was 11 January. At that stage she entered the last degree of latitude with 110 km to go.
She said she had a bit of trouble breathing because of a chest infection and was looking forward to going home. She explained how different the Arctic and Antarctic terrain is.
Other expeditions: Antarctic Peninsula
Cristian Donoso, and Sebastian Roca
The climb, ski and kayak guys reported being their forth day in cloudy conditions and had to navigate by compass on a glacier. They encountered crevasses, winds and dense fog.
Last Degree expeditions
Several news sources report incorrectly that a 17-year old British girl “became the youngest person to ski to the South Pole” and “broke 18-year-old Canadian Sarah McNair-Landry's record set five years ago”.
Katie Walter was part of Mike Thornewill’s “Shackleton’s Unfinished Journey”. They flew more than 80% of the route to the South Pole, or as the team dispatched, “five hours with the Twin Otter”, before they strapped on their skies to ski about 180 km to the Pole. The team took 10 days to complete the journey.
Skiing to the South Pole is regarded as from the coast to the Pole; a difficult expedition that normally requires 40-60 days of hard skiing.
Five years ago 18-year old Sarah McNair-Landry’s team mates were her 20-year-old brother, her mother and two friends of the family.
They skied unassisted and unsupported 1,130 km from the coast, Hercules Inlet, to the South Pole in 51 days; no help from pilots in planes. To top that, they turned around and kited back to the coast – a total of 70 days on the ice.
Sarah McNair-Landry remains the youngest person to ski to the South Pole.
Links to ski teams:
Unassisted, Unsupported
Cecilie Skog and Ryan Waters (Norway and USA) Berkner Island Start
Meagan McGrath (Canada) Patriot Hills
Morten Grundsøe and Jens Erik Nielsen (Denmark) Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf / Messner Start (Finished)
Assisted, Unsupported
ANI Hercules Inlet team Eric Larsen (guide, USA, correction, not Canada as reported), Dongsheng Liu (Canada) and Bill Hanlon (Ireland/Canada) (Finished)
Julio Fiadi (Brazil), Hercules Inlet Start, no updates
Kaspersky Commonwealth team Felicity Aston (United Kingdom, leader), Dk Najibah Eradah binti P. A. M. Al-Sufri Pg M-L Kahar or ‘Era’ (Brunei Darussalam), Stephanie Solomonides (Cyprus), Helen Turton (UK), Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu (India), Kim-Marie Spence (Jamaica), Kylie Wakelin (New Zealand) and Sophia Pang (Singapore) – Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf / Messner Start (Finished)
ANI Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf team Hannah McKeand (guide, UK) and Arnold Witzig (Swiss/Canada) (Finished)
Other expeditions: Antarctic Peninsula
Cristian Donoso and Sebastian Roca (Chile)
Last Degree of Latitude expeditions:
Shackleton’s Unfinished Journey (UK)
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