Everyday Things at the Bottom of the World: Part Three

 

The one item of clothing that I was most glad I decided to fit into my personal kitbag for Antarctica this season was a pair of cycling bib shorts. At first glance a strange choice, perhaps. Antarctica is not a place you typically associate with going for a bike ride. In fact, in previous years I have reluctantly all but given up any ideas of cycling when at Rothera. I’ve reverted to running, or at least tried to – those comical first weeks of the legs trying to remember how to run again after a summer in the Lake District attached to a bicycle. Each year I have all good intentions of trying to keep up some cycling fitness, but there are only so many times you can bear to sit on the Watt Bike in a windowless, sweaty gym and do a virtual cycle up Box Hill (even if there is a poster of Mont Ventoux on the wall). I find exercising indoors to be largely soulless. I’d always much rather be out in the elements. In fact, my favourite conditions for runway running at Rothera are the snowy and incredibly windy days. It’s the most immersed in the landscape I feel when I’m down there. It can all seem a little too far out of reach on a perfectly calm, blue-sky day. But when the wind blows, it feels as if the continent itself reaches into the depths of your soul – and you experience the full wonder of life flowing through your veins. Although, I must admit, that if I were to go cycling in similar conditions it would feel utterly miserable and deeply cold. My hands and feet, while able to stay toasty warm when running, become like blocks of ice in no time at all on the bike. Which is why, despite there being a selection of hardtail mountain bikes and fat bikes available for recreation on station, I have largely avoided it in the past (save for a couple of laps of the runway in good weather).

Snowy runway running 

Something had changed though. My love of cycling has become almost insatiable over the past few years. I no longer consider myself a runner or even a footballer. And my big dream of this season was to cycle around the flagline on a fat bike. The flagline is a 13km loop on a snowy expanse up above station. The flags indicate the area in which it is safe to travel – outside of the flags lie crevasses, yawning, ice blue beneath a thick covering of snow. A few years ago, I got the opportunity to explore a crevasse on a rec trip. My imagination had not conceived just how vast and scary they are – I was at genuine risk of pooping my pants when I stepped back and abseiled over the edge.

Abseiling down a crevasse 

But, despite the hazards that lurk just beyond, the flagline is a place of wonderful escapism, safety, and solace. It is a chance to step away and to float above the busyness and intensity of station life for a while. Even just making it to the top of the ramp and looking back down on the clutter of buildings and human activity puts an interesting perspective on it all. You can suddenly see the entirety of your world from the outside, and you marvel at how that which so often seems everything now just features as a small part of your vision as you take in the vastness of the sea and the mountains that surround. From the top of the ramp, you travel along a corridor of flags known as the Traverse. To your left is the rocky and dragon like outcrops of Reptile Ridge, and to your right the snow drops away to ice cliffs and the sea below. I had run along here many times before, and had sometimes gone on Nordic Skis, but I had never taken a bike.

The Rothera Traverse 

After a while the corridor of flags opens out and you reach the start of the loop known as the flagline. If I were setting out to attempt the full loop, I would always go in an anti-clockwise direction. There is no rule about the direction of travel around the flagline, only the habits we develop and then impose upon ourselves as the most unbreakable of rules.

Out on the Flagline. Between heaven and earth. 

The early season brought with it the tail end of winter storms, and it was a while before the conditions were anywhere near safe or favourable enough to head round the flagline on a bike. From a safety point of view, you needed to have, at the very minimum, a six-flag bubble of visibility – you must be able to see three flags in front of you, and three flags behind. There was also a wind speed limit to going up the ramp and beyond. In terms of favourable conditions for cycling – you wanted the snow to be as firm as possible, and the best time to go would usually be early morning after a night where the temperatures had remained below zero. You also hoped that a skidoo might have recently headed up the hill so as to compact the snow. As the summer progressed and the daytime temperatures rose above freezing, sometimes to as much as five degrees, the snow would become slushy and practically unrideable. On one such occasion I found myself running and slipping along the Traverse whilst pushing my bike until sense overcame my stubbornness and I gave it up as a bad idea. I needed to be patient, and I also needed to be committed to getting up early enough to make the most of the best conditions. This was not always possible depending on which shift pattern I was working – quite often my working day would start at 7.00am. However, if I happened to be working the nightshift week, it put me in the perfect position to go out on the bike. Not only was I finishing work by about 06.30am, I had also been up all night and been able to monitor the overnight temperature and wind conditions. This became a bit of an obsession, and an obsession which was then picked up by my friend Dan who started joining me on these biking adventures. Initially though, and occasionally after that, I would go alone.

Early morning round the flags on a dingle day

On these solo jaunts I would sometimes listen to music or play a pre-downloaded episode of Never Strays Far (my favourite cycling Podcast). But more often than not I would simply listen to the world around me – listen to the sounds of that frozen land. Once you were along the Traverse and out of sight of station you found that you also left the noise of that place far behind. The constant hum of the generators, the bleeping of reversing vehicles, and the chatter over the hand-held radios. Instead, your ears would be full of the sound of your own breathing, and of your heart beating with the effort of making forward progress in the snow. And there was the almost squeaking sound of the bike tyres as they slowly turned in this crystalline land – tyres which would virtually be deflated to flat on days when the snow was soft, or for going fast on the downhills. And there was the involuntary whooping as you sped along on pristine snow with the mountains of the West Antarctic Peninsula stretched out before you, and the vast and sparkling sea. And then there were the sounds beyond – beyond our human presence there. And even on the calmest of days there was never nothing - our ears would attempt to interpret the divine silence which occasionally graced this most remote of lands. Perhaps it was the wind from many hundred of miles away, reaching us now only as an echo, softened by a hundred snowy peaks. Or maybe it was the ocean far below, a small iceberg teetering slightly in an otherwise millpond bay. Many and varied are the emotions of those who spend any length of time in Antarctica – there is camaraderie and there is loneliness, there is unbridled joy and there are moments of despair, there is resilience and there is the crumbling of the spirit, there is the feeling of permanence and there is the awareness that all things – good and bad – shall eventually pass. And yet, there was no thought or no word what we ourselves did not bring here – our fears and our doubts, our hopes and our dreams were our very own. We gave this land its mystery and we found that this land neither gives nor cares. And perhaps this is why we were all drawn here in the first place – to a world where we can feel the fullness of our humanity with both its insignificance and its strength. To stand in that incredible wilderness and feel so small, and yet to have overcome everything we thought to be impossible by simply standing there at all.

The most remote of lands 

As much as I loved the contemplative state of mind that solitude brings, I equally enjoyed the many times that I went around the flagline with Dan. His enthusiasm and love of cycling matched my own – we spent one morning drinking coffee and recounting every puncture we’d ever had. Another morning, we had a long, and frankly fascinating conversation about curtains – this was not a friendship built on cycling alone. Dan is one of those people with infectious good humour – even on the days when the conditions were so bad that much of our progress was in a falling off sideways direction, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed so much on a bike (and cycling is one of my favourite things in the world). Perhaps we actually laughed the most on those days. On a particularly soft downhill section, Dan declared that he needed a mud guard fitted to the bike to stop the snow from going down his bum crack. Dan did not bring cycling bib shorts to Antarctica.

Dan and I.
(Photo credit: P. Shroff) 

The return to station from Skiway Col (the highest point on the true flagline) was always such a thrill. Even if the snow conditions were slightly sub-optimal you could still get up a good amount of speed if you were prepared to go for it – brain off, brakes off was the mantra. And I actually found that this was also the best way of staying upright. After getting back to station after one such ride, Dan said to me, “you have a specific smile for when you’re going fast on a bike. It’s different to your other smiles – I’ve never seen it before.” I don’t find it easy to adequately express just how much joy riding a bike brings to me, and it made me happy to know that this was not simply something I felt, but also something which could be seen. And for it to be seen meant that I was sharing this experience with someone – and it has undoubtedly been one of the greatest delights of this Rothera season, going on lots of bike rides with my friend. And every ride we went on felt different – the weather would be different, and we would talk of different things. One day we stopped and made snow angels, another time we went to say hello to Vicky (the deputy chief pilot) who was up at the Skiway in VPF-BB, one of our Twin Otter planes.

Red bike. Red plane.
(Photo Credit: D. Price)

I would however repeatedly tell Dan that cycling back along the Traverse was just like cycling on the Cinder Track with a road bike. The Cinder Track runs along the Cumbrian Coast between Seascale and Sellafield. It is mostly gravel, but there are these occasional sections of deep sand – blown by the west wind onto the cycle path. It was a route I sometimes took with my good friends Ali and Ian (who are largely responsible for kick-starting my cycling obsession). In order to get through the sand traps on a road bike you simply had to go for it, and hope that you had enough speed and enough nerve to get you through. And that was the similarity to the Traverse at Rothera – unless the snow was really firm there was very little chance of getting going again if you lost momentum or slid to a stop. I loved getting into that headspace – of being so focussed and feeling confident. Every time we arrived back onto the ramp, I would invariably mention the Cinder Track, even though I knew that I had told Dan about it every time before. I even created a twinned Strava Segment in its honour – The Cinder Track of the South.

Ian riding the Cinder Track

My last weekend on Station brought with it a fresh dump of snow. This was not what you wanted for cycling, and so I had all but put the idea of it out of my mind. However, it was my last weekend, and Dan was coming off the night shift week, so his sleep pattern was still all over the place. I woke up on the Sunday morning to find that I had a string of WhatsApp messages from him that started at 04.00am: The temperatures were good; a skidoo had been up there yesterday evening; Barry had headed out for a run and seemed to be moving well along the Traverse; the temperatures were still good; I’ve drunk five cups of coffee now and eaten three slices of toast; I’ve been reading an essay about Chile, Argentina, colonialism, imperialism, and Antarctica – it has more than 10 references, and I can tell you all about it if we go for a bike ride; okay you’re coming or okay please stop messaging me about cycling; wahey! And that was the dialogue which provided the backdrop to the last ride of the season. I was very tired, and I had reached the point where I was ready to leave, and yet when it came to it, when all thoughts had turned northwards, I could not resist the call of the sublime. The conditions were terrible though, and we very quickly gave up the idea of cycling the full flagline. The snow lay untouched there, and I don’t think I made it even two metres before the bottom half of the wheels had completely disappeared from view. But we did make it to the Caboose (a basic, container-like shelter with a stove, and a seating area covered in sheepskins) – by following the tracks left by a skidoo from the previous evening. We had fun trying to take a timed photo of ourselves with our bikes outside the Caboose. We both had the same strange thought that it had similarities to the iconic photo of Christopher McCandless in front of the ‘Magic Bus’ from Into the Wild – in so far at least as it was the presence of humans and a metallic, inanimate object in a landscape that perhaps neither had any place in being. But there we were, and it was not without thought, and it was not a reckless, hell-bent desire to feel like we had conquered something or some land. It was ultimately an incredibly humbling experience to be there, and while it was undeniably one of immense personal gain, it was also a chance and an opportunity to be involved in a line of work that may well contribute an awful amount of good and worth to our beautiful planet, our only home, and one that we have been far too careless about for far too long.

Dan and I at the Caboose

And of course, the only intentions and motivations we can speak of and lay claim to are our own, and so I have been speaking here of my own, and of my own thoughts and experiences of living and working at Rothera. It was easy to get so absorbed in the busyness of work here that you forgot to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, to remember why we were there, to remember all the science projects that the Station was enabling and supporting. And even being the smallest of cogs in this process, life here gave you an incredible sense of purpose and a sense of worth because you saw that however small the cog, they all matter, and we all make a difference in the end. And it wasn’t just this. There was something much more. These free-time adventures on the bike gave not only a healthy perspective on work - they also gave me an important perspective on life as a whole. It was a reminder to do the things that make you smile differently, and to spend time with good friends in whose company you could laugh or cry just as easily. We do not get forever. And having an urgency for life is not the same as leading a reckless life. We do not exist in isolation, and the preciousness of life belongs to all. And there are as many different lives as there are as many different humans – and so it was, in my own way, I had reached the end of another Antarctic summer with a full heart and a head full of new dreams for what lay beyond.

Chilling out on the ramp after the last ride of the season.
(Photo credit: W. Thursfield) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Eight

 

Some of the trails that I wanted to take would lead me so far out of El Chaltén that it was an unrealistic target to be able to retrace my steps or to loop back around on the gravel road of Ruta 41. This would have added close to 20km onto some of the walks, which was a fair amount when you’d walked 30km already. But, as hitchhiking was common in these parts, I decided to try my luck with that and press ahead with the walking. I’ve hitchhiked at home in the Lake District, I’ve hitchhiked in northern Sweden, and I’ve also stopped quite a few times to pick hitchhikers up. Of course you have to be careful, but there comes a point where you decide that you don’t want to live your life afraid of everyone, and of always being afraid of the worst that can happen. Everything I had read about El Chaltén prior to arriving, and everything I had seen and felt since getting there made me think that it was an incredibly safe place. One of the first things I noticed when I got to the village was that nobody locked up their bikes. And I’m not just talking about those rusty old relics that might be missing a pedal or a wheel – these were modern, good-looking-models, that would be left lying down on the grass or propped up against a wall. Seeing this actually made my heart swell. I love my bike so much – it is almost certainly my most treasured possession, and even though it would not cost the earth to replace, it is worth so much more to me than the cold, hard number that follows a pound sign. And while I didn’t have my bike with me – I couldn’t help but feel safe in a place where people left their bikes here, there, and everywhere without a worry.

Ruta 41

On one particularly calm and sunny day I decided to link up the Sendero al Torre with the Sendero al Fitz Roy, but rather than returning to El Chaltén from there, I took a trail which took me away from the direction of the village, and past the viewpoint for Laguna Piedras Blancas.

Laguna Piedras Blancas

This track would eventually lead to Ruta 41, some 17km north of El Chaltén. It was a beautiful trail through the trees, and it felt deliciously cool after the exposed, rocky ascent to Laguna de los Tres in the heat of the day. I did notice however, that at sporadic intervals there were little wooden signs indicating a fire escape route. These narrow paths led sharply down to the stony shores of the Rio Blanco. Forest fires were a genuine risk in these parts, and due to the prolonged warm and dry weather, the area was on the highest level of alert.

Fire Escape Route 

When I reached the gravel road of Ruta 41, I started walking in the direction of El Chaltén but ready to stick my thumb out at the first car or pick-up truck that passed. It was only a matter of minutes, and the very first car that I saw pulled over a few metres in front of me. I could see them moving a few things on the back seat to make space, so I opened the door and asked if they could take me to El Chaltén. With a nod of the head, I jumped on in. It was a family from El Calafate – mum, dad, and their teenage son. They had driven out here for the day to do some hiking. The lad was wearing a Boca Juniors football shirt, and I had my Fulham football shorts on, so we struck up a bit of a conversation in Spanish about our respective football teams. It turned out that the dad actually spoke really good English, but I always wanted to make a point of trying to speak in Spanish first. I think it was appreciated, but we very quickly reverted to English and ended up chatting away about the mountains and the climate in Argentina, and how that compared to the U.K. I think that I was as grateful for the conversation as much as I was for the lift – I found that it was quite easy for a whole day to have gone by without having spoken more than a few words to another person. This was largely out of choice – I had chosen to travel by myself in a country where I knew very little of the language, and I had chosen not to stay in a shared room at a hostel because after a season at Rothera I desperately needed that space – but I did find that even a little bit of conversation could bring a different sort of life to the whole day. I do not regret any of the decisions I made with regards to this trip – I believe that I know myself well enough to make the right choices for me. And so, when even the merest hint of regret would float into my mind, I was quick to remember that everything has its compromise, and that there was a very good and considered reason behind the choices that I had made. I knew that if I had been around people every single day my mind simply would not have been able to unwind and relax in the way that I needed it to. This was my priority for these few weeks, even if it meant the empty touch of loneliness at times.

Monte Fitz Roy and Laguna Madre 

Another day saw me walking to Piedra Del Fraile, a Refugio on the banks of Rio Electrico. This was a quieter trail, but it did initially see me following in my footsteps from previous walks. I took the Fitz Roy trail as far as Camp Poincenot, before passing the Mirador Piedras Blancas once more. And it wasn’t until I took a footbridge over the Rio Blanco that I began treading new ground. But even though there was a small degree of repetition throughout the two weeks that I was there, I found that it felt different every time. The weather would be different, and you’d come into each day and into each walk with different thoughts - some of which would never have been possible had I not walked that path before.

Piedra del Fraile 

 I was to turn back at the Refugio, which was as far as the regular trail went. It was the point on the map where the solid black line tuned into dotted red and black. To access any of these trails you had to have pre-registered with the National Park Authority, and it was also recommended that you went with a National Park enabled guide. Perhaps I would have felt emboldened to explore some of these trails had I been with a friend, but as it was I more than content to potter around the regular trails by myself. It all still felt like one incredible adventure, and with the rickety bridges over streams and rivers, and with the grandiose of the mountains and of the forests, it often felt like I was living the most vivid of dreams. 

 

Footbridge over the Rio Blanco 

Having seen very few people on this section of the trail, there was suddenly a small amalgamation of walkers as the trail neared the road. There was a group of four whom I caught up to as they were trying to figure out the best way to cross a wide but shallow stream that there was no bridge for. I opted to take off my shoes and socks and walk across. We came together again, now insight of the road but only to find that another, more significantly sized stream had completely covered the path and there was no way we could hope to cross. That was when a party of three arrived on the scene, and we all joined forces as we backtracked in the hope of finding somewhere further upstream to cross. We eventually succeeded, and without getting too wet! Both parties had a car parked here, so I asked the group of three if I could have a lift back into town. They were obliging, but as their car was incredibly full of suitcases and the like, they asked the group of four on my behalf. They very kindly agreed.

The road bridge over the Rio Electrico

The group of four spoke in a heavily accented Spanish that I could hardly understand a single word of, and as they spoke less English than I did Spanish, what immediately resulted was a highly amusing attempt at a conversation using hand gestures alone. They were putting their rucksacks into the boot, and then they started pointing at me and then to the boot. I only had my Salomon running bag on – which I often forgot that I was wearing – so I assumed that they were having a laugh, suggesting that I would need to get into the boot myself for the journey to El Chaltén. When they realised what I was thinking, they looked horrified for a moment, but then the penny dropped for everyone, we all burst into fits of laughter! I put my little bag in the boot and joined two of them on the back seat. Despite the language barrier, we did not give up our attempts to talk to each other – I found out that they were from Uruguay, and that they had flown to Argentina and hired a car for a week. When they dropped me off in the village, they all got out of the car to say goodbye to me before carrying on their way. I have no doubt that it is the kindness of strangers, and the warmth of human interactions that are the things that stay with us for far longer, and far more clearly than any of the landscapes that grace our eyes. I can only vaguely recall how seeing the towering spires of the Fitz Roy range made me feel, but when I think back to this moment with the Uruguayans, my face instantly breaks into a smile. These are the things that sustain us. These are the things that make life feel worthwhile.

 

 

En Patagonia: Chapter Seven

I bought a trekking map at one of the little souvenir shops – it had all the trails clearly marked, and it even gave an estimated time as to how long each route would take. I would spend hours in the coming weeks poring over it. I’d take it out each morning while I had a coffee, and have a last look each night before I went to bed. It was absolutely perfect for planning out the days ahead, and I made a mental list of everything I hoped to do. There wasn’t really much of a need to have a map as a navigational tool – the trails of all the main hikes were so clearly defined, and there was good signage along the way. I loved how accessible it all was – you could have done next to no hiking at all, and you would still have been able to come here and enjoy the benefits of being in such a beautiful place. There is an argument against having signage (and I realise that this is a nuanced discussion and can depend on location etc), but I don’t think that wooden markers or a splash of paint on a rock is going to take away from the beauty of the surroundings, nor are they what stands between us believing that we are in a wilderness free of human activity and human impact. That is not to negate the importance of good navigation and being responsible whilst out walking. But even having that awareness comes largely from a position of privilege – to have grown up having had the opportunity to spend time in the outdoors, and to have the knowledge, the confidence, the time, and the financial means to access it during adulthood. While I don’t have the answers as to how more people can safely enjoy the outdoors – I do think that any snobbery (from those who already enjoy the benefits of it) only serves to put up barriers rather than breaking them down. Over the next two weeks I would see all sorts of different people out on the trails – some who were carrying enough stuff to survive for a month, and others who were just carrying a bottle of water and a coat tied around their waist. On one occasion I saw a man wearing a smart suit – he had made it to Laguna de los Tres just fine, and he was walking back in the sunshine with his jacket draped over his shoulder. All that was missing was a briefcase to carry his packed lunch.

Signpost to Laguna Torre

Without a doubt the two most popular hiking trails from El Chaltén are the Sendero Fitz Roy and the Sendero al Torre. The Fitz Roy trail is slightly deceptive in name – it is not a trail up the mountain itself, but to the glacial lake of Laguna de los Tres which sits at approximately 1,000m above sea level (compared to the 3,405m of Monte Fitz Roy). The views are however spectacular, and in the two weeks that I was in El Chaltén I made the hike up there twice – once when the peaks were hidden in the clouds, and once when everything was in view. The majority of the walk is through beautiful forests, with mountain streams and wild flowers completing the scene. There was a delicious warmth to the air – the kind that you can feel right through to your bones. So many times, I found myself with a smile upon my face without even realising. Some days I would walk quickly, with a great sense of purpose, while on other occasions I would amble along in a daze. And of course, even though I was somewhere so utterly stunning there would be moments or there would be days where perhaps I felt a little anxious or a little low. But rather than feel bad that I was feeling like that in a place where, objectively, happiness is assumed, I tried to simply accept it and carry on. And it’s amazing the things that fall away or fall into place when you’re out walking for several hours.

Sendero Fitz Roy 

Whatever sort of day it was though, and however fast or slow I moved, I would always make time to stop and look around, to pause and really breathe. There was just so much to see, and perhaps my favourite things of all were the wild flowers, and the water. Some of the lakes were a turquoise blue, while others such as Laguna Torre were a milky sort of grey. And I would often stand transfixed looking into a mountain river or stream, watching the way in which the sunlight interacted with the water, and trying to predict the pattens that would form as the stream flowed through the shallows and the depths.

The turquoise blue of Laguna de los Tres

I wouldn’t describe the Sendero Fitz Roy trail as particularly arduous at all, although there was a steepness to the last section – up to the high point of the route, 1,187m above sea level. And the Sendero Laguna Torre was more gentle, still. Aside from a gradual elevation gain in the first few kilometres, much of the trail seemed almost flat. 

Hikers on the Sendero Laguna Torre

This was also through delightful Patagonian Forest, and it was here that I saw my first Magellanic Woodpecker – I was lucky enough to see four in total throughout the trip.

Magellanic Woodpecker

I also saw condors, parakeets, ibis, and flamingos (in El Calafate). And possibly the most remarkable wildlife sighting of the journey was a Patagonian Fox – not too far from Laguna de los Tres. But there was no sign of the elusive puma, which, on balance, I think I’m quite grateful for.

Patagonian Fox 

 Upon reaching Laguna Torre there was the option to carry on further to Mirador Maestri which offered a viewpoint of the Glacier Grande. On this rocky ridgeline of sorts, with the gradient dropping sharply to the waters of Laguna Torre below, a wonderous array of wildflowers could be found. The most eye-catching of all being the Chilean Firetree Emborthyium with its flowers a brilliant red.

Chilean Firetree Emborthyium

There were a few people hunkered down at the viewpoint trying to seek some shelter from the wind – the majority of folk had not ventured beyond the shore of Laguna Torre, and it felt a little bit like a victory in escaping the crowds. I asked a woman if she would mind taking a photo of me – my mum might not forgive me if I didn’t appear in at least one! This was not as straightforward as it seemed though, as both of us were struggling to keep our feet in the wind.

Trying to keep upright! 

I mentioned before about the privilege of growing up with access to the outdoors – and I felt a strong sense of privilege at being where I was now. I felt so grateful every time I went out walking - grateful for every twist of fate and fortune that had brought me here. Of course, a lot of that was due to decisions that I had made throughout my life, and of following passions, and of hard work. But there is so much beyond that – some cosmic roll of the dice, way beyond the control of anyone, that saw me born where I was born, and saw my consciousness come into being at the time that it did. And what do you do with knowing that – that we are nothing, that we are less than a particle of dust in the great deserts of the world. You do the only thing you can do – you live your life with all the energy and all the love that you can muster, and you live it knowing that nothing is in fact everything, and that no event or no amount of time can ever erase you from the history of the universe. And that is the same for everyone you will ever meet – and your life matters because their lives matter, and perhaps we can make things a little better, or a little bit easier in the time that we are here.