SNOW Alps 25-26 web - Flipbook - Page 109
Zodiacs navigate a narrow
channel through a mosaic of sea
ice en route to shore.
“It is said that
fewer people
have skied
Antarctica
than climbed
Everest.”
The voyage, I am discovering, is one of
both adventure and the continual collection
of esoterica. For instance, who here knows the
proper way to measure ice? Brash ice? Small
enough to put your arms around. Growlers?
Five meters across or less. Bergie bits will bob
from five to 15 meters above water and, after
that, it’s a more prosaic small, medium, or large.
(Proportions down here prove themselves again
and again unlike anywhere else. We are told the
extravagant amount of poop the 40 millionstrong penguin community produces is visible
from space.) Then, as if from the ether, on the
horizon an enormous berg appears in front of a
sumptuous 30-degree slope extending from sea
to sky – an outrageous test of the prospects for
the 90 percent rule.
“I hope one day I can ski here too,” says Gigi.
“Just once.”
For others, the singular experience can turn
into a bit of an addiction. For photographer Tamara
Šuša, it’s become a passion for the coldest, driest,
and windiest continent on Earth. She’s captured
transfixing images of skinning up and ski touring
down its flanks – and acknowledges the privilege
of doing so. “It is said that fewer people have
skied Antarctica than climbed Everest,” noted
Tamara. She’s already rebooked after two recent
ski-touring expeditions, including one alongside
Chris Davenport, the first person to ski all 54 of
Colorado’s 14,000ers in less than one year. (Chris
has indeed climbed Everest, then skied its Lhotse
Face.)
Of course, in Antarctica skiing has always been
more than downhill, it’s been a way forward. Long
before skis meant après and corduroy, explorers
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