Operation Antarctica Has Commenced

“At the edge of the cliffs, the wind is a smack, and D-day becomes wildly clear: climbing that cutting edge into the bullets.” ~~John Vinocur

Well here I sit, in the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport waiting to board my first flight that will start it all.

I’ve been here since 4:30am. I should be curled up on a bench somewhere getting a little shut eye while I can. The thing is; I can’t.

The hamster has been released from his cage and is doing cartwheels in my head. He’s been doing them since yesterday afternoon. I treated myself to another hotel room last night with the hopes of relaxing before today. Those plans fell through since I wasn’t dropped off at my hotel until about 11:00pm and I was going to have to be awake at 3:15am to catch my ride to the airport. I didn’t lie down to “attempt” to sleep until about 1:00am. Even then, it was a fitful sleep. I considered pulling an all nighter, but I wanted my wits about me for when I arrive in Denver and get all my information for orientation. So after a few tosses and turns I made myself try to sleep.

My attempts were thwarted by the resident homeless crowd out in the street whooping it up on a Friday night. They hooted and hollered until about 2:30 in the morning.

I wanted to go out and shout, “Hey! I’m trying to sleep here! Somebody’s gotta fly to Antarctica tomorrow!”

But what would they care? And besides, I wasn’t really flying to Antarctica until the 14th, despite the fact that it felt like tomorrow was the day. D-Day.

There’s currently a myriad of thoughts floating thru this insanely overactive brain of mine.

Yesterday I did the final packing of what little I’m bringing. We’re allowed two large duffle bags weighing up to 70lbs for international flights. When I get to New Zealand I’ll be given about an additional 10lbs of cold weather gear. We’re allowed 150lbs of “checked” baggage for the flight to McMurdo. Each duffle weighs about 22 lbs, giving me a total of 44 lbs of gear. Guess I went for the light weight initiative without even realizing it. I’m currently wondering if I packed too little.

(My gear for the next six months of my life (Currently a little less b/c I left a few things behind.))

It’s been a while since my life consisted of a couple of duffle bags. It’s kind of a nice feeling; getting back to simplicity. After all, it was the novelty of being able to live off of what little you carried on your back that got me hooked on this adventure life style anyways. You could survive off of nothing basically. You learned to be frugal and creative. And here I am, still living it.

Everything else I own (which isn’t really much in the scheme of things) is packed away and stored inside my trusty little home on wheels, aka: Minnie Mouse and parked in the back yard of the kayak shop. My cell phone is turned off and stored in the shop in Seward, the service suspended until I return. It was easy to leave the cell phone behind without a second glance. I love the freedom of not being easily reached.

Leaving Minnie Mouse, however, was a different story. It was hard to walk away from her. She’s been my home pretty much for the last seven years and has been a part of about every major trip I’ve ever gone on. We’ve seen so much country together. She has gotten me up and down the East Coast on numerous road trips. She’s brought me back and forth from the East side to the west side (again, on too many cross country journeys) and up and down the ALCAN (Alaskan Canadian Highway) two and a half times. All trips executed safely with no mechanical upheavals. She’s also made the nautical journey from Juneau, AK to Bellingham, WA via a ferry on the Alaska Marine Highway. In summary, she’s a well traveled/cultured vehicle.

(Boredom that can occur when you've gone on too many road trips by yourself!)

(A short clip taken along the ALCAN in January of 2010

  
She’s sat for a few months here and there when I would be in the field for months at a time, but six months sitting unattended by anyone was going to be a long time. I feared what I would find when I returned in April. Not so much vandalism, but more what I’d find under the hood after six months of idleness. I was afraid Minnie Mouse might revolt and crumble apart on me for leaving her behind. My friend Zack helped me unattach the battery before I locked her up. I felt like I had just flipped the switch on her life support as I set the battery on the floor of the driver’s side. She seemed naked without her juice.

I stood in front of her for a moment before I walked away. Was this what a neglectful parent felt like, a subconscious filled with silent guilt?

“Sorry old girl, but this is a trip you can’t tag along on,” I wanted to say, but how foolish would it be to get caught talking to a car.

Well, maybe not too foolish, but Minnie Mouse and I had an understanding. I think she knew how I felt as I gave her one last pat on the hood and finally walked away.

I have absolutely no idea what to expect when I arrive in Antarctica. You can read and read and talk and talk to as many people as possible, but you’re not really prepared for something until you’ve arrived and seen it for yourself. It’s that way with any journey. If it were a journey to somewhere in the United States, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a fluttering heart. There are still many places I have yet to visit for the first time in this country, but I’m relatively familiar with how this land operates.

I have a confession to make: flying to Antarctica is going to be my first time flying international. I’ve flown to Mexico, but I don’t feel that counts considering our borders touch.

This, this is the maiden voyage. And I’m going all the way to the bottom of the world. Why not, right?

May as well go all the way if you’re going to go any at all.

As I sit here contemplating this, I’ve realized that I’ve kind of faced my whole life with this motto. There are several key “life changing” opportunities I’ve been given that have been executed in this same manner.

Ten years ago, at the tender young age of 20, I made the decision to fly to Baja California to embark on an 80 day NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) semester course. I was a sophomore in college. I had never flown before, I’d never left the country, and I’d never been that far away from my family without a means to communicate before. I was going to be wandering the remote wilderness, land and ocean of Baja Sur for 80 days. That very trip is why I am here today about to head to Antarctica. Day one in Mexico with a backpack on my back, I was hooked for the rest of my life on adventure. My parents probably still rue the day I made the decision to fly to Baja and go on a wilderness semester to get college credit.

I remember calling my mother up one day when I was in college and told her that I was thinking of signing up for this semester course in Mexico.

“Oh, yeah?” she asked. “How are you going to get there?”

“I’ll figure it out somehow,” was my response. And I did. I worked and I saved and I took out a loan for the rest of the tuition and I got myself to Baja California.

A year later, I called my mom up and said, “Hey, I think I’m going to go to Colorado to work for the summer doing trail work.”

“Oh, yeah? How are you going to get there?”

“A one way greyhound bus ticket is $80. I have $80 in the bank. I’m going to buy a ticket.”

I bought a ticket and traveled for two days from Binghamton, NY to Steamboat Springs, CO via greyhound bus and worked that summer all over Colorado and Utah with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. It was my first job in the outdoor industry and my first job in the conservation sector that spurred a five year commitment to conservation and backcountry trail building.

Four years later, it was a NOLS Instructor Course in the southwest. Two years after that it was Alaska.

Today it’s Antarctica.

Here I am, about to embark on a journey that tops anything I’ve ever done. I’ve realized that I’ve topped myself and I have absolutely no idea what to expect. When I drove the ALCAN for the first time, I classified that journey as expedition road tripping because it was like no other road trip you will go on in North America most likely. How to classify a journey to Antarctica? I don’t even know. I’ve stumped myself and that’s not always an easy thing to do.

Nearly ten years from my first grand adventure and I’m still adventuring. I turned thirty years old this spring, but the spark for the unknown is still very much alive as it was when I was twenty.

This spring as I drove back up the ALCAN to Alaska I made a vow to myself. I decided that something “epic” would occur every year for the rest of my life. What that was, was all in the eye of the beholder. It could be a journey to Antarctica. It could be paddling the Inside Passage for 90 days. It could be getting married. It could be having a child. It could be anything you wanted it to be as long as you did it.

I made it a goal of mine to go to Antarctica and I achieved that goal. By no means is it an easy thing to achieve and I am beyond humbled to have this opportunity. But it proves that if you want something, you just gotta go for it. It might not be straightforward in the beginning, but will it mean as much to you if it’s easily achieved? What’s there to challenge you? What’s there to keep the drive going? We all have to start somewhere. So next time you find yourself saying, “I can’t do that for ‘X’ number of reasons.” Stop and catch yourself. The answer you’re actually looking for, is, “Yes, I can do this.”

Because you can.