20 Years Later - NEW INTRODUCTION

On July 26, 1989, I saw Antarctica for the first time. Along with my expedition partner, French doctor and explorer Jean-Louis Etienne, and our teammates—Victor Boyarsky (Russia), Geoff Somers (UK), Keizo Funatsu (Japan) and Qin Dahe (China)—I’d been training and dreaming of this moment for several years.

The expedition was assembled on King George Island, one hundred miles off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. From there we shuttled man, gear, and thirty-six sled dogs south on six Twin Otter flights, to our starting point on the Larsen A Ice Shelf. I was on the second flight with Jean-Louis and my team of ten dogs.

Once we lifted off and cleared the mountains of KGI, the yellow light of midwinter filtered through the windows and shimmered on the dogs’ hair. The vibrations of the twin engines calmed the dogs’ excitement and put most of them to sleep. Out the foggy window I caught my first sight of Antarctica; in the far distance I could just make out the ice-capped mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula rising out of the ocean.

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Lunch break is no picnic in Antarctica during a 56-day storm on the Antarctic Peninsula. Wind blown snow pelted our faces coating beards and eyelashes with ice crystals, denying us even modest comfort or rest. The Tran-Antarctica expedition was completed some five months later covering 3700 miles in 221 days.

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