Locals in Antarctica: Report #1
[Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina] The sun breaks out of the dreamy foliage of dawn, its canopy exploding into an enormous sunlit corona of mist, which trails across the azure water like a cape.
Locking your gaze on the sight, you marvel at its beauty. At 54 degrees South latitude and 68 degrees West longitude, we are in the world’s southernmost town. Yet any notion that Ushuaia is a place where the world ends is decidedly wrong. Once the playground for primitive tribesmen called Ushuaians, or “canoe people,” this bustling resort town and capital of Argentina’s newest province sits securely within a large bay alongside the Beagle Canal or "Channel," and it is the gateway to the Drake passage and points south. The Channel was named after Charles Darwin's ship, the HMS Beagle.
The Expedition
Ushuaia is also the base camp and jumping off point for our exciting ski expedition. Called Ice Axe Expedition: The Antarctic Peninsula 2009, it’s a daring dream of Truckee resident, Doug Stoup. He aims to personally lead an intrepid group of over 100 enthusiasts on a small, ice-strengthened ocean liner to the Antarctica peninsula. There we will see a snowy Odyssey diverse in both athletic challenge and cultural experience.
Yeah, it’s mind blowing, this icy paradise at the end of the world. Just hanging out in Ushuaia, I immediately grasp how Doug Stoup fell in love with Antarctica in 1999 when he made the first ski and snowboard descent of the 16,067' Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest peak. Since that time, the Doug has led 17 other expeditions into the continent’s cool delights, including a January, 2008 trek to the geographic South Pole.
He is not just a thrill seeker. Doug wants to change the world and make more and more people aware. It's not like he is preaching any New Age Cosmic Rebirth, but he’s definitely radiating something. He looks like a Viking prince, but he’s lucid and cuddly and has a friendly glow about him, like a radioactive camp counselor. Doug is busy guy spreading a gospel about Antarctica with verse as if it were a simple leaf of grass that contains all of the miracles of the universe.
The Team
Aside from Stoup, our team is littered with high brow notables: Everest veteran Jon Griber; Alaska heli-ski operator and head guide Kevin Quinn; Palisades Tahoe’s Glen Poulsen and Kip Garr; Salt Lake City resident and Seven -Summiter Andrew Mclean; Warren Miller filmmaker Tom Day; Snowboarding high priest Jeremy Jones and others whose reputations have a kind of permanence in the world of adventure.
There are also seasoned members from Finland, Norway, Belgian, England, Canada, and a group of X-Game snowboarders from La Grave, France. There is the fire and passion of Keoki Flagg’s original camera techniques. Throughout the daylight, 20 hours of it this time of year, Keoki will be swinging his camera around on a huge pole documenting insane descents and extraordinary participants.
There’s also a select group of active travelers who aren’t along for the skiing at all. They are artists, naturalists, and life’s tourists on board to immerse themselves in the surrounding, profound backdrops and the exploration of abundant wildlife and sea life.
In all there are 22 women and 85 men representing 15 countries. The youngest is a mere eleven years; the oldest an inspiring 70 years of age. Moreover, there are over 30 people traveling from the North Shore of Lake Tahoe and Palisades Tahoe, including such luminaries as Fred and Barbara Ilfeld, Palisades Tahoe Institute’s John Wilcox, and Russell Poulsen.
The Big Picture
For all the trip’s rugged pulchritude, what it at the heart of it is a great sense of voyage--that trance inducing, far out, soaring, ultimate high feeling of limitless discovery, a tabula rasa on which to write our individual stories. The point where the hot athletic endeavor of going down a mountain on skis meets the cool medium in which we do it is where our lives define themselves. It's where action seeks abstraction, where the yin of physical accomplishment marries the yang of being consumed by your environment.
Inspired by the legacy of Antarctic exploration, team members are reaching into their souls as they digest Doug’s power-laden mantra, “Dare to fail.” What is at the heart of Ski Cruise 2009 is not an attempt to conquer anything. Nor is it to out quaff each other during the on-board, “White” party, nightly interactions of this tribe of adventurers whose common thread is a love of mountains. What we are out to do, rather, is to take what the peaks and sea offer, every nuance, every original and unique feature, and work with it, and let it all work on us. It is about mountain dreamers and their personal journey into the wash of the planet’s last untamed continent.
"To me, Antarctica is like a rose. It has its thorns and is difficult to get inside," explains Doug, 46, who has also led five northern expeditions into the Arctic. "But once you get inside, you are in an intoxicating environment. There is nothing else on earth like the beauty of this land."
The expedition departs Friday, November 6th aboard the ship Clipper Adventurer to begin its way across the notorious Drake Channel. First stop: Deception Island.
Editor’s Note: This Google picture above shows Tierra del Fuego, with Ushuaia marked with an X. North (up) from the X about 100 miles is the famous Strait of Magellan discovered in 1520. It connects the Atlantic and Pacific. South of the X about 100 miles, on a tiny island, is the very bottom of South America at infamous Cape Horn where the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans meet head on--generally with a bang!
This report is one in a series written exclusively for Tahoetopia by Tahoe resident and writer, Robert Frohlich. “Fro” is a member of the expedition and a regular contributor to Tahoetopia. For other feature stories, click Timeless Tahoe. Also watch Tahoe TV’s Get Out! Reno-Tahoe on cable. The channel numbers are North Lake Tahoe: 14; Truckee/W Shore:11; South Lake Tahoe: 18; Reno: 3; and Carson: 15.
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