Flat White

McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA

The world stretched out around us, white as far as the eye could see, as the Delta rumbled over the snow road. Drifts fresh from the recent storm were invisible in the flat light, rising up to meet us, bogging down the tires of the mammoth cargo vehicle. Nestled in the middle, every few minutes I would scrape the wide windshield, clear it of our frozen breath, the result of a deficient defrost system. The bumpy ride was a little too raucous for a nap, which certainly would have helped pass the time. An hour and a half later, we arrived at the airfield to find the lead Delta knee deep in snow, and our loader filled with snow thanks to a faulty door latch. Nothing to do but start digging. And call in the bigger shovels. I watched one dozer pushing great tidal waves of snow, leaving behind deep swathes in the snow field. There is just so much snow! It is the stuff of childhood dreams. Granted, we are standing on a permanent ice shelf made of compacted snow, but a couple of stormy days have left great heaps of dry Styrofoam snow. Walking across the vast white, it is nearly impossible to perceive depth, so that I occasionally step off the edge of a ridge before I’ve seen it, struggling to keep my feet firmly planted.

 While we worked at digging out vehicles and sleds, and transferring cargo, the sun sank into the space between the thick cloud cover and the horizon. The apricot sun seemed to be bursting the seams of the sky, the light stretching out from the firey orb to the mountains across the sound. Behind me, Black Island glowed pink in the late afternoon light. The sun would linger just above the horizon, backlighting the Transantarctic Mountains with warm orange light, while the rest of the sky grew duskier. I could pick out the headlights of distant machines working the runway, trying desperately to clear it for the next plane.