A Year of Hiking, Week 3: To the Edge of the World and Back

BYRD SURFACE CAMP, ANTARCTICA

 My trip to Byrd Camp was my first trip to the polar plateau, where the world stretches flat white in every direction. I walked out past a distant tower, the remains of an old drilling site, and now the home of perhaps the southernmost geocache. With camp a good distance behind me, the world stretched out endlessly in front of me, windswept snow as far as I could see. I felt so solitary, the lone evidence of human existence, or any existence, in fact. The grandness of scale was truly awe-inspiring. I could actually see the curvature of the earth, the way the sky reaches down beyond the horizon. The low light meant that in some directions I could hardly tell the earth from the sky. This week’s walk makes me wonder the true meaning of the term, “hike,” and whether walking away from a cluster of tents into the wilds of Antarctica, standing agape at the edge of the world, awash in silence, truly qualifies as a hike. But it might just be my favorite.