Sitting amongst barrels of fuel hoping the landing will be gentle
Anyone know what is Emergency Exit in Russian?
A long stretch of ice serves as the runway. Waiting for the plane to stop on it is a nerve wracking slip sliding affair.
Patriot Hills is a tented camp located at a base the Ellsworth Mountain range on the vast white landscape of ice.
Nearly all private expeditions and some govermental operations set off from this base.
At the end of each summer season the base is dismantled and buried in an underground ice cave for next year.There is a large dining tent which also doubles as the primary operations/debauchery area. (More about this later).
We had perfect Weather with no wind for the first two days while we got our equipment ready(Tents, food, sleds, skis, stoves and clothing).
The plan was to do a test run one day out of base camp to see we were organised and then fly out in the smaller Twin Otter aircraft to the last degree. For some strange reason that test run did not happen, much to our demise later on.
It was amazing to be on the ice and took some getting used to the sun not setting. Night is determined by the time and not the sun.
Luckily I had brought a blind fold from the airline flight to cover my eyes at "Night". No night time felt confusing at times.
The cold took some getting used to but with modern clothing and a good pair of goggles it was simple enough to adjust to.
