Chris Fagan - The Expedition: Two Parents Risk Life and Family in an Extraordinary Quest to the South Pole

THE EXPEDITION

Copyright 2019 by Chris Fagan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published September 2019

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-592-6

E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-593-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930415

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

Map by Mike Morgenfeld

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

For Marty and Keenan.
Thank you for sharing this adventure of life.
I am so much more because of you.
I love you beyond words.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

MARY OLIVER

Listen.

The world invites us to adventure
every day.

Say yes.

Across expanses of snow,
cold, and relentless winds.

Say yes.

Across the far-flung seas
and rock-strewn shores.

Say yes.

As we leave the boundaries
of what we know to meet
the mountain, the jungle, the glaciers
that drop from the pole.

Say yes.

And here, in the still heart of now, listen.
The world invites us to adventure
every day.

Say yes.

BENJAMIN CURRY

T o write this book, Ive relied on my journal notes, voice blogs dictated while in Antarctica, personal memories, researched facts, and discussions with individuals. Others may remember certain details and events differently. Any errors or misinterpretations are mine alone.

I have changed the names of a few people to preserve their privacy and the order of a few events to help with narrative flow, but there are no composite characters or events in this book.

Ive reported all temperatures in Fahrenheit (read: Im American). While we tracked our miles in both nautical and statute (land) miles while in Antarctica, all miles reported in the book are land miles for ease of understanding. Note that nautical miles are used for charting and navigating, and one nautical mile is equal to one minute of latitude, or 1.1508 statute miles. If you think in kilometers, like most of the world outside America, one mile equals 1.6 kilometers.

January 2014

Come on, you can do this. Mind over body.

M y body stiffened against the blasting wind that threatened to blow me overagain. The bitter cold searched for a way past my layers of protective gear. Squinting to see through the slice of my goggle that wasnt frozen over, I turned my head left, then right. The coyote-fur ruff on my red anorak danced back and forth in front of my eyes. White nothingness swallowed me. A whiteout. Snow and sky melting into one. The cold penetrating my fingers told me to keep movingmy insurance against the constant danger of hypothermia and frostbite. It was minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit with winds gusting to 15 miles per hour, an average summer day in Antarctica.

I edged my ski forward with bulging sled in tow, slowly feeling my way over chaotic chunks of snow, then lost my balance. Stabbing my pole into the ice, I barely stayed upright. I stared down at my black ski tips as they disappeared into the whiteness. Only my compass could show the way; I had lost all sense of direction after hours of moving through the jumbled messwith no up or downand my head felt tangled. I strained to keep the red dot that was Marty in sight as the whiteness threatened to separate us. No matter what, stay with him. With just the two of us skiing through the remote interior of Antarctica, there was no margin for error, no easy way out.

I had grown sick of the blank white slate that bore no resemblance to our lush green life back home in the Northwest and tired of being hundreds of miles from anything civilized. I longed to see our son, Keenan, hear his infectious laughter, and feel the warmth as I hugged him close. I worried about how he was coping with the pressures of middle school life in our absence.

Today I felt the weight of the chilling truth. After skiing 460 miles over the past thirty-nine days, Marty and I still had over 100 cold hard miles to go. Attempting to ski from the edge of Antarctica to the South Polewithout guide or resupplywas stretching us beyond our physical and mental limits. Our bond of marriage felt frayed. The bone-deep exhaustion and isolation threatened to break me. If only I could have reached back in history to gain wisdom and strength from the explorers who had completed this arduous endeavor before us. Maybe they would have told me that the usual nine or ten hours of work per dayfighting through whiteout conditions, slogging over slow sticky snow, navigating between jagged ice blocks, and battling with blow-you-over windswould be worth it. Maybe they would have helped me release the burden of my slow pace and the mounting pressure to ski more miles per day.

As I heaved my 160-pound sled forward with everything I had, I thought: How long can I keep this up? I found myself fantasizingnot about the savory taste of Thai food or a steaming hot shower or the decadent feeling of a soft down bed, but about a way back to happy, energetic, smiling Chris. But the route back was as invisible as blue sky during a whiteout.

O ne Sunday morning in November of 2010, Marty casually walked into the kitchen, where I was unloading the dishwasher, and asked, What do you think about going to the South Pole?

I stood motionless, staring out at the driving rain. Without looking at him, I knew this was a serious questionjust as serious as the times he had asked me if I wanted to train for another ultramarathon. For most other families here in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains outside Seattle, going to the South Pole would be an armchair adventure accomplished only by reading a book.

I didnt know where to begin to answer his question.

Panic rising, I turned and looked into Martys soft blue eyes, and in a forced-calm voice said, Im not sure, Ill have to think about it. I bent over, grabbed a clean plate, and placed it in the cabinet.

Okay, said Marty, raising his eyebrows. Lately the idea keeps popping into my head and Id like to chat about it sometime soon.

As Marty strolled back into the family room, my brain flooded with questions: Did he just say the South Pole? Isnt that in Antarctica? Isnt it really cold there? Thats the pole at the bottom of the earth, right? How in the world do you get there? Can we afford it? How will we be able to take enough time off from work? What about Keenan?

A FEW DAYS LATER, as Marty and I cooked dinner together and Keenan built a multicolored Lego castle in the playroom, Marty said, You know, hon, I wasnt trying to convince you to go to the South Pole. I just wanted to start a conversation about it.