Stealth Expedition

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Following Amundsen’s footsteps

Eirik began to be seriously tired of the Polar plateau. Rolf was beginning to get his hopes up. They were getting closer to the most famous places on the trip, Peak Nansen, Peak Engelstad, the Great Ice Fall, the Valley of Silence and the mighty Heiberg Glacier – the key which unlocked the plateau and the Pole 80 years earlier. On the 9th of January, Rolf received his best ever birthday present, he finally could see the characteristic profile of Peak Nansen.

Sometimes it is better to leave things in peace. To describe and explain an experience is to distance oneself from it. Certain things have to be experienced to be understood. Given this, one must accept that people who have experienced these things, neither wish to or are able to describe them. This is how Rolf thinks of their descent down the Axel-Heiberg Glacier.

You can never describe how it really was, so you might as well not bother trying.

Rolf had read and dreamed of this glacier for years. It was his. Every single day during the winter spent on Antarctica, he had studied satellite photos of the areas Amundsen had named; The Butcher, The Triangle, The Ski jump…When Rolf descended the glacier himself, he could hear the barking of the dogs being slaughtered, he saw the blood in the snow, he saw Bjaaland and Hassel struggling ahead of their sleds. He was there, imagining how it must have been for those pioneers at that time, when it really was an adventure into the unknown. He was glad that Amundsen had told his story.

The two newly-turned 26-year-olds had reached the climax of the trip. Both were seized by the serious nature of the situation and suddenly were overwhelmed with a sense of etiquette. Rolf would go first down the Heiberg Glacier because it was his dream. Eirik decided that he should not have an easy ride by following Rolf’s tracks, so he ploughed his own to the side. The two friends made double tracks, circling around the hidden crevasse, and slid down to the warmth and good snow down on the Ross Shelf.

Everything was perfect, then Eirik tipped his sled and the antenna snapped.

The fight for attention

At this point, Arnesen and Bancroft were still on the plateau, with the same problem that Rolf and Eirik had had. They were moving too slowly. They still hadn’t reached the Pole. The ladies route followed the more easterly Shackleton Glacier down to the Ross Shelf. They too were then relying on the wind to blow them to McMurdo.

Through January the ANAN reports continued to exaggerate the story of Arnesen/Bancroft’s competition, the “renegade” Norwegians who walked in silence. In a report dated the 31st of January, Marin Betts wrote a passage entitled "Trekkers miss Khlebnikov, position, plans unknown":

"Despite numerous attempts over the last two weeks by national program representatives from several countries and others including ANAN to obtain up-dated information on the venture (NAE), nothings is known at this time about the location of the two men, their status, or their travel arrangements for departure from Antarctica at the end of their trek."

Charlie Hartwell and Don McIntyre began to get very impatient. They demanded answers from the NAE support team in Norway. Did the boys need a space on their boat? Hartwell had already spent a considerable amount of time with this matter and wished to clear it up. The team in Norway felt that the manager for Arnesen’s crew was blowing things out of proportion.

My impression was that Charlie Hartwell was being very aggressive towards Rolf and Eirik because they had originally informed the world that they were going to the South Pole, not to McMurdo. They had continued without having sufficient alternatives for transport out of McMurdo. Hartwell branded Rolf and Eirik as amateurish boys, and NAE as a joke expedition with poor planning, says Jacob Bae.

In one of his mails, Hartwell wrote:

The media is now getting involved (…) asking questions and I’ve begun to talk about it with government officials wondering if you are counting on our boat. It’s putting us in a difficult situation, but it’s also potentially putting your two explorers in a difficult light as they appear to have no search and rescue plan or contingencies.

The reasons for Yourexpeditions desperation to sell a space on their boat to Rolf and Eirik are still unknown. Perhaps they saw it as a way of sharing the high costs. Later, Hartwell claimed it was purely for safety reasons, he wished to help Rolf and Eirik, in case they got into any trouble.

Martin Betts made the point that NAE was a direct competitor to Arnesen/Bancroft’s expedition, both in the competition for have gone the farthest first, and in the competition for publicity.

Yourexpedition was on a million dollar budget, and employed eight persons in their headquarters in the USA. Their homepage www.yourexpedition.com and the interactive work with schools had proved to be immensely popular. Three million children in 116 countries followed Arnesen/Bancroft and their teaching concept from Antarctica. Under the motto “To inspire and promote the achievement of dreams” the Americans had also managed to market the expedition. Yourexpedtition sold large amounts of merchandise, T-shirts, books and other Arnesen/Bancroft items. The ladies arrival in McMurdo was a well planned PR-stunt with the press transported in with the “Sir Hubert Wilkins”

Hartwell risked having to take Rolf and Eirik onboard his boat, and the possibility of their success would severely dampen the interest in Arnesen/Bancroft if they were to fail. On the other hand, if he refused help to Rolf and Eirik, and they really needed it, it would reflect very badly on Yourexpeditions.

Rolf and Eirik were of course blissfully unaware of the politics which were raging because of them. They were participants in a huge PR competition which started a long time after they had left the civilized world. Once again, their lack of communication was stirring up a hornets nest within the channels around Antarctica. The uncertainty was certainly not reduced now that their only position transmitter was now broken.

At it again

The broken antenna was not a massive problem for Rolf and Eirik. Since the start in Dronning Maud’s Land, they had been spending up to a day each time they had tried to get the Orbcomm transmitters to work. Now they had to try and fix the antenna and hoped that their last transmitter could still give the outside world a sign that they were still alive.

It couldn’t be fixed. Nobody had any clue of their progress or status. The last message from the boys reached Jakob Bae on the 9th of January, Rolf’s birthday. After that, it was four weeks before anyone heard anything.

Arranged communication is a double edged sword. If it is broken, then people assume a crisis. With no arrangements for communication, no news is good news. Everything becomes more relaxed. You have an arrival date, some leeway and a fixed date where rescue operations will begin.

High Risk

The risks involved in crossing Antarctica and the massive resources required for a rescue operation became very clear in Dronning Maud Land at the time that Rolf and Eirik were on their trip. Thomas Olsen Wosnitza, a 21 year old from Finnmark in Northern Norway was onboard Lance, the Norwegian Polar Institution’s summer expedition ship. He sustained serious head injuries after an accident on a snow scooter. He was driving over the ice between Troll and the South Africa SANAE Base when the accident occurred. He was left lying on the ice, unconscious. A multinational rescue operation was mounted, involving a helicopter and several Hercules aircraft. He was eventually flown to a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand. Months later, it seems as though he will not suffer permanent damage, but he has lost all memory for the past year.

Rolf and Eirik’s parents were put in the worst position imaginable. The communication lines were broken, and they did not know why. Their children could be alright, or they may be lying deep in a crevasse. It could be weeks before they find the answers

This time it was Sidsel Bae’s turn to loose her calm. Jorunn Sønneland was, of course very worried, but she was not affected by the same magnitude of fear that she had experienced in Greece. Her optimism had been strengthened.

When we didn’t hear anything, I cracked, says Rolf’s mother. For seven years I had managed to give up smoking, now I was at it again.

Both consciously and unconsciously she prepared herself for the news of her son’s death.

The unknown is difficult to handle. It was as though the outcome was not important, as long as I could discover what had happened to Rolf. The final two weeks were a blur. I felt guilty for Eirik’s mother. She was alone for the final week because her husband was away.

The two mothers kept sporadic contact through both the winters the boys were away and during the ski trip, and they found themselves very close, closer than other friends or even family. A mother’s instinct is a life force when mother and child are together, but it can be very destructive for the mother when the child is in danger and she is helpless.

Jorunn Sønneland found that the world around her avoided the subject of Antarctica. Whilst she was full of bottled up terror and needed to talk about her son, nobody would ask her how everything was going. Neither was she asked how it felt to be left alone. However, when the family cabin was flooded after a water pipe burst, suddenly everybody wanted to help. It is easier to fix a burst pipe than a mother’s bleeding heart.

Jakob knew every detail of Rolf and Eirik’s route. On the internet, he kept himself updated on the weather situation in the area every day. He calculated that the boys needed two to three weeks to reach civilization, and knew that they were both carrying emergency beacons. Mr. Bae warned Lloyds that an emergency situation could happen, and the 15th of February was set as the day a rescue mission would be commenced. If Rolf and Eirik had not made any contact by then, the alarm would be given.

Delayed arrival

The weather on the Ross Shelf was not normal for that time of year. A lot of snow fell and there was little wind. Sjur Mødre & Co had sped over a smooth surface of ice 11 years previously, whilst Rolf and Eirik had to break trail in windless conditions. During the final 970 kilometers, there were only a pitiful 3 days of sailing, which meant only 10 in total since the Pole. When the wind was around they put it to good use and set a new personal distance record of 210 kilometers in one day.

It didn’t help much. The wind vanished again after the three days. In mid-January, the boys realized that they were unlikely to reach the boat, and they didn’t worry too much. They could only carry on their steady journey. On the Ross Shelf, even Rolf began to miss home. After checking the log one day he announced to Eirik “now there is less than a Greenland-crossing left, then we’ll be finished.”

Physically, they began to wear down. They both began to get more affected by the cold, even though the temperatures were milder on the Shelf compared to the extreme cold up on the plateau. With 55-70lbs less body weight, their thermal clothes were starting to get baggy on them. At one stage, Rolf was overcome by hunger pangs. One minute he was starving, the next he couldn’t touch food. Eating became the only thing on his mind, a sure sign that the rations had been too small.

The physical requirements for walking 3800km over Antarctica are difficult to imagine with experiencing it first hand. Repetitive strain injuries in tendons and joints, blisters, creeping frostbite and metal struggles are difficult to avoid. It is a balancing act between pressing the body forward and not pressing it so hard as to overdo it.

Rolf was made for this type of work, and Eirik had trained for it – both had the toughness required. At Troll Station, both Eirik and Børre remarked on how inactive Rolf was. Whilst Eirik trained routinely, Rolf lay on the couch, eating and reading. Børre had seen how Eirik had missed his friend he was about to cross Antarctica with whilst he was training. The doctor spoke to Rolf about this

He answered that if he was going to train for months before a ski trip of over 100 days, he could risk getting bored of it all before he began. But he understood that Eirik wanted to be prepared as best as he could. People are different, and you have to accept that.

However different Rolf and Eirik were, however hard it had all been, however late they were going to be – they began to realize that they were going to succeed. The landmarks around McMurdo and Ross Island began to show up on the horizon. In just a few 10’s of kilometers, they would be finished.

When Rolf realized that the goal was in sight, he wanted to slow the tempo rather than increase it. It is better being on route than getting home.

The relief of coming home lasts for only a minute. It comes, and it goes. The day you arrive back, everything you have dreamed of is over.

He was not really that worried that they didn’t reach the Kaptain Khlebnikov in time.

I was sure we would get out of McMurdo somehow, the point was that we had done it.

Rolf looked at the GPS. That had covered a distance of almost 3800 kilometers. Monday the 5th of February, at 1am, after walking for 105 days, they wandered down the runway at Williams Airfield in McMurdo. They had 10 days of food rations left in the sleds. They had reached the end of the road. Their shoulders could sink, and they could breathe out at last.

Four men had spent the winter and become strong friends, two of them had done the longest ski trip ever, and kept their health and friendship intact. All the goals were reached. The Norwegian Antarctic Expedition 1999-2001 had been a huge success.