The Clinic by Ray Carole

Author:Ray Carole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Mick looked down at the arrow on the GPS screen before following it off the screen as far as his eyes could see to the blank horizon. The weather was still clear though a little overcast taking the edge off the sparkling ice surface.

Mick took stock of the expansive landscape and immediately registered what WHITEOUT meant when he talked about depth perception in his blogs. He’d shared how it could be deceiving out here and Mick knew it was almost like a virtual enemy that they had to get a grip of fast. What he perceived to be a wide expanse stretching for miles to his front could in fact actually only be a few hundred metres or so. Making a wrong judgment would be critical, once they got within 5 nautical miles of WHITEOUT Mick understood that failure to judge depth perception could mean compromise, resulting in a premature pursuit across the Antarctic plateau to take down their prey.

As Mick inspected the snow and surface conditions with his ski pole he couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the erratic sastrugi formations carved out of the ice. It looked like art to him, a true exhibition showpiece, Mick crossed his fingers in his mittens that the 100 mph winds that Gerry had mentioned would hold off a few more days, these looked tricky to navigate as they were.

As Mick forced his eyes to visualise any cracks in the ice, he could make out a dip in the ground, only partially visible. ‘Dead ground, shit.’

Dead ground was a problem; the area of surface you could not see between two points could be where WHITEOUT was skiing or tented up. Further away squinting his eyes he could that the ground regained height and became level again. In between these points was always going to cause major deliberations at this early stage on the ice. Mick knew WHITEOUT could identify easily now the perceptions of depth between two points of high ground. Mick didn’t have this luxury and would have to always play it safe, which meant going slower than he’d like.

‘Does the ground disappear for 200 metres or two miles?’ Mick pondered.

WHITEOUT had described in his blog how he would sometimes look to his front and see a steep drop that entered a huge patch of dead ground. This dead ground WHITEOUT estimated to measure around 4 miles in distance before it rose up, to gain its lost height once more. It shattered him as he knew he would have to descend into the lower reaches only to climb back four miles out of it. He had described the surreal experience of stepping off to take on the challenge and after only 20 metres had passed, he had skied both down and back out of the dead ground. Even being the most experienced navigator that he was, he still couldn’t get his head around it but also noted this had happened to him around the North Pole as well. Mick understood

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