Christchurch, New Zealand

August 24th – 25th, 2006

As the sun rose over the snow drenched Southern Alps I chuckled at an old familiar sentiment and smiled, enamored as a first time traveler.

Christchurch is a lovely city, the largest on the south island. It is where all most early Antarctic expeditions departed from by sea, and where both the New Zealand and American programs base. I would get but two short days in this lovely city, famous for its botanical gardens that have ancient sequoia planted by early British settlers.

After a nap to ward off jet lag, I went for a run in the nearby Port Hills, trying to savor every last second of these moments of freedom. In a few mere days, the prospect of a run would require suiting up in extreme cold weather gear, formally checking out in case anything happened to me, and battling the cold and wind that spring in Antarctica is famous for. For the meantime, I tied a light jacket around my waist and avoided the occasional snow and mud patches as I ran among sheep on an ancient volcano outcrop.

The next morning about a hundred of us arrived at the US where house where we were issues our formal “extreme cold weather gear”. For those of you that have seen the movie about dogs, 8 below, we are issued most everything in this movie. The big red parka, fur lined over mitts, white bunny boots, and an absurd amount of fleece. While trying things on I developed a crazy idea, and within an hour had found fellow keen skiers.

We rented a car, drove west to the Southern Alps towards Arthur’s Pass and arrived at a small club ski hill at 2:00, precisely two hours before the rope tow lifts were scheduled to close. Immediately after arriving, a huge snow squall blew threw and literally emptied the slopes. The lefties were trying to get us to drive our tiny rental car back down the narrow winding road before we got stranded, but stubbornly, we insisted we were staying. “We are heading to Antarctica for 6 months where we can’t ski like this” we proclaimed to their puzzled faces. Then, perhaps as rewards to out persistence, the squall lifted and we had the ski hill to ourselves and our hoots of glee.

Sometimes in life you just need to rally and let yourself be swept up by a fantastical idea. I rarely regret such decisions.

Later, after negotiating the narrow road down we decided to take full advantage of our rental car and went to check out a nearby cave, where a creek descends into the limestone only to reappear a mile downstream. One lesson I took with me from my time spent on the ice last year is that these little moments fill one to the point of bursting, if only you can be open to it. I’ll try to explain more. The sensory depravation we experience in Antarctica is hard to explain. We get accustomed to it this narrow range of stimuli, colors, choices and the ever-present wind. When once again we are amidst a dynamic sensory rich environment it is overwhelming.