The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

In Antarctic Light

bay where winds drove behemoth icebergs aground and left them to await their fate: either a rising tide and fair winds to carry the bergs back to sea, or, more likely, a slow melt in the sunshine. Shifting my pack, I put one foot in front of the other, guessing the number of steps until I reached the top and then silently counting each one along the way, watching my breath condense in the crisp air. Snow and ice crunched beneath my boots, the sound mingling with the brays and bleats of the gentoos. A pair flopped onto their bellies and tobogganed down the hill, springing to their feet right before they hit the water and scrambling to keep from going in. When I finally crested the ridge, a kingdom of ice stretched before me. The sky dripped a blood-orange light over the land and water as a fireball sun drifted lazily across the sky, slowly making its way toward the horizon. I gasped at the sight. Then a thunderous groan reverberated across the island. My head snapped toward the sound. An avalanche of snow tumbled down the mountainside in the direction Philipp had gone earlier. Another member of our group was nearby, and I looked at him hoping for reassurance. Surely Philipp was nowhere near the avalanche. Instead, I saw my own concern mirrored back at me. ~~ As a child, I had imagined moments like this—had wished for a life full of them. But I was no longer a child. The minutes passed on Booth Island. How many? I couldn’t say. The avalanche settled but there was no sign of Philipp. Until there was. There. A tiny black speck, snowshoeing on. I unclenched my jaw, felt my grip on my camera loosen a little, and exhaled the tension. For a few moments, I kept my eyes on Philipp before finally turning my attention back to the still-blazing sunset—it would last for hours, I knew. When I’d reached the top of the ridge, I’d set my pack down to explore

unencumbered. Now I turned back to retrieve it. “Oh,” I said, surprised.

Behind me, a full moon was making an unhurried ascent through an easygoing lavender sky. The last remnants of the day glanced off the cap of Dayné Peak on neighboring Wiencke Island, the snow iridescent in the evening light. And off in the distance, a large bird, probably a petrel, soared toward the moon. “Oh,” I said again, this time with reverence, remembering another full moon in Antarctica, one that rose on a new decade, deep in the Weddell Sea at the bottom of the world. Once upon a time, I’d fallen in love with the idea of Antarctica as a volatile, unforgiving land, and it certainly was that. But this stillness, this even-tempered beauty, this was Antarctica, too, I realized. And more than that, this was the Antarctica I took with me when I left. ~~ Later that night, I sat at our boat’s narrow dining table, listening to a soundtrack of soft snores and even softer waves. Ensconced in the dim light of a single lamp, I scribbled away in my notebook. I let my mind drift through space and time. I thought of the symphonic silence of a windless Antarctic day, the catchlight in the curious eyes of a fluffy penguin chick, the gentle curves of an ice palace floating in a still sea as snowflakes fell through the frigid air. I thought of the others sleeping nearby and our weeks of shenanigans and shared wonder. We’d started the trip as strangers, but thousands of experiences from sparkling sunrises to snowball fights had turned us into something else— something that felt more like family. I thought of moonrises. And I thought of that young girl in the California sunshine, paging through her atlas of dreams. She had seen more of the world now and she dreamed in different colors, but down in

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