Blazing Ice: Pioneering the Twenty-first Century's Road to the South Pole

by John H. Wright

The Antarctic is the last vast terrestrial frontier. Just over a century ago, no one had ever seen the South Pole. Today odd machines and adventure skiers from many nations converge there every summer, arriving from numerous starting points on the Antarctic coast and returning some other way. But not until very recently has anyone completed a roundtrip from McMurdo Station, the U.S. support hub on the continental coast. The last man to try that perished in 1912. The valuable surface route from McMurdo remained elusive until John H. Wright and his crew finished the job in 2006. Blazing Ice is the story of the team of Americans who forged a thousand-mile transcontinental “haul route” across Antarctica. For decades airplanes from McMurdo Station supplied the South Pole. A safe and repeatable surface haul route would have been cheaper and more environmentally benign than airlift, but the technology was not available until 2000. As Wright reveals in this gripping narrative, the hazards of Antarctic terrain and weather were as daunting for twenty-first century pioneers as they were for Norway’s Roald Amundsen and England’s Robert Falcon Scott when they raced to be first to the South Pole in 1911–1912. Wright and his team faced deadly hidden crevasses, vast snow swamps, the Transantarctic Mountains, badlands of weird wind sculpted ice, and the high Polar Plateau. Blazing Ice will appeal to Antarctic aficionados, conservationists, field scientists, and adventure readers of all stripes.

John H. Wright began his career in the underground mines of the American West as a mining geologist and hard rock miner. With the closing of the western frontier he headed south to Antarctica, serving first as an explosives engineer, then later driving a tunnel in the ice beneath the South Pole. Because of his record in service to the United States Antarctic Program executing dangerous, difficult jobs with an impeccable record for safety and achievement, he was selected to lead the historic South Pole Traverse Proof-of-Concept Project. He is honored to tell its story.

328 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Bruce Luyendyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wright tells the story of a multiyear struggle to create an over-ice road, a snow-packed trail, from the main U.S. research base at McMurdo Station 1000 miles to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station. The South Pole Traverse is a route for supply trains hauled by heavy equipment to reach the Pole. Establishing an overland supply route to the South Pole had been imagined for years but was thought not to be practical or achievable. This supply route, once established, would relieve air transport of material, supplies and fuel to the Pole station, with considerable savings in logistic costs and time, and free up aircraft to support more science missions. In addition, it would be more reliable as tractors can travel when aircraft cannot. Wright's small team of men (and an occasional woman) and machines accomplished this feat in the period 2002-2006. Along the journey they faced exhausting work, equipment failures and the unique dangers and beauty of Antarctica. His team was the first to travel overland to the Pole and back since Roald Amundsen in 1911-12. The South Pole Traverse is now in use.

In his book Antarctica is the antagonist, humans and machines against Antarctica. There is little revealed of interpersonal conflict within his team and this makes it a bit of a disappointment. Wright's book is written with action scenes and extensive dialog. He delves into the bureaucratic and technical issues of getting this project done, along with struggles in funding it. In places the reading is slow when he gets deep into details. Wright explains a lot of technical issues that will appeal to insiders who know heavy equipment and the challenges of working with it in the Antarctic. After reading Wright's book the reader will understand how he successfully marshaled massive support and machines to achieve his goal.

I was surprised after I read it that I didn't find the story exciting. It did impress me as daunting. The technocratic and bureaucratic atmosphere that ran through it was at times distracting.
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[Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Large parts of this book are skimmable. Some chapters go into the granular details of crevasse finding and filling and some of the personal dynamics of driving along the trail, which were less interesting to me.
Other chapters that detail the relationship between the National Science Foundation and its contracting agencies and the weighing of funding priorities were much more interesting to me.
I also enjoyed learning the details of the S Pole Traverse tractors, sleds, and payloads. The problem solving and road to make it a reality were inspiring to read about.