As I struggled groggily up from the depths of my troubled reverie like a drowning man rising to the ocean’s surface, it took me a minute to notice why Stuart was so worried: the wind had flattened half our shelter, which rocked violently with each successive gust. Several of the poles were badly bent, and my headlamp revealed that two of the main seams were in imminent danger of being ripped asunder. Flurries of fine snow particles filled the air inside the tent, blanketing everything with frost. The wind was blowing harder than anything I’d ever experienced anywhere, even on the Patagonian
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