Think South: How We Got Six Men and Forty Dogs Across Antarctica

Chapter 6: Giles

By the time I reached them with my answer, the price of the Cessna had risen to thirty-two thousand. It was past midnight. If the film did not leave the Patriot Hills that night, it would not make it back in time for the broadcast. The weather reports across the Drake Passage were good, but not expected to last. The window of opportunity was slipping away. I talked them back down to twenty thousand and some barrels of fuel that we had left behind on King George Island. Plus, they interjected, ABC has to pay immediately for Bob Beattie’s recent “rescue” from King George – the place they, themselves, had stranded him.

"OK," I said after another conference with ABC producers. "They have told me to say yes." Now it was four a.m. "Get the Cessna in the air!"

COOL STUFF FOR READERS

Website and photos: Description and photos of the team’s arrival at the South Pole, written by Bill Spindler, a staff member on the American base.

Website and photos: Description of the Messner - Fuchs arrival at the South Pole in January 1990.

Article: Associated Press article about team's arrival at South Pole

Photo: Photo of the expedition campsite outside the South Pole Station, by our photographer Gordon Wiltsie.

Website: Adventure Network

Website: About Mount Kershaw.

Wikipedia: Info and photos about the Patriot Hills base camp.

Background on Twin Otter aircraft, from the British Antarctic Survey.

Video: Tour of the new South Pole Station (2013).

Website: Treaty “Guidelines for Visitors to the Antarctic”.