So Much Depends Upon Antarctica
When we arrived, the shore was cloaked in a slow-moving shroud of mist and fog. The only way to know we had, in fact, reached our destination, was to trust what the captain announced over the intercom. Visibility ended a few yards from the bow of the ship. And yet, there I was, in Antarctica.
On a good day, the sun is dazzling, reflecting miles and miles of brilliant, unblemished snow back into a startlingly blue sky that looks like it belongs to a pleasant summer day in Maine. You can’t look around without eye protection because there is no less-glaring, gently colored place to rest your eyes, and the sheer expanse of the place is staggering.
On a bad day, the landscape is shrunken to the few feet you can still see, and your focus is drawn from the vastness right back into your own body. Ice pellets stab into any exposed skin with brutal regularity, the wind burns your eyes, and snowflakes
