Antarctica Update: December 27th

There have been no blog posts on Ryan Waters Mountain Professional site since December 19th so I thought I would provide an update.  The team is slowly making progress but have had no easy days in the last week.  They got out of the really tough sastrugi filled terrain on December 23rd.  Unfortunately although the terrain got flatter the snow was not good.   It was the “anti-glide” type of snow that Scott talked about in his blog post on December 9th. This makes every ski step slow and difficult.  The weather has also been more challenging as well.  The days are cold, windy and the light is very flat making hard to see. Scott is also suffering physically as an old ankle injury is acting up with the repetitive movement every day and he said that he is in pain pretty much every minute they are skiing.  Despite all the difficulties they are averaging about 20 kilometers per day.  They did take a half rest day on Christmas day.  This was a hard day for Scott emotionally as it was difficult to be away from family and friends on Christmas.  The rest day was good however as he now seems more focused and motivated to make it to the Pole.  They are thinking they will reach the Pole on December 30th or December 31st. Only 3 or 4 more days to go!