MILLENNIUM EXPEDITION
“VOYAGE INTO THE LOST CONTINENT.”
“Why have we come here”. “What has possessed
us to leave all civilization behind and journey to the end of the Earth
onto the lost continent of Antarctica?” Those are the questions that friends
and loved ones have asked us over and over again. I reflect upon these
questions as we visualize the magnitude of this God-forsaken desolate edge
of our huge planet looming over the horizon. But I know the answer…we’ve
come here to find ourselves, to find what we're made of, and to survive!
Landing the huge Russian Iylushin-76 Jet Cargo
Plane on the “blue ice runway” of Union Glacier adjacent to the Ellsworth
Mountains and inland from the Ronne Ice Shelf requires the marriage of
Mother Nature and man. Otherwise Mother Nature could gust winds up to 60
mph and easily toss this ship into the mountains and end the Expedition
before it could ever began. As this 2,000-ton jet plows down the glacier
runway, there's no hope of using brakes on the slippery ice; it must rely
upon reversing its jets to slow the plane down. So it just barrels down
the glacier for over two miles, until all our nerves are screaming
for it to come to rest.
We've made it here at last! It's 10
PM EST December 31, two hours before East Coast America celebrates the
New Millennium. Antarctica welcomes us with a crystal clear blue sky and
that puts a sparkle in the frozen horizon. We celebrate the dawning of
the New Millennium as 36 parachutes open over the sunlit midnight sky of
Antarctica. The wind is an eerie calm for our celebration and we launch
the hot air balloon up over the camp, but it just hangs there as if it's
stuck in one position in the frozen sky.
In this day and age of mankind having
been to the moon and routinely sending shuttles into Earth's orbit, Antarctica
still remains vastly unexplored and as forbidding as it was hundreds and
even thousands of years ago. Life only exists on the fringes of the Antarctic
Coastline, the inner part of the continent like space has zero life. Only
those few humans that dare to tread within the “death zone” defy Mother
Nature's laws. Our Expedition consists of a coalition of 17 nations joining
together to pool an immense amount of resources. Everything we need to
survive must be brought in with us. If we become stranded, there is no
food to look for, no trees to burn for heat, and certainly no shelter from
the frequent blizzards that can hit at any time.
Copyright by Curtis Lieber |