The Snowboarder's Journal - The Snowboarder's Journal 21.3
SALTED CORN IN ANTARCTICA
Words: Tailer Spinney 2023-12-06 13:02:35
Tailer Spinney all smiles and on-slope in Antarctica. Photo: Danny Kern
An ice-capped desert. An otherworldly landscape blanketed in crisp white linen with shit stains from abundant gentoo and chinstrap penguin colonies. Unpredictable glaciated mountains that emerge straight out of the ocean stippled with seracs, stunning ridgelines, icy spines and fun-angle aprons that drop off to giant ice headwalls to the water’s edge. That’s Antarctica, to a snowboarder.
After voyaging from Ushuaia, Argentina, through the Drake Passage on an expedition ship called the Ocean Diamond, we arrive at the world’s southernmost continent and anchor in one of the least-inhabited places left on Earth. To access the shoreline, we transfer from the ship into a Zodiac, a smaller rigid-hull boat that pushes us through the sea ice and frigid waves of the Antarctic Ocean. I’m here with Glen Poulsen, Danny Kern, Blain LeBlanc, and Gillian McGregor. We’re with Ice Axe Expeditions, a company that brings snowboarders and skiers on tours through Antarctica, the North and South poles and beyond. I was asked by Ice Axe to tail guide for this crew, an opportunity I’d be hard pressed to pass up.
The week flies by in a flash. On one day we’re lucky enough to see seal pups in a hidden cove and on another we find a leopard seal sleeping on an iceberg. The dynamic weather persists into the final day on snow, starting with choppy waters. We’re borderline soaked as we approached Half Moon Island, where a chinstrap penguin colony breeds and the Argentine Camara Base is located. Glen looks at me and says, “Let’s dedicate this day to Hilaree [Nelson].” Both of us hold back tears for the recently departed ski mountaineering legend. We are silent as we tour the sights of the island. We check out the Argentine base, its bright-red 70-year-old buildings against the contrast of the country’s light-blue and white flag, boarded up and used for research only in the summertime. Across from the base lay a couple of penguins, belly down aside a Weddell seal absorbing heat from the cobblestone beach.
From Half Moon Island we head back to the ship for lunch before another quick boat ride delivers us to Livingston Island, one of the South Shetland Islands. We set out under blue skies and sunshine but, in classic Antarctica fashion, shortly after starting our tour it begins snowing sideways with heavy gusts of wind. The weather persists for the entire ascent. We transition just several hundred feet shy of the summit of 1,600-foot Rodopi Peak before dropping in slowly and politely spaced. Shortly into our descent the clouds clear and the wind settles, opening the foreground with a clear view of Half Moon Island and the deep blue sea speckled with crisp white icebergs that glow the brightest aqua blue just below the water’s surface. Deep, groovy tracks made up of extra-large corn-like kernels spray with every turn. “That’s what we call salted corn,” Glen says at the bottom.
Slapping the skins back on and tying back into the rope, we head up for a second run. This time we navigate our way through more complex glaciated terrain to find fresh turns. We quickly transition at the base of a massive serac that towers over us as we look out on the ocean, absorbing this wild landscape we are so blessed to even experience, let alone snowboard. We drop in one at a time given there are a couple of mandatory snow bridges to cross. I spend much of my descent looking at the horizon, knowing this is going to be my last run on the white continent, for now.
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