Antarctic Explorer Fights Ski Skin Crisis Midway

“My skin, a non-slip tape attached to and detached from the bottom of skis, fell off four times in one day. I folded it and placed it under my armpits and navel to thaw, then pressed it tightly against the ski and hugged it. I love you! Don’t fall off!” (November 10, 2024, Day 3 of the operation)

Every day, I sent a single-line message to the emergency contact network. I had installed an application called ‘Inrich,’ which is a GPS device that allows me to send my location and messages. Inrich automatically updated my movement distance on an online map every hour. Anyone could check how many kilometers I had walked and what the weather was like. Antarctica has no internet, and only satellite phones can communicate. It was a survival report of sorts, proving that I was still walking at a normal pace today in a space cut off from the world on the opposite side of the globe. I thought people would guess my well-being from the single sentence I sent daily. I couldn’t burden those watching with unnecessary worry by rambling about my hardships in a short greeting. Antarctica is an isolated space far from the world, but with this small device, I remained connected to it.

By Day 3 of the operation, my legs grew heavy as lactic acid built up. On Day 2, I walked the distance covered in the first two days of the 2022 South Pole expedition in a single day. Though I was pouring energy into tomorrow, not the past, I kept comparing myself to who I was two years ago. Three hours after departing in the morning, the skin on my skis fell off. My body must have been tired, as my dreams the previous night were unusually vivid and violent. I woke up at dawn after dreaming of arguing with some man related to Antarctica, protesting my innocence. The problem with my skis gave me a bad premonition, but I blamed it on the unsettling dream. Perhaps I was blaming a man in my dream who wasn’t even here. Alone in Antarctica, I’m finding reasons to blame others. If someone had come with me, I would definitely have blamed the person next to me. Still, I wish someone were by my side, even if we fought. Just having someone who understands this situation would be comforting.

The skin could ruin the entire expedition. It’s an unplanned option and the anxiety I fear the most. During the 2022 South Pole expedition, it never fell off once over 51 days. Now, with 67 days remaining, I’m worried. Of course, I have spare skins. But if one becomes completely unusable now, I’ll only have one left.

It’s crucial that the skin and skis stick together without gaps. These skis are an Antarctic-specific model of cross-country skis. When the skin’s bristles pierce the snow, the friction prevents the skis from slipping, allowing me to walk uphill. Even though the skis are heavy, wearing them consumes less energy than walking. I folded the fallen skin and placed it between my armpits, then moved it to between my windproof pants and stomach. I aimed to melt the cold with my body heat to restore the bond’s stickiness on the skin.

Was it because of the extremely low temperature? The bond where the ski adheres lacks stickiness. My legs were already heavy from the morning, and the skin kept distracting me as I walked. In spring 2024, after returning from Norway, I applied wax to the ski plates to prevent rust. I suspected the wax’s temperature might not suit the Antarctic environment. Whenever the skin fell off while walking, I took off the skis, pressed them to my chest, and hugged them tightly. “I love you! Don’t fall off!” I whispered to the skis, imbuing them with love like a magic spell. To fix it, I pitched a tent in the evening and brought the skis inside. First, I decided to scrape off the wax on the skis. Making water by melting snow was already busy work, and now a major task had been added. The problem wasn’t completely resolved the next day either.

※This newspaper will serialize ‘Antarctica, One Step to the End’ by Kim Young-mi, the mountaineer who became the first Korean to solo traverse the Antarctic continent, on a biweekly basis.