Frozen in Time (29 page)

During the early going, Frank acts as the last line of defense, holding a rope tied to the rear of the Hotsy in case we lose control and it slides left, right, or headlong down the glacier. I doubt that Frank could stop it, but having him there is comforting. Considering his strength and resourcefulness, I suspect that he’d manage something. When everyone’s in place, Ryan calls out, “On Prancer! On Dancer! On Comet! On Vixen!” Doc Harman adds a benediction: “We’re going out for Pritchard because he would have gone out for us.”

The first two hundred yards are smooth, and under our power the Hotsy ladder sled fairly glides across the glacier. We hit a rough patch of ice and bounce across it. I’m on the right side of the front pushing ladder. WeeGee is on the left side. He catches my eye across the machine and smiles. We both know what he’s thinking.

We pick up the pace as we approach the first bridged-over crevasse, hoping to gain enough momentum to fly across without testing its load-bearing capacity. Increasing speed also allows us to enjoy the pleasant illusion that, like barefoot walkers on hot coals, the faster we cross the less likely we’ll get burned. Grunts, groans, and shouts of “Push!” ring out. The ladders shudder but hold and we clear the crevasse.

On the other side we rest, congratulating WeeGee on his invention and ourselves on our teamwork. Conflicts and tensions of the previous week fade away, replaced by fatigue and the shared goals of reaching BW-1 and firing up this awkward beast on improvised skis.

W
E PUSH ONWARD,
crossing smaller crevasses and shallow channels where meltwater drains toward the fjord. We rearrange the crew for maximum power as we approach the steep four-hundred-foot ice-covered hill that we’ve known from the start will be the true test. Out front on the pulling ropes are Alberto, Nick, and Rob on the left side, and John, Jaana, and Frank on the right. On the front pushing ladder, left to right, are WeeGee, Jim, me, and Ryan. On the back ladder are Terri, Doc, Michelle, Lou, and Bil. Steve alternates between pulling a tow rope and shouldering a heavy ice drill while navigating our path, and Jetta helps everywhere she can while exhorting us and photographing the work.

The Hotsy’s weight seems to double as we begin the climb. Muscles strain, joints ache, faces contort. Breathing grows louder. Joking disappears. Maybe Lou was right and this is impossible.

After a hundred yards we rest and drink from canteens until heart rates drop and energy rises. Halfway up the hill we encounter the biggest and ugliest crevasse yet. More than twelve feet wide in spots, its mouth opens to a depth of ten feet in places, to the top of a ragged ice bridge. The bridge has a disturbing grayish cast that makes it look anything but solid.

Our chests heaving as we gulp the cold air, we halt our uphill climb. Safety team members map out a route, and we ignore fears that we’ve tested this glacier one too many times. I can’t help thinking about Max Demorest.

For several hundred yards, we push and pull the Hotsy parallel to the glacial scar. We’re headed toward a spot where the crevasse opening is narrower, about six to eight feet wide, with a bridge one foot below the glacier surface. Several team members test the bridge and declare it solid, but we all know that the true test will be the Hotsy passing over it.

We move toward the potential crossing, then point the Hotsy sled uphill on the rope team’s command. Perpendicular to the crevasse, we make a full-power, full-throated charge. Driving our feet into the ice and our shoulders into the ladders and ropes, we plow toward the abyss. I grasp the forward ladder rungs in a white-knuckle hold, partly to push with all my strength and partly to be sure that I’m holding on to something if the bridge gives way.

As we begin to cross, the front metal curls of both ladder skis slam into the lip of ice at the far side of the crevasse. The ladder tips bend backward, threatening to break off, but that’s not our main worry.

We’ve stalled atop the ice bridge.

Commands ring out from front and back: “Keep going!” “Lift the front end!” “Don’t stop!” Fierce growls we once feared from polar bears now come from us. We push as one, forcing the nearly half-ton machine up and out of the bridged-over crevasse. Several members of the ladder brigade stumble as we gain speed. They hang onto the rungs and are dragged across the last few feet of the bridge. It holds.

EXPEDITION TEAM MEMBERS PUSH THE HOTSY UPHILL OVER A CREVASSE.
(U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH BY JETTA DISCO.)

On the far side of the crevasse we pause, allowing our spent muscles to relax. Relieved smiles creep onto our faces. The worst is behind us. Slowly but steadily we crest the hill; then we quicken our pace upon catching sight of the orange flags. The last leg seems almost easy. We erupt in whoops and cheers at BW-1.

Jim checks his watch: 7:56 a.m. A trek that we thought would take four hours has taken less than two, with no injuries and no damage to the Hotsy. As we hang onto the ladders or sprawl on the ice, Steve reflects on his military career. “I’m thinking about Iraq, Pakistan, doing things with a pretty elite group of guys. And
that
was amazing,” he says. “From WeeGee’s inventiveness to the team effort, any Special Forces unit would have been proud of that accomplishment.”

Jim marvels at how two ladders that Lou bought last-minute in Keflavík turned out to be among our most critical equipment. “Where there’s a will,” he says, “there’s a way.”

T
HE BREAK IS
brief, as moving the Hotsy is only part of the job. We need to haul more fuel, hoses, ropes, and other equipment to BW-1 for WeeGee to start melting. Several of us hike back to base camp with the ladder skis and cram the necessary supplies into a large Pelican case. When we’re done, it weighs more than four hundred pounds, so we attach ropes to drag it up the glacier. We’re tired from the Hotsy move, there are fewer of us working, and the surface has grown slushy since dawn. Even with the ladder skis it feels like pulling a reluctant donkey up a hill, and we anoint ourselves “the Mule Team.” What follows is a two-hour torment, complete with loud and imaginative curses cast on everyone who isn’t helping us.

Doc plays a leading role on the Mule Team, pulling with the strength of a much younger man and entertaining us with stories from his youth and his Coast Guard travels. Only later does he reveal that he nearly didn’t make the team.

For days, safety leaders have cautioned that we’ve become too casual on the glacier, ignoring risks and tempting fate by failing to rope ourselves together. Doc tells us that when he left BW-1 after the Hotsy move, alone and unroped—a double mistake in the safety team’s view—the glacier opened beneath his feet. Luckily, he threw out his arms and halted his fall at his armpits. His first thought, he says, was to get out fast. But he admits that his immediate motive wasn’t to save himself; he didn’t want to hear Nick say, “I told you so.”

Doc’s drop turns out to be the closest the glacier comes to claiming any of us.

A happier adventure befalls Jetta on her way to base camp after the Hotsy move. Walking with her head down, Jetta glimpses something dark on the glacier surface about a hundred yards from BW-1. She kneels and carves it from the ice with help from Jim and Rob. It’s a piece of frozen fabric, striped blue and gray, about the size of her palm. It looks and feels unlike the clothing that expedition members wear, and no one has reported torn or lost gear. It’s a long shot, but Jetta preserves the cloth for testing, in the hope that it might be from the Duck’s fabric-covered wings. Months might pass before an answer, but her discovery raises hope of good news to come.

W
EEGEE STARTS MELTING
the first hole at 1:00 p.m. He chooses a spot where John and Frank drilled yesterday with the auger. He straddles the trench, keeping the black steel pipe vertical and aiming the boiling water from the Hotsy downward into the ice. WeeGee plans to burrow nearly twice the radar-reported depth of the anomaly, to be sure not to miss anything. The rest of us stand around watching, wishing the hole would open faster.

When the pipe is several feet into the ice, WeeGee looks up and notices that Jaana’s hands are bare.

“You have gloves?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, quizzically.

“Put ’em on.”

When she does, WeeGee steps aside and hands her the hot pipe. It’s an act of appreciation, a tribute to her discovery. The work is slower than expected, the glacier resists the intrusion, and after a while WeeGee reclaims his place above the hole. At 2:15, he reaches a depth of sixty feet. Hand over hand, he pulls up fifty feet of black hose attached to the ten-foot pipe and sets it aside.

Alberto goes to work with his camera, a 4-mm lens surrounded by tiny high-intensity lights encased in a silver shell the size of a ripe pear. The camera hangs from a thick black wire, and Alberto unspools enough to reach the bottom of the hole. He drops it in, turns on the video screen, crouches on the ice, and drapes a coat over his head to block the glare. He pulls up the camera a foot at a time, searching the screen for any hint of the Duck. After several minutes, Alberto stands and runs his hands through his curly black hair. He stares at the hole and says nothing. We tamp down our disappointment, knowing that if a hole is even a foot from the Duck the camera might see nothing. And because the Duck might be nose-down or nearly vertical in the ice, it would make a narrow target.

ROBERT “WEEGEE” SMITH MELTS THE FIRST HOLE AT BW-1. WATCHING ARE (FROM LEFT) JIM BLOW, ALBERTO BEHAR, KEN HARMAN, AND MITCHELL ZUCKOFF.
(U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH BY JETTA DISCO.)

This might take many holes and lots of time, everyone agrees, so nine team members return to base camp to eat lunch and begin packing. Eight of us remain at BW-1: WeeGee, Lou, Jim, Jaana, Doc, Frank, John, and me. WeeGee starts a second hole, this one at the exact spot where Jaana placed the flag over the anomaly. But after forty minutes, with the hole about forty-five feet deep, the hose starts to spray water from where it’s attached to the Hotsy. WeeGee turns off the Hotsy to repair what he diagnoses as a blown rubber O-ring. Doc shuts off a portable Honda generator that powers a pump that draws water into the Hotsy. The glacier reclaims its quiet majesty.

I notice that Jim has wandered some fifty yards away. He stands with his back to us, facing Koge Bay, talking on a satellite phone. After several minutes, he turns and walks toward us, his shoulders slumped. We gather around as he says, “Everyone’s got to get off the ice.” Confused, we look at each other and back at Jim. He explains that rough weather is approaching faster than expected, so Air Greenland is sending its two biggest helicopters to airlift all of us and as much gear as possible before nightfall. The first helicopter will be here in an hour.

We thought we’d have a full day or more at BW-1, and we’ve brought lights to work through the night. We anticipated driving fifteen, twenty, or more holes to probe the anomaly that every one of us can picture in our minds from Jaana’s radar screen. Now we have an empty first hole, an unfinished second hole, and an order to leave.

It feels like a cruel joke. Everything for naught: Lou’s relentlessness and sacrifices; Jim’s labors and dedication; Jaana’s persistence; WeeGee’s inventiveness; our hard work and shared joy from the unexpected results at BW-1; the time and money spent; the triumph of the Hotsy move. This was the Duck Hunt’s best shot, and now it’s apparently over.

As Jim’s words sink in, Lou’s face goes slack. Normally he doesn’t hesitate to question the Coast Guard commander’s orders, but Jim looks as dejected as anyone. Lou and the rest of us say nothing.

Before we disperse to gather our personal gear, WeeGee breaks the silence: “I’m staying. Grab my stuff and have the last helicopter pick me up here.”

To my surprise, Jim doesn’t object. I see an opening, so I look to WeeGee. He gives me a slight nod.

“I’ll stay to help,” I say.

Jim hesitates, then approves. Lou raises his eyebrows and shoots me a look with one possible meaning: Are you sure you know what you’re doing?