Walking on Ice : She Hopes to go Where No Woman Has Skied Before--Across Antarctica to the South Pole

Shirley Metz can go climb a rock if she wants. She can balance herself on sheer faces of granite 3,000 feet high or stand on the tiniest of ledges where eagles dare to fly.

But there is one thing she cannot do.

She cannot look down.

The last time she did in the Wyoming Tetons was unforgettable.

As she was dangling like an oversize marionette, fastened only to an expert climber perched above her, Metz was overcome by a fear of heights.

She eventually regained control and triumphantly reached the summit, where she broke down with joy and learned an invaluable lesson in resolve.

Metz will need just such determination in the coming months, when she and nine others embark on a 750-mile walk on skis across Antarctica to the South Pole.

Safely ensconced on a warm sofa at her Capistrano Beach home recently, Metz raised her high cheekbones, brushed a thread of blond hair from her face and said: “It is important to know that we have in our human reserve the ability to go beyond what we thought we could. Somewhere, where you least expect it, it’ll come to light. You won’t give up.”

Metz, 39, has learned to rock climb in preparation to become one of the first women to reach the pole over land.

She will be accompanied by eight men from elsewhere in the United States and Canada and another woman, a 24-year-old Harvard divinity student named Victoria Murden, when the expedition assembles in Chile in mid-November. They will fly from Puenta Arenas, Chile, to the Antarctica Peninsula, and from there to the Ellsworth Mountains on the edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf to establish a base camp at sea level.

On about Dec. 1, they will begin skiing--uphill and into the wind--toward the polar plateau, hoping to reach the ceremonial barber pole (elevation 9,200 feet) at the U.S. Navy’s Amundsen-Scott Research Center by Jan. 30.

Metz said the party, led by Martyn Williams of Whitehorse, Canada, will be the second to ski to the pole across one of the Earth’s coldest and most desolate landscapes. No American has reached the pole by a land route. Neither has any woman.

Roger Mear’s 1985 British expedition, the first to ski to the pole, retraced the ill-fated route of Robert Falcon Scott, whose British party reached its destination about a month after Roald Amundsen of Norway in the infamous 1911-12 sled race to the pole. Scott’s party of five perished on the return trip.

Those three expeditions, involving a total of 13 men, are the only ones to have made such a trek, said John Splettstoesser, a senior scientist at the University of Minnesota who specializes in studies of Antarctica. A number of others have tried, but failed.

“Of all the adventures in the world, climbing Mt. Everest or going to space, this was one that had so few people doing it,” said Williams, a wilderness guide who has climbed in Antarctica.

The party, ranging in age from 24 to 59, will attempt to ski 8 hours a day, often advancing no more than a mile because of the difficulty in crossing crevasses or such unusual conditions as sastrugi, wind-swept chunks of snow that swell to piercing peaks as high as 6 feet.

Other days, they will advance 30 miles across a vast, flat, white plain. They will average from 10 to 60 miles per hour, but always facing a strong head wind that emanates out of the pole because of the Earth’s curvature. Temperatures in the austral summer months of 24-hour daylight--November through January--average from 32 degrees along the coast to 31 below in the interior, but when violent storms come churning down the mountain canyons, temperatures can tumble to 50 below.

Bracing against the cold will be a continual battle. Splettstoesser said surviving such an extreme environment is as much a challenge today as it was during the Amundsen-Scott race. The message is clear: The endeavor is dangerous.

Williams recalled the time his plane was torn from its mooring during howling winds and was almost lost at sea. His party was stranded along the coast of Antarctica for 8 weeks while the plane was repaired.

In a queer sense, Williams welcomes the hazards. “Just another problem,” he said of the potential for falling into a crevasse or getting lost in a blinding blizzard. “That’s the part of it I’m looking forward to.”

The team will receive supplies from airdrops at designated points along the route. Two snowmobiles carrying supplies will accompany the expedition, but each skier will carry 35 pounds of emergency gear. They will be connected by rope like rock climbers, but strung along for miles depending on skiing ability. They will also have radio contact with their base camp.

“If we get isolated from the group, we can survive,” Metz said. “We’ll all have beepers, enough water, food and gloves. All the things you never need on the San Diego Freeway. But out there, nobody is coming by to get us.”

In such barren surroundings, living quarters will be austere. No baths for 2 months. No change of clothes. Metz’s eating utensils will consist of a measuring cup and plastic spoon. The group will make toilets out of snow blocks. “Forget paper--the perfect natural toilet paper is snow,” Metz said.

In some ways, Metz will be left out in the cold. She likes to shower and wash her hair twice a day. “And . . . I won’t be able to,” she said.

She lives in a spacious home overlooking Dana Point harbor with her husband, Dick. Before she began preparing for the trek, a trip to the mountains meant staying in the couple’s second home at the ski resort of Ketchum, Ida.

Although a recently converted environmentalist, Metz makes no excuses. “I never set out to have all this,” she said, waving her arms about her 4,000-square-foot home. “I realize now that I could live anywhere in the world. My happiest and most incredible feelings were sleeping out under the stars when we would be climbing mountains.

“Right now, it is a dichotomy that I have all this materialism around me when I don’t advocate it.”

In the past year, Metz has undergone an abrupt metamorphosis.

For almost 20 years, she and Dick owned and ran the Hobie Sports chain. They were among the movers and shakers in the California casual sportswear business: “I was a millionaire by the time I was 35,” she said.

The Metzes, however, sold the business last year. Shirley Metz still writes for a trade journal, but semi-retirement gave her the freedom to explore new avenues. She was at a crossroads when she joined Edna May Soper, her mother-in-law, on a cruise ship headed to Antarctica last January.

She knew little about the continent, its wildlife and its political ramifications. But the cruise stirred her interest in promoting a world park concept to keep Antarctica unspoiled. By becoming one of the first two women to reach the pole on skis, she hopes to publicize Antarctica’s plight.

The 5.4-million-square-mile continent has been protected since 1961 by an agreement of 12 countries with territorial or scientific interests, including the United States. One provision of the Antarctic Treaty, up for review in 1991, delayed settlement of mineral and oil claims for 30 years.

But because of scarcity of oil, some have advocated drilling in Antarctica. To counter such ambitions, environmentalists are seeking to establish a World Park in which prospecting of minerals and oil is banned permanently. Some scientists contend that Antarctica, although harsh, is a fragile environment. Splettstoesser said mining could upset the balance of life along the seacoast for penguins, whales, krill, seals, fish and myriad marine birds.

Also, 90% of the world’s ice and 68% of its fresh water originates in Antarctica.

Metz, who will be carrying high-tech video equipment on the expedition, plans to produce a documentary. She hopes to give lectures and show her documentary with the idea of garnering support for the World Park.

After returning from her first voyage, she made an educational film showing the Falkland Islands and the penguins of Antarctica.

The world’s highest continent (average elevation 7,500 feet) had become more than an infatuation; it had become a life’s work. She was so mesmerized by the friendly penguins and the frozen jigsaw puzzle of rough and rugged driblets of ice, that she felt a calling to return.

Seeking research material and contacts, she was referred to Williams, who was organizing the expedition. Despite her limited mountaineering background, he suggested that she join the trek.

Williams said he welcomed Metz and Victoria Murden because “women tend to break down barriers in expressing emotions. Their presence will make for a more relaxed atmosphere.”

Metz, as thin as a rake but with muscles as taut as stretched wire, knew little about wilderness survival. She is, however, athletic, having grown up in Hawaii surfing, sailing and scuba diving. Living in California and Idaho, she had become an accomplished alpine skier.

She joined up.

Then she got serious.

“Shirley’s drive and single-mindedness is impressive,” Williams said. At the end of a difficult training day in the Yukon, Williams said, Metz continued skiing alone, “just for the fun of it.”

Still, Metz needed a crash course in mountaineering.

She spent 10 days last May with a guide atop Mt. Cook in New Zealand learning the wiles of the wilderness. Staying in a lean-to on a cliff overlooking breathtaking vistas, Metz got a glimpse of what she was undertaking.

She learned how to retrieve a climber who has fallen into a crevasse and how to walk on a glacier. She learned the many ways to tie knots and how to use the equipment of rock climbers. “I looked like a walking hardware store,” she said of the mountaineer’s attire.

She then spent the summer training with the Sun Valley Junior Nordic Ski Team in Ketchum. And more time with experts climbing mountains near Ketchum and the Tetons, including the frightful confrontation with her acrophobia.

She also spent a week at Mt. Rainier and a week in the Yukon training with expedition members, as much an introduction to the varied personalities as survival training.

She had a setback during the Rainier trip when, walking with skis and a 50-pound pack, she tore ligaments in her leg. She had to wear a cast for 3 weeks, but she did not stop training. She took up bicycling.

Once recovered in Orange County, she lifted weights, swam and rode roller blades--sophisticated roller skates that utilize the same technique as cross-country skiing--with a 30-pound pack.

“I look back at it, and I’m in shock,” she said of the dramatic change in life style.

Metz, who is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 131 pounds, has gained 14 pounds in muscle since May but has been told to expect to lose 20 pounds during the trek. Because of her svelteness, she is concerned. “I’m trying to build muscle mass so I will have the energy to continue.”

She sleeps only 4 to 5 hours a night, continually burning calories as her metabolism runs in fifth gear. Although it keeps her young and effervescent, she would like to downshift a bit for the long haul.

But she just can’t, what with the wonderment of it all.

“It’s a funny juxtaposition, dealing with this other world, Antarctica,” she said. “I float into the ice and then float out of it.”

Her friends aren’t sure what to make of her part-mountaineer, part-entrepreneur personality. But Metz doesn’t seem to mind. Not much fazes her these days.

After all, she climbed a rock 3,000 feet high and lived to tell about it.