The Real Icing on Her Cake Came From Making the Trek

Where will you be spending your 60th birthday?

Aboard a cruise ship? On the golf course? In Florida?

Helen Thayer wanted a little more excitement, so she decided to walk across Antarctica to the South Pole and celebrate her 60th along the way.

“I thought it would be neat,” she said recently from her home in Seattle.

Twelve days into her trip, alone in a vast and blustery wasteland, Thayer took note of the day, dug a

hole in a frozen cupcake, placed a candle in the hole, lit the candle and wished herself a happy birthday while 100-mph winds turned the world outside her tent totally white.

Neat?

“It was like having your head inside a jet engine,” she said. “The wind just screams and roars. I was trapped in one place for two days because the wind just wouldn’t stop.”

Blowing out the candle, obviously, was no sweat.

Completing her journey was another matter.

Thayer began her trek from Patriot Hill in eastern Antarctica on Nov. 1, pulling a 260-pound supply sled. She was surprised to find such warm temperatures. “Minus 20 is about as low as it got,” she said.

But it was the wind that made her travels miserable from the outset. At times, all she could see was white, no matter which way she looked, which made it difficult to see crevasses and negotiate standing waves of ice that at times dominated the landscape.

One day, she fell into a crevasse that could have become her icy grave had her sled not bridged the gap and had she not been able to hold onto the ropes attached to the sled.

“I was literally hanging from the sled,” she said. “It was like a bottomless pit below me. I could not see the bottom.”

She managed to pull herself out and continue precariously along, increasing her time afoot and her mileage day after day until the morning of Nov. 22, when her sled, after being pulled over a mound of ice, tipped and slid into her, severely bruising her hip and leg, pinching her sciatic nerve and making it too painful to walk.

Thayer was 171 miles into her trip, a few hundred short of the South Pole, but she couldn’t go on. She sent a satellite distress signal and was eventually airlifted to civilization.

“I was a bit disappointed at first,” she said. “But in the end I was satisfied because I had achieved my goal of trekking in the Antarctic and celebrating my 60th birthday there.”

True enough. Besides, it’s not as though she hasn’t had her share of successful adventures.

When Thayer was 50, she became the first woman to solo-trek to the magnetic North Pole, though her dog, Charlie, was with her to ward off polar bears, one of which flipped her sled with a swipe of its paw before being chased into the white wilderness by the barking dog.

Three years ago, she and her husband, Bill, who is now 80, kayaked 1,500 miles on the Amazon and its tributaries.

Last year, the two adventurers hiked 1,400 miles across the Sahara Desert, following an ancient trade route.

Next year, they plan on spending several weeks following the western arctic caribou herd, half a million strong, as it migrates through the Brooks Range in Alaska.

Now that sounds neat.

WHERE THEY’RE BITING

There are still albacore to the north and yellowfin to the south, but fish counts are dwindling and the local season for the exotics, the longest in recent history, seems to be coming to an end.

However, the San Diego long-range season has just begun, and it figures to be a bountiful one at the Revillagigedo Islands south of Baja. One commercial seiner recently reported catching six tons of yellowfin in a single haul, none weighing less than 200 pounds and three topping 300 pounds, including a 378-pounder.

“Other commercial boats report wahoo jumping out of the water like flying fish,” said Tommy Rothery, skipper of the Polaris Supreme.

Pat Cavanaugh, captain of the Excel, arrived there Tuesday and by nightfall his passengers had boated 100 yellowfin, six weighing more than 200 pounds and 25 between 170-230 pounds.

“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” Cavanaugh said.

ON WATCH FOR KILLERS

The Southern California whale-watching season typically begins the day after Christmas, but a few migrating gray whales are already spouting off our coast as they travel south to Baja.

However, eyes are also peeled for killer whales, which have upstaged--and probably scared the blubber out of--the grays early on in each of the last two seasons, showing in large pods and putting on a show for days at a time.

A few killer whales have been seen in the area. Faatafa “Tiny” Tumanuvao, skipper of the City of Redondo, passed within 30 yards of two or three orcas Sunday while on a fishing trip about four miles off Manhattan Beach.

“I saw that big dorsal fin and I about jumped out of my seat,” he said. “I wished I could have stopped to do a little whale-watching, but we were on a fishing trip and the guys wanted to fish.”

GRAY MATTER

Gray whales are the focus of a census project being conducted daily from now through May at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Those interested in volunteering time to help document whale-passings can show with binoculars for an orientation Sunday at 1 p.m.

Last winter, volunteers counted 1,053 southbound grays and 1,608 northbound grays, and a record number of calves--44 early-borns traveling south and 222 returning north with their mothers.

BROKEN RECORD?

Michael Travis Graham of San Bernardino shot and killed what might have been a state record-sized black bear while hunting last week with guide Nick Sahagan.

Since it was killed in a remote area, near Fawnskin in the San Bernardino Mountains, the bear had to be “sectioned” for transport.

A Department of Fish and Game examination determined that the bear’s head measured 12 3/4 by 9 inches and that the bear itself measured 7 feet 10 inches. Estimates place it at about 700 pounds and an attempt is being made to determine--though photographs and measurements--whether it indeed was heavier than the record 690-pounder shot last year in Plumas County.

YOUNG GUNS

John Rankin in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, on a recent hunting trip with his son, David, who shot a six-point buck: “When we got the deer it was like we had just won the lottery . . . for both of us. He was so excited and I was excited, and it was great. He kept high-fiving me on the way home. . . .”

They apparently start ‘em young in Tennessee. David is 8.

COYOTES AND KIDS

The Colorado Division of Wildlife reports a troubling trend involving coyotes in rural areas: The animals have lost their fear of humans.

“I’ve seen coyotes sitting outside the fence of day-care centers intently watching the kids play,” wildlife area manager Rick Spowart said. “The school kids in Estes Park have been feeding coyotes. These animals are so habituated that they’ve actually jumped on the hood of my vehicle when I pulled in into school parking lots to tell kids not to feed the coyotes.”

Brazen coyotes have also been a periodic problem in California, where there have been 13 documented attacks by coyotes on people since 1976, including the fatal attack on a 2-year-old girl in 1981.

SWORDSMANSHIP

It’s a rumor no longer. Mexico’s commercial swordfishing fleet is indeed trying to get that species of billfish removed from the sport fishing-only list protecting certain game fish for recreational anglers within 50 miles of the coast.

A meeting sponsored by Mexico’s department of fisheries was held Wednesday night on the matter and in attendance were concerned resort owners from La Paz to Acapulco.

The swordfish gill-netters are reportedly claiming, among other things, that the swordfish being fished commercially in California are largely unavailable to them because of the 50-mile restriction. That may be true, but California doesn’t have a tourism industry supported by marlin, sailfish, dorado, wahoo and other species that would undoubtedly be affected were the gill-netters to have free reign in Mexican waters.

“Our position is no, no no,” said Marco Ehrenberg, owner of the Pisces Fleet in Cabo San Lucas and president of the Cabo San Lucas Sportfishing Assn. “They say the Americans are catching our swordfish so we are losing income for our country. We say that tourism is the third largest source of income for our country and that commercial fishing isn’t even up there.”

A ruling on the proposal isn’t expected soon.

SHORT CASTS

The Department of Fish and Game is calling the recent death of a Tehama County deer hunter an accident. Eric Daniel Micke, 29, of Corning, apparently fell while running along a ridge, causing his rifle to discharge and the bullet to strike him in the neck area. The DFG’s Redding office is calling the accident the first hunting-related death this year in California.

Nearly 40% of adults in the United States spent $101 billion on “wildlife-related pursuits” in 1996, according to a report released this week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Of that amount, $38 billion was spent on fishing and $20.6 on hunting. California was second to Florida in the number of anglers and out of the top five in the number of hunters.

Tom Stienstra’s California Boating, a 550-page, comprehensive guide to lakes, streams and landings around the state, is being offered free of charge by the California Department of Boating and Waterways. Details: (916) 445-2615.