Courtney Skinner – Excerpts of Letters from the Antarctic to his family.

Oct 18, 1961 – I drew my cloths at the Institute of Polar Studies and found them not much different than those we wear in Wyoming. Some of them do not fit, but took them anyhow over the risk of them not arriving in the Antarctic…my baggage weights over 130 lbs…there are about 50 of us aboard the plane. Mostly Navy personal going to winter over in McMurdo.

October 31, 1961 - Somewhere in flight between Christchurch New Zealand and McMurdo Sound, Antarctic. When we went to leave (Christchurch) Friday, I couldn’t go because of my teeth. So 5 fillings, 1 extraction and 40 dollars later, I’m finally in route south…The money problem for some New Zealanders is quite acute. The food & lodging is cheap enough but everything else seems to be quite expensive. For 9 days it cost me 38 bucks for a room & breakfast – beer 10cents a glass, a down vest cost me 15 bucks…I’m not completely satisfied with our clothing issue, especially the socks. I tried to find a good Norwegian wool ski sock, but no luck as they were all tied up in customs….We are flying in a C143, Globemaster and it is getting awfully rough. From now on it will always be daylight until our return. We have all put on our cold weather clothing as they will soon start lowering the temperature of the plane, so that when we get off the temp. change will not be to shocking….Well, like every Skinner away from home, I’m going to need more money when I come back off the ice….Send it from the Skinner Brother Bank…From McMurdo we fly over the Ross Ice Shelf to Bryd Station. From there they fly us to within about 3 miles of the Jamesway Hut (which Bill says will be buried under the snow, if we can find it). From there we have two snow toboggans to take us on various trips away to the mountains for the collecting of rock samples. Some days we will stay out & live in mountain tents to probe the range further….(signed) The Boy Adventurer, Court.

November 6th, 1961. Dear Quent & Ole – The weather down here can get a bit nippy now & then -370 below when I landed. Bryd Station is on a big Ice Cap hundreds of miles in length & width & over 2 miles deep. Anyway you look at it, one hell of a lot of ice. It is always daylight here now being in there summer months. Old Bryd Station is under 20 ft of snow and about to be discontinued as soon as New Bryd is complete (about 3 miles away). We will fly to within about 3 miles of our camp in the Horlick Mts (850 S 1140 W) about 300 miles from the South Pole. From there we sledge about 3 tons of equipment to our hut & then take long sledge trips from there to complete the Geology of the Horlicks.

November 13, 1961 - USARP - Horlick Mnts Expedition, Antarctica - Camp Ohio – 850 S 1140 W.

Hello from the Land of the Blizzards, and there is a dandy blowing outside now. We flew in on November 7th in a DC-3 and landed okay in near blizzard condition, quickly unloaded about 3000 lbs of equipment, and started the walk of about 3 miles to the Jamesway hut, which by luck was not completely covered. It was a fairly long jaunt and must confess that I was not completely prepared for the Antarctic. On the way in, Bill frostbit his nose and chin, so guess my nose is not the biggest after all. …We have been to the mountain once (about 3 miles away and about 2400 ‘ above the ice). We should have quite a busy season, mapping, geology & searching for certain fossils. Our Jamesway is 16’ by 16’ & we use all the space we can with cots, tables, Coleman heater & stove, 90 by 90 Arctic robe sleeping bags. We have lighter ones for the trail. Our transportation means are two Alliasion Snow Toboggans…driven by one man and the rest ride behind on Akous. They are quite the machines and really take a beating on the Sastrugi (hard concrete snow drifts about 6” to 3’ high). There will be 2 more flights in yet…Flying here is never at its best. One of the planes crashed at the Russian base, taking one of our USARP members with it. The other is down but heard by radio all are okay but the plane is badly damaged.

November 21st Two days we have been mapping & taking samples towards the west end of the central Horlicks into all new unexplored country. I got my first taste of ice work on one of these jaunts. As a stroke of luck, I kept my ice axe after we had unroped & were working our way through the rock sections. I stepped on to the ice and down the mountain I went but managed to make a self arrest in good time. Scared the heck out of us all. By now all of us have been frostbitten in various places. It is a sneaky little devil and unless someone else spots it, you never know its there until to late.

Our typical weather almost everyday is as if you took the nastiest day 1500 ‘ above the top of Baldy (Mount Baldy in the Wind River Mtns) and added about 3 fold the wind. Although the temp stays around 10 to 150 below most of the time, it is the driving wind & drifting snow that is hard to cope with. Usually you can never face it but always angle or back into it, which leads to falling into the crevasse’s. They manage to turn up anywhere & because of the wind are usually hidden. The only clue being a crack from 1” to 2 inch wide. A few days ago in a retreat from a rocky ridge, stuck my axe through one & Bill and I jumped like a rattlesnake had us. George came within an inch of going in. Knocked it open and it was about 5’ wide & around 20’ deep to where another snow covering hid what was below. But anyhow we are prepared for such things and see them all the time in our ice climbing which is where we stay because at least there they are visible (on blue ice that is).

Yesterday was by far our hardest day as yet. Start out to establish a tent camp on the far west end & make our mapping further down the range. In the morning the weather was calm & we quickly packed the sledges for camp 1 and off we went. Made about 10 to 12 miles & the wind got so bad and struck with such force that after setting up our mountain tents & eating a hot meal, we packed up and began to race the storm home. Had trouble with the Alliasion filling up with drifting snow. Finally quit altogether. Worked for a couple of hours pouring gas & cranking. Finally made it back at 5 this morning. Will be off again tomorrow – weather permitting…I will put this in an envelope but it is highly unlikely that we will have a plane land for some time as there is only one plane left at Bryd Station and one cannot fly without a support plane. So long for now.

December 1, 1961. Our work here has been progressing slowly but have made some headway towards collecting samples & measuring various rock layers. Have been out on the trail the past five days to what I call Camp II. Had a great deal of trouble returning in a bad blizzard with the machines breaking down and filling up with drifting snow. Took us about 30 hours and had to make a cache of most of our extra equipment, only keeping what we needed for survival; Dee & I returning for the rest of the gear yesterday. Since then we have been resting and getting ready to return to near by Mount Scholff to work. We will move camp sometime in January to either the western Horlicks or the Queen Maud Range. Once there (we’ll make a) quick survey and leaving between the 1st & 15th of Feb back to Bryd Station and then home.

December 4th. Another day of storm so bad outside that one has trouble breathing because of fine, flour-like drifting snow. Glad to be inside, although we spent all morning in it working on the snow toboggans. Being a mechanic here is at its best a very difficult job. Thank goodness the machines are simple enough and we have managed to keep them going despite a bad beating. The past 3 days have been very nice and we completed quite a bit of work. Became a coal miner in digging a pit to secure fresh coal samples. Also completed 1100 ft of Geological mapping on a ridge about 10 miles from camp. As we have not been able to make radio contact with Bryd Station, don’t know when our resupply plane will be coming.

Dec 5th. Still storming and looks like another day of confinement. The wind is worse today and to venture more than 50’ from camp would be folly, although camp is flagged in each four points leading out from it…. When we do work and the weather is good we put in 20 to 30 hour days and keep at it till the weather takes a turn for the worse.

Dec 7th. Pearl Harbor Day. The storm is at last blowing itself out, so soon will come the digging out and then back to the field again. Made radio contact…the plane has a bad engine. Therefore it will be some time before they pay us a visit. The only critical part is that our fuel supply is now running very low. But as we still have a fair amount of gasoline, we can possible use it as a substitute.

December 10th. We will have a plane in soon…The last two days have been very nice but long and hard. With no wind this country isn’t half bad; about like Pinedale in the winter…It will probably be another month before the next plane… Have yourself a very good and cheerful Christmas. I will be thinking very much of you all. Love, Court