Antarctic veterans describe their love affair with this remote wilderness

http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2014/jan/14/antarctica-veterans-love-wilderness-allure-adventure

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These past weeks, we've benefited from the combined experience of several Antarctic veterans, people who have been to the frozen continent countless times, who keep coming back and, for all intents and purposes, will keep coming back. My own experiences have been written from the point of view of someone who is new to this world, finding awe in almost every landscape, animal or temperature I've encountered. Antarctica is a special place, no doubt, but people do live and work here and, I wondered, does it ever get normal for people who come time and again? Or even boring?

While we waited for the Aurora Australis to finish its re-supply of the Australian Antarctic base, Casey, I rounded up a few of the Antarctic veterans and asked them to tell me about their Antarctica, to get a flavour of what it is like to have an extended relationship with this remote, beautiful part of the world.

What brings you coming back to Antarctica?

Greg Mortimer (geologist and co-leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, has been to Antarctica more than 100 times): I keep coming back to Antarctica because of the mystery of trying to understand the place. More importantly, its pure beauty, the raw beauty of its sharp edges and its extraordinary wildlife. It's a place of paradoxes where the natives, the wildlife that exists there, have no fear of humankind. That's a delightful thing about being in Antarctica, to go to a place where the creatures don't fear you when they're on the land is a very great treasure.

Tracey Rogers (marine ecologist, has been to Antarctica 12 times): It's in my blood, in our culture we call us repeat offenders, you go again and again and again. We always joke about us getting a life. The ice gets in your veins. Antarctica is a place, internationally, of peace and science. You're collaborating with lots of people from different countries and doing different projects and it's just this sense of community. You have this incredible light and amazing animals and it really is very addictive.

What do you learn each time you come?

Ben Maddison (historian and author, lecturer at the University of Wollongong, been to Antarctica 10 times): The animals are different depending on the seasons you come in. The climate is different, the vagaries of the Antarctic weather systems are always presenting surprises.

GM: Each time I go to Antarctica is different from the previous time. That's largely because of the power of the ice. The weather and the ice make a heady cocktail. They don't suffer fools gladly, which means you constantly need to be on your toes to be safe and sound. I find that alluring.

TR: Coming the first time or tenth time, every time you learn something. It's a place of incredible beauty and starkness and it's also dangerous. You have this intoxicating mix of adventure and, in different people, it drives different sorts of emotions. Antarctica drives in me a sense of reflectiveness and the human spirit and seeing goodness or crap in people. You see how those people rise to the tests. Every time I come back, I learn different sorts of things about myself and about people in general.

Describe your Antarctica

BM: The strongest feeling I got was the first time I came to eastern Antarctica in the region of Commonwealth Bay, where that landscape took me aback. I was not prepared for the fact that ice could exist in such uniform sheets as the domes of ice in the hinterland of Commonwealth Bay and the Adelie Land coast. The feeling I got there was one of just wanting to exist in that space. It was just such a yearning for being immersed in that landscape. It was a great feeling of wonder.

GM: When you first come into Antarctica, you seem to be bombarded with white and then, as you become more comfortable with it, you start to see the intensity of blues, the like of which you've never seen before. Then, if you have the wherewithal to stay up while the sun is doing this weird ellipse in the sky around your head, you're probably going to see an extraordinary explosion of apricots and peach colours that you can't see anywhere else in the world. That's another of the things that make Antarctica such a paradox. The colour is unlike anywhere else in the world.

TR: The Antarctic environment, when it's not windy, is an incredibly quiet place. It's very open and white and stark in the day, it's pink and gorgeous at night and during the summer. But underwater, it's totally different. The ocean is alive with sound. That's because sound travels so well through water, so all the different animals exploit that. The ice and icebergs make sounds. You get a cacophony of different natural noises as well as animals calling underwater.

How do you describe Antarctica to people who have never been?

BM: I find it a real challenge to describe what Antarctica's like – everybody does. Go back to the historical record and, from the 1830s, 1840s and into the 20th century, the chroniclers of Antarctic history are always lost for words about how to describe the place. I describe it to people in terms of its vastness, its isolation from everything else. The thing that attracts me is the incredible landscape. That's what I come to inhale every time I come down here, to just exist for a time in that place.

GM: I think it holds true for the great wilderness areas throughout the world but even more so with Antarctica that, as beautiful as an image of the place might be, you really don't get the full sense of it until you're standing in it and you're surrounded by its extraordinary colour and feel the cold on your face and stand on the edge of 250,000 penguins in one colony and smell them. All of those things, there's no other way to capture them than to be there. That's the extraordinary thing about Antarctica.

TR: When I go back, I generally don't tell people about Antarctica. People who haven't been to Antarctica, their eyes glaze over and they really don't want to know. Once you've been here and you've seen the environment and you've felt part of the place, then you connect with it.

What is your happiest memory of Antarctica?

BM: Driving around in Zodiacs [inflatable rubber boats] amidst icebergs, showing people who have never been here the magical beauty of these incredible structures. That has always excited me, bringing people to share some of these emotional experiences that I have discovered in Antarctica. Ice is the thing that always makes me happiest. Looking at ice is an endless joy.

TR: My happiest moment in Antarctica was the first time I touched a leopard seal. A lot of my early work was acoustic work and when I first started with the idea of working with leopard seals, people said I wouldn't even see one. Everyone teased me and said there was no way. Women worked on penguins and only men worked on seals. The first time I came down, my expectations were really quite low. I had been working on the acoustics of the seals and it was all remote. Then I gravitated towards capturing the animals and, so, going up to a seal for the very first time and touching one was my happiest moment. They've got this lovely musty smell. My first seal was really big, about 500kg, she was fast asleep with anaesthetic. Her breathing was these great big breaths. This beautiful smell and this beautiful velvety feeling. That was probably my most magic moment, something that still stays with me.

Do you enjoy the cold?

BM: There were times when I haven't dealt with it well and I've suffered. The cold that gets into your fingers if you're not wearing gloves at the right time can be agonising. But Antarctica is not quite as cold, in summer, as people might think. You get summer days where I can be dressed in a light jumper and, sometimes, I've just worn a T-shirt driving a Zodiac. It's quite surprising in that way.

GM: In the late 1980s, I sailed a yacht with a small group of climbing friends into the Ross Sea, from Australia, and we climbed a mountain called Mount Minto, which was the highest unclimbed mountain in the trans-Antarctic mountains. We were climbing in -30C with 40-knot wind, so the effect of that is about -50C. It's cold and hard, but it's beautiful.

I don't mind the cold. I don't think I'm particularly attracted to it but I guess I'm used to it. I find it easier to deal with the cold than dealing with extremes of heat.

What do you worry about when you come here?

GM: I'm always excited to see the first iceberg again, every time. As I get closer to the coast I feel, not quite trepidatious, but more alert. I find my antennae go up and I'm looking for cues in the ice, of its behaviour. I feel a mood change, a different sense of awareness as we get deeper into the ice. Ice seems so static. You see an iceberg sitting out in the middle of the ocean, it's hard to conceive that it might be moving at 2-3 knots. Sea ice looks so immutable but it's violently active. It changes very quickly. It can move fast, it can be blown by the wind at 5-10 knots. And yet it seems so static.

Ice is dangerous, potentially. In the same way as a lion can be dangerous. Perhaps that's a bit dramatic. Ice shapes landscapes and makes valleys 5,000m deep. It's that strong, by just gouging them out with its own power. To that end, it's a force to be reckoned with.

What are the enduring moments on the continent?

BM: The abiding experience that I always want to have when I come to eastern Antarctica is just to be in the presence of a sunrise or a sunset – and they're quite often the same event at this time of year – to see this intense strip of glowing white gold on the horizon, which is the sun reflecting off the ice cap. That is reason enough to come to Antarctica. That is unforgettable, that is un-gettable anywhere else.

TR: For me, it's the community as well. When we got back on this ship [Aurora Australis] that I hadn't seen in 10 years, the voyage leader Leanne grabbed me and held me and said: "Welcome home, you're back." And she didn't even know me. She said: "I remember your name and I've seen it on the lists." It's this sense of community and place that's really special.

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