By Charles Swithinbank

Have you ever fancied hiking on a glacier more than 100 miles long, 20 miles wide and overlooked by spectacular mountain ranges with unclimbed peaks rising above 10,000 feet? Well, that is my favorite place -- the Beardmore Glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains. It was discovered and first traversed by Shackleton, and later by Scott, and later still, by modern-day adventurers. I was there on business (studying the glacier itself) in 1960, 1961, and 1962. On Mill Glacier, just off the upper Beardmore, I had seen a vast area of smooth, snow-free ice, and at once thought that it could be suitable for landing aircraft on wheels. Twenty-seven years later I was able to land there in a US Antarctic Program Twin Otter (on wheels), and it has subsequently been used by Hercules transport aircraft on wheels. It is a fantastic area for summer hiking and climbing and, being far inland, the weather is often excellent. Hikers can quench their thirst from melt-pools on the ice -- purer by far than the finest spring water at home. The natural ice runway that we found could take a Boeing 747 flying non-stop from New Zealand with 300 passengers, though I hope that I do not live to see it. On our visits, we relished the total, pervasive silence, the clear clean air, the vastness of the panorama that confronted us and the isolation from the bustle of civilization. I still dream about it.

Charles Swithinbank, a glaciologist by training and storyteller by temperament, has been exploring, flying, camping, researching and writing about polar regions for 50 years. We're not surprised that he chose to write about a remote and remarkable piece (river, actually) of ice.