Trans-Antarctica Expedition of 1989 – Funatsu Keizo
The International Trans-Antarctica Expedition of 1989 was a small 6-man team of explorers aiming to cross the continent of Antarctica without the use of mechanical aid. The journey was a total of 3741 miles and took a total of 220 days, using 3 sleds and a pack of 36 dogs which pulled the sleds in shifts.
Now this sounds exactly like the kind of story where something would go wrong at the worst possible point, and since they were traveling across a region known as the “area of isolation” which had never been crossed without vehicles before, you can almost expect something to happen.
However, this wasn’t the case, as the journey went quite smoothly, though that’s not to say they didn’t have a few problems. The team was trapped a few times by blizzards and heavy snowfall and came across various obstacles like ice canyons, but overall the whole journey went smoothly, with not a single death or even accident to any of the team or their dogs.
The team had almost completed their journey and were approaching the Russian scientific research base at Mirnyy, the end point of their trip where they would board a Russian vessel and leave the continent.
However moving across Antarctica is difficult and progress can be very slow in certain conditions, so the team thought it best to pitch camp 16 miles from the station instead of try and make it before dark.
The camp was set up and everyone was safely in their sleeping bags, when at around 4:30 am, The Japanese member of the team, Funatsu Keizo went outside to feed the dogs. He had walked only a couple dozen feet away from his tent when a sudden and very intense snow blizzard hit the camp.
He recalls how visibility instantly disappeared and the wind was so full of snow and frost that he could only see a few feet in front of him. After trying to find some sign of camp he caught sight of one of the sled leads, but after trying to follow it he lost sight and walked further than the sled would have been.
Not knowing which direction he was facing he decided that since he was close to camp, he’d stay put and wait to be found. Using a pair of pliers he had in his pocket he began to dig into the frozen ground to create a hole to protect his feet, which were covered by his regular boots instead of his protected Mukluks.
His hole was about 2 and a half feet deep with another small dip for his feet, which he had to constantly kick around to stop from freezing. After lying down in his shallow hole the snow completely covered him in a few seconds, and he had to keep scooping out a space in front of his mouth to be able to breathe.
Every 20 to 30 minutes he’d stand up and jump around and shout, both in an attempt to keep warm and get some help, but the wind was so fast and loud that no one heard him.
As for the rest of his team, they noticed he was missing and were busy suiting up and tying themselves to a rope over 300 feet long, with the plan of walking around in a circle from camp to find him. However, the blizzard was so strong they walked right past him in their first circle, with him possibly being only a few feet away from one of them.
Eventually after being in his hole for about an hour, he heard the faint call of his name on the wind. Not being sure if it was his friends or just his mind playing tricks on him, he waited and surely enough heard it again. Jumping straight up into the storm and yelling as loud as he could, he finally saw one of his teammates coming towards him.
Keizo recalls running towards him as fast as he could, thinking he may lose sight of him again. But it all ended well and he was escorted back to the tent where apart from being very cold, was otherwise unharmed.