?Antarctica represents everything beyond man?s little world. Most of time and space is like Antarctica, untouched and un-owned.
-Sara Wheeler, Terra Incognita

In the polar regions, twilight is epic. What serves in temperate latitudes as a quick atmospheric flourish at the end of the day, elongates the drama into a changeable display of many hours. At the equator, the sun traces an arc from east to west through the day, striking the meridian close to overhead. Sunsets are a matter of right angles, the sun diving like a penny that slips into water with a whisper. Once the austral summer sets in, the sun wheels about Antarctica tracing a halo over the cap of the planet, making only tangential reference to settings. They are not sunsets, in truth, for the sun never dips below the horizon. From McMurdo this time of year, it just skims the crest of the Transantarctic Mountains to the south at around midnight, and for about two hours on either side of this convergence, the light reaches a crepuscular glory unrivaled anyplace nearer the equator. The snow and ice pick up a rich quality of light that is buttery, shimmering. The place escapes time as it is known on the rest of the globe; evening lasts all night.

Saturday night I accompanied Mark and Karen to climb Observation Hill (check out Mark’s blog Memoirs from a Penguin-proof Case for his account). Ob Hill is a seven hundred foot volcanic landmark at the shore?s edge in McMurdo. About the time most people were headed for the bars, we ambled up an icy trail in the gritty lava, stood around for about as long as we could stand still at the breezy summit (just until the snot froze in my nostrils), took a round of pictures, then scrambled back down. The whole hike was bathed in extraordinary light. To the south, the sun was kissing the shoulder of Discovery Peak and the peaks of the Royal Society Range glowed. The way the light reverberated across the sea ice I could almost imagine that it was a placid liquid ocean. read more