Antarctic Expedition: John Tuttle of Command Center Discusses Rerouting Efforts
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, the latest on the electrifying adventure from the icy continent of Antarctica. CNN has been following polar adventurers Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft. And they're trying, of course, to become the first women to cross Antarctica on foot. The women are now on the Shackleton Glacier, but the razor-sharp terrain is causing problems. For more on this, we're going to bring in John Tuttle, who's with the expedition's command center. And he's joining us by phone from Minneapolis. John, good morning.</s>JOHN TUTTLE, V.P. OF TECHNOLOGY: Good morning, Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Tell us what happened with Ann and Live yesterday on the Shackleton Glacier.</s>TUTTLE: Well, they have been traveling on an area of the glacier that's a bit of a low spot in an area called the swift-and-bank (ph) terrain. In laymen's term, it's -- it's on one edge of a -- of the glacier. And it's been going through some melting and freezing. And the long and the short of that is that the refreezing of the melt water has created some pretty razor-sharp ice conditions. And that's acting somewhat like a cheese grader, if you will.</s>KAGAN: Wow. And that's a big problem for their sleds.</s>TUTTLE: Yes.</s>KAGAN: It's like taking your sleds over a razor-sharp cheese grader.</s>TUTTLE: Exactly. And what's happened on Liv's sled is a fairly long -- about a three-foot-long hole has been worn in the side of the sled.</s>KAGAN: Because of these razor-sharp edges?</s>TUTTLE: Yes.</s>KAGAN: Now, I know that this problem was so serious that at one point yesterday, the command center was thinking if they might have to put on high alert the search-and-rescue team that would have to go from South America to rescue the women.</s>TUTTLE: Well, there's always that rescue team on alert for these things. And it never reached the stage of making any calls. But that's always a consideration if these sleds were to fail. They're holding all of their lifelines.</s>KAGAN: Without the sleds, they is no expedition...</s>TUTTLE: Absolutely.</s>KAGAN: ... basically is the bottom line.</s>TUTTLE: Absolutely.</s>KAGAN: Now, you were able to talk with Ann and Liv, while they were trying to deal with this.</s>TUTTLE: Yes, I was.</s>KAGAN: One, it looks like they somehow were able to patch together the hole on Liv's sled.</s>TUTTLE: That's correct. They used some of the equipment they had at hand, which ended up being a very simple piece of equipment, which was something like a broom stick that they used to roll up the cover on their sleds. And they slid that along the side of the hole from the inside, which -- the main concern being that not that there's a hole, but that this sharp ice could...</s>KAGAN: It could happen again.</s>TUTTLE: ... cause -- well, it could cause damage to the inside of the sled, which are the fuel bottles and the food. And they can't afford to have the fuel bottles leak or to have the food all -- you know, everything inside destroyed by this ice.</s>KAGAN: So they've patched together, and they're on their way again. But meanwhile, they are in Antarctica. They're talking to you on satellite phone. And you're in Minneapolis. And you somehow had to help reroute them?</s>TUTTLE: This is true.</s>KAGAN: How did you do that? How did you do that?</s>TUTTLE: Well, we have a couple of -- we know their position through satellite transmission -- a transmitter that they carry. So I have up-to-date information all the time of where they are at. And we also have a host of resources for maps and geologic as well as glacier information. And while talking to them on the phone, I used a lot of those access -- I accessed a lot of those resources, along with the -- our current satellite -- the satellite imagery of Antarctica from a number of places where we can actually see where they are at on the Internet.</s>KAGAN: That -- it's -- it's amazing stuff, a lot of high-tech technology. John Tuttle, thank you very much, joining us from Minneapolis.