Today was a grind. There were no gimmes. No freebies. No mulligans, “this
one’s on the house!”, or “first ball in!”. Nothing but hard earned slow
miles. The Arctic terrain can be unrelenting; and un-flinching. Yard by
yard we negotiated the broken ice boulders and pressure ridges the size
of two storey houses. The mix of cruddy or powdery snow swallowed up
the sledges’ rail as if dragging them through syrup. Each section led
to another chaotic and random display of Nature’s forces. In this grand
theater, it is hard not to feel insignificant. And the purpose of our
mission, in its simplicity, felt all the more absurd. Try and imagine a
giant crumble cake. Throw it in the deep freeze. And now reduce your
size to about an inch, strap on so ski, and decide to cross it!
Sometimes the best thing to do is to just put one foot in front of the
other, and move forward without thinking. After 9 hours and the same
amount of nautical miles, we noticed steam ahead of us. A giant melt
area perhaps 4 miles across laid in front of us. Occasional slivers of
black Arctic water broke the frozen surface. We decided to camp by the
“river’s” edge, hoping that the slivers will freeze over. Either way,
we will don our emergency swim outfits in the AM and make a go for it.
With the coming full moon, neither one of us wants to tempt the monthly
powerful tides in this area. Wish us luck.
Temperatures today were around -25 to -33F degrees. Our current location N86°25.530 and W76°27.047. Good night!