On behalf of Sebastian, I would like to extend a very special thank you to the following supporters. It’s because of their generous pledges to our Kickstarter campaign we were able to not only meet our goal, but to exceed it by more than $1,500!!

TO:
Simone Walther
Isaiah Martin
Regan Mahoney
Paige Zangrillo
Cynthia Reed
Ana Hooker
Brian Culwell
Alex May
Amir Gheissari
Alexandra Shaw
Shawn Gold
Ariel Barkai
Lauren Burnhill
Kevin W. McNeely
Charlotte Paulson
Veronique Pittman
Katrin Hannan-Bobe
David Heisler
Julie Schaffner
Matt Petersen
Martino Scabbia Guerrini
Leila Amirsadeghi
Jeff Altman
Hugh Garry
Alice Ericsson
Cecile Bazelon

It’s tremendously inspiring to know that there are generous supporters interested in this epic, and historical expedition. Your pledges will be going directly to the costs associated with the filming aspect of the yet to be titled, Antarctica 2011/2012 Legacy Crossing film project. Thank you!

As Sebastian would say;
See ya on the other side!

Jessica Ceballos
(on behalf of Sebastian Copeland)

November 12, 2011
S71°32.357 E010°44.749

Elevation 5166 ft

Hard to believe we set off a week ago, already. With barely 74 kilometers covered since, we have not made a dent into the 4000 planned. No surprise here, as I had projected for two weeks to get up on the plateau. We are within the margins.

The day started still as a corpse. Not so bad to perform the daily morning ritual outside of the tent. And a better view for it would be hard to ask for! Over breakfast, the familiar flapping of the tent’s fabric suggested, timidly at first, that today might not be all hauling after all. It may as well have been. We rigged our 13 meter Frenzy’s but no sooner had we began ascending the next hill that the wind turned to a whimper, and the surface drew flashbacks of the first days. A messed up terrain of mounds and sastrugi tightly weaved together giving the sledges every opportunity to jam and stall the progress. We were inching along, diving the kites into figure eight’s to gain a foot or two. We switched to the big Yakuza’s and their 75 meters of line. Getting them up was a one shot deal, as the lines were begging to get stuck into the jagged icy chard’s. In the end, the Yak’s were too powerful for this surface and we switched again to the 13’s, forcing on us the tedious task of winding those endless lines.

The wind was light and fluky, and we were sweating bullets to gain ground. And that is when it happened. There is an irrational, yet universal tendency, when sustaining an injury, to wish you could simply be brought back to the moment preceding it in order to avert the event. In this case, however, I am not entirely sure what and when it happened. But with each pull of the kite, countered by the sledges bucking me backwards, my right side suddenly felt as though a dagger were jammed between the rib cage. The harness gets pulled in both direction simultaneously every time I dive the kite. The result is a squeeze which is fair game under normal play, but when the ribs are bruised is like getting kicked repetitively in the sour spot. I could hardly breath. With that, we set up camp to appraise the damage. Hard to say other than whatever it is is no fun. We had covered 12.5 kilometers of tough terrain.

Today, Sunday, we opted to take the day off and give my ribs a chance to rest. I spent the afternoon sowing straps onto my waist harness in an attempt to turn it into a seat harness… Tomorrow I will try the pain killers off the first aid kit, making sure not to over do it: we have over 70 days left and I doubt this new surprise will leave me anytime soon. Eric will take the secondary sledges for now, and on we go.

November 11, 2011

S71°25.974′ E010°51.487′

Elevation 4713 ft

After yesterday’s tense and stationary anti-climax, the early morning was marked by the gentle but persistent flapping of the tent. We filled up on a thick, plaster tasting bowl of oat meal. I spent some time fixing wires one of the solar panels, and soon the wind grew noticeably stronger: 16 knots from the east; good direction for us. We packed the camp and set our 9 meter kites. The sun was bright, without a cloud in the sky. The air was crisp and the surface much friendlier than the last weeks. We quickly moved up a few hundred feet in elevation. It is hard to describe the feeling of joy that each foot of ground covered with the force of the wind brings, in contrast to the back breaking effort of pulling upwards. Like someone said: even convicts don’t work that hard! Moving up revealed more jagged peaks of the mountain chain separating us from the plateau. The view was magnificent. In the distance, breaking from the ice sheet, sheer faces projecting vertically to the heavens, and a climber’s frozen paradise. The wind was pulling back and flying became a lot of work. We switched to the 13’s and still the wind was weakening. Speed dropped progressively to a crawl, while the direction turn to downwind. A lot of effort went into moving the kite in figure eight’s to haul the heavy cargo. But–you guessed it–it still beat pulling! Eventually, and without warning, the wind just shut off. The kite slowly drifted down, and delicately landed before crumpling like a limp jimmy hat! That was it for the day. It was 5 PM and we had covered 43.03 kilometers and beginning to cover some ground. Our camp site is framed by those mountains on both sides, and an infinite sea of ice on the others. The sun was still high, the air still, and the epic views are about as good as we’ll get them.

Today is our friend Kyle’s One Day On Earth 11.11.11 celebration. In honor of his effort, I took today’s image (unfortunately I can only display the one taken with the crappy upload camera). You’ll have to wait for the good one at the end of this trip!

Happy one day on Earth, everybody!