88.651N, 50.212W

If there is one dimension that was missing from our expedition in
terms of conditions, it is the full blown whiteout blizzard. Up to
forty miles per hour headwinds, snow flying sideways, cloud cover and
and fog with visibility from twenty feet to nothing. Even by Arctic
standards, I think that qualifies as the full enchalada. Well, now
we’ve had it. And there is no question that to travel in these
conditions is simply miserable. No skin can be exposed for risk of cold
injury. Goggles are therefore imperative. But goggles need to be
managed carefully; or they will fog up. Once they do, they are done for
the day, since the fog will turn to frost and cannot be cleared in a
cold environment. A slight misalignment of your head layers or face gear
will send steam from your breath. up into the goggles and the jig is
up. Or if you look down and breath at the same time… Which I did.
Twice. Once with my first pair; and once with my spare. A case could be
made that with that little to see to begin with, fogged up goggles are
just joining the party. But I had to let Keith take the lead as he had
better luck with his. Meanwhile as I trailed behind trying to keep up
in virtual blindness, all I could think of was “when can I eat the
sausage?” which is one of our rare evening treats! Hungry and blindfolded is
how I will remember this day which without much doubt will go down as
our toughest. It started with light cloud cover and 20 mph cold
headwinds as we skied across the second part of yesterday’s enormous
lead–two miles’ worth. It had recently frozen over, though parts were
still wet. By the time we reached its end, a lot more was wet. It was
all mashed up, and moving. Fast. I climbed on top of a small pressure
ridge in the making and rode it, as it was all pushing forward. We
finally made it out of there and the weather turned. In no time, the
visibility turned to null and the wind gained in strength. After braving this for
three hours, dreaming of sausages and wondering when the nightmare
would be over, we threw in the towel. Our progress was very slow, and I
felt our time better suited for recovery to push when the weather
lifts. After 7.5 hours of travel, we had barely made 5 nautical miles.
As I write this, 4 hours into our break, the south drifts has already
shaved one mile off our progress… Our stopping position was
N88°39.110 and W51°25.864 but we are likely to lose another 4 as we did
last night… A tough day, indeed.

88.638N, 52.212W

Another day of high adventure and epic traveling for an exhausting
14 hours of wildly changing conditions. We started our day in what
amounts to a whiteout blizzard. No actual snow was falling of course,
but the wind was drifting light flakes through the air which could have
fooled me. The winds were strong out of the south east, the sun covered
by a deep cloud cover, whilst we were shrouded in fog! The result was
white on white conditions with visibility often reduced to less than
fifty feet.

As with yesterday, all detail was gone from the terrain of course,
which required a high level of concentration to navigate. The drifts
again covered all thinly frozen leads, making them precarious to cross.
My GPS was strapped in front of me with a waist tool as the only
directional reference, save for short visual point bearings–generally
less than 20 feet–when I could actually find one. I invariably plowed
in powdery mounds, and route selection was virtually impossible. But we
lucked out as we benefited–as would seem, since we could not
see!–from somewhat flat pans that enabled us to travel relatively
fast, even under the circumstances. Within two hours, the clouds
lifted, the wind dropped to 5 knots out of the west, and the fog was
gone.

The terrain was mostly flat and we were fast. We skied through a
series of extraordinarily beautiful areas which proved one more time
that just as you think you’ve gotten the gyst of variety around here,
the landscape hits you with another stunner–visuals reserved as the
high privilege of the committed Arctic traveler. We came upon two vast
recently frozen leads areas, flat as a salt lake, surrounded on either
side by jagged, pressure ridge-ridden terrain which emphasized the vast
openness of the flat area. They spread for miles. One felt like the
high plains of a Gobi desert. The other was a south/north lead which
had to have frozen over the last week or so. This one was enormous,
stretching for miles, two of which we were able to ski its impecably
flat surface. The lead was a quarter mile wide. As we progressed, we
noticed increasing areas of weak freeze, and small slivers of open
water. This lead us into an enormous, complex system of broken, jagged
and cracked terrain that spread over for miles–surely the result of
the last week of strong winds. Most of the leads were thinly frozen
which facilitated crosses for us, even while the ice was often flexing
under our skis! But the visual impact was unlike anything else:like the
aftermath of a natural nuclear explosion; that something of tremendous
force had literally obliterated any unity in terrain. Lots of fun to
ski around, but a real maze to get out of. We were stuck in it for over
three hours. The frozen sections were getting progressively and
un-mistakenly thinner as we as we headed north. In the distance a thick
ice fog cloud signaled some large open water systems, directly in our
path. The wind had been picking up, and grew to a steady 25 mph from
the north, directly in our face.

The obvious impact of cold, humid and strong Arctic headwind is
fatigue. It beat us up! We skied long and hard all day, but were
stunned that our stats showed only 10 nautical miles! How could that be?
Terrain today was friendly for the most part giving us 1.3 mph average;
leads were generally friendly; we skied long hours… In fact, over our
14 hours of travel, we calculated that we lost 5 miles to the dreaded
south drift, now increased by the north winds! Over our short night of
sleep, we will lose an estimated 3 to 4 miles on top of it…

Under those circumstances, our stopping stats are somewhat moot but
here they are anyway: N88°38.302 and W52°12.727–still also drifting
east, hard. Temperatures are noticeably warmer–around minus 18F
degrees–but you wouldn’t know it for the wind. Our mood is still
positive, and the scope and scale of the sights we are witnessing far
outweighs the challenges they brings. I am left to ponder in amazement
at the power of the nature that surrounds us, and to appreciate the
freedom we are afforded to journey unrestricted through it. What an
adventure! Good night.

88.4589N, 55.6776W

Living in a tent on the ice for any extended period of time yields particular adjustments to a lifestyle which does away with most modern conveniences. To begin with, building and breaking camp everyday forges a habit of systems devised to optimize time whilst finding coherence in an otherwise chaotic environment. But from frost to hygiene, tight living quarters, proximity to an open flame and gas inhalation–there are many issues that would hardly qualify extended tent life as entirely safe, healthy or much less: comfortable. Yet, there is no question that throughout the day, the prospect of this unpretentious, shielded environment, a warm meal and a sleeping bag is one of the more re-occurring comforting thought to enters the mind. And after a hard day of pulling, I often find that I sleep the best in a tent. Sometimes it is the simplest things that make us happiest.

Food has become another obsessive thought; all kinds of food, but mainly those that are taken for granted or are readily available. Like pancakes; toast; cookies; chocolate; and yes, mom: your lamb stew!

The day begun in virtual pitch whiteness. When the sky is overcast out here, all manners of depth, perspective and height disappear. The pale shade that normally gives the icy terrain its detail is completely gone. What remains is the seemingly posterized ice blue color of most pressure ridges–and pure white. It feels as if you walked into the very rough, unfinished plates of a cartoon sequence. This makes route finding difficult and precarious: you will walk right into an ice mound in front of you thinkng it is flat terrain! Very unsettling. Additionally, with the absence of the sun, navigating with the GPS becomes imperative, keeping it around your neck for constant updates. This was our morning; and it makes for slow travelling. Especially as yesterday’s wind spread snow drifts everywhere, including on thinly frozen leads, now camouflaged into the landscape.

The weather was incredibly still, which added to the eerie, surreal visuals. The temperatures were warm at around minus 18F degrees. As the day developed, the weather lifted for a while, then the wind came back and strengthened to another late afternoon of 25 mph lashings from the west, while a fog rolled in bringing back the low visibility of our morning! Meanwhile, we came across many leads. We assembled the sleds into a raft again to cross one, a sequence which I am pleased to have on film. It will be in the documentary I am filming of this experience. One lead was a few hundred feet wide, and forced us to ski around it, which took almost two hours.

Overall, a day of epic contrast, and some of the more extraordinary visuals, much of which could not be committed to film as I have a technical breakdown, and my backup is almost out of battery! So disappointing…

We traveled for 14.5 hours and covered 14 nautical miles which hardly makes up for some 1.5 lost to last night’s drift. Our stopping position was N88°27.536 and W55°40.667. We are planning on cutting our sleep down from 7 to 5.5 hours and working on 20 hour days to increase our mileage and performance in the race to make the pole by the 26th… Henceforth–and sadly perhaps–blog entries will likely now be shorter! The pressure and focus is set on that goal. With one week to go, we will also need a little luck! Good night.