Day 32: Blistering pace, Full moon behind us, thoughts of a record spur us on...

Expedition Statistics

Expedition Start Point: 82 58.02N, 77 23.28W
Day 32: End of Day Position: 87 50.9 N, 85 45.0 W
Distance covered since the start: 292.9 nm
Distance covered since last Post: 80.2 nm
Distance to The Pole: 129.1 nm
Overall distance versus plan: +2.5 days (- Behind plan, + Ahead of plan)
North Pole ETA: 16 April, + / - 2 days
Ave hrs / day marched for this period: 10.0 hrs
Coldest / Warmest temp for this period: -35 / -20 deg C

Notes: nm = Nautical miles (1 nm = 1.8 kilometers)
Expedition days are ‘1 sleep’ days, and may not = calendar days

Firstly apologies for the late last Post; I had satphone ISP problems sending the content... oh for 'home broadband' hey!

Me looking 'better'... I think! Finger is almost healed too.

As you see from the progress stats above we are even surprising ourselves with our pace since my last Post... 1 more day and we will be in the 88 latitude numbers! The pace on the marches is relentless, and almost each day brings a new record. Yesterday we managed 14.4 miles. At that pace it's just over four days per degree! Today (Day 32), we had a bit more sobering news, as we only did 12.4 miles, and the dreaded 'wind on the nose' has kicked in… northerly and yes, it's started pushing the ice south. After days of virtually no drift, we are now drifting south at 0.2 knots as I type this.

So by the time we start marching tomorrow we could be 2 miles further from the Pole than we are now! We are acutely aware that the weather and drift has largely been on our side, and a few days of blizzard stuff could set us back a lot! (Mentally and progress wise). The big risk of bad ice conditions and open water associated with the perigee full moon tides is now behind us. It appears that the strongish easterly cross wind we had for 4 days over that time locked up the ice and made conditions largely favourable. All of this has made the possibility of us breaking the 49 day, fastest ever, Canada to North Pole expedition. We have now taken on this challenge seriously, and have implemented many strategies to help us go faster. Weight of the sleds is one of the keys, and we have dumped some food, and all excess clothing. One sleeping bag has been dumped, and we decided rather than dump all excess food we have increase daily rations so we can push harder on the marches. We have dumped some food, more soon, and then even some fuel will go.

Indinda alive and well, transforming into an Arctic Giraffe!

I am currently consuming around 8500 kcal per day... gee that's a huge amount of what we would normally call 'bad food'... lots and lots of fat! I have even taught myself to think butter is chocolate, so happily bite off half a block of -30 deg C butter with a mouthful of delicious fruit cake… yummy, and I mean it! In two days time we plan to increase march times by one hour a day until we get to 12 hours a day, then stay at that for our 'record achieving' Push to the Pole! These extra calories will come in handy for that...

As things are unfolding our expedition could be very 'historic', with Tessum being the youngest ever to do this, Richard and Tessum being the first father and son team to do it, and Richard vowing that this is his last! (I have been also told I will be the oldest ever to do it... hmmm, not sure I like that... I still think I'm a teenager!).

Richard and Tessum power napping during a 10 minute break. Amazing, a technique I still have to learn!

I just love this 'race / go as fast as we can' mindset, I wanted that from the beginning and now have it; it just makes the whole thing that much more challenging and exciting. It has caused some stress in the team, with not all individual goals aligned, but after a little hiccup Richard's leadership has all members totally committed to the goal.

A particularly challenging lead crossing. The ice island had a large ice ridge that made it difficult to get the sled past. All got through safely!

Some highlights from the past few days:

I came VERY close to taking a total swim! Richard on skis tested the ice across a frozen lead, and we all agreed it was good. He skied across with his sled, and after he was on real terra firma, I then set off tentatively in my snow shoes (less area than skis and a crampon underneath. About 3/4 the way across, my step suddenly felt insecure and on slushy ice, so I treaded more carefully, continuing forward and lifting my foot to see the ice had opened a hole the size of my snowshoe. I literally left water holes behind each of the two steps to terra firma, but my sled got dumped. Here is a photo of the spot with the hole and open water, 2 minutes after I had got to the side! Close call to full swim! We have discussed the procedure for anyone of us taking a full swim, and it's not pleasant and will require a one day delay as we have to set up tent and run the stoves for 6-8 hours to dry all the wet (then frozen) gear.

Here is the lead crossing where I almost swam. That pool of water was made by my snowshoe! Tessum and David waiting to cross, now via another route.

Day 29 saw us spending most of the day on a huge flat ice pan. It stretched to all horizons and reminded me of when the 'real sea' is becalmed and essentially flat and glimmering for as far as one could see. Unlike the 'real sea' which can change as the wind comes up, this is 'frozen calm', only waiting foot underwater disturbance to fracture the ice and disturb the peace. Although to many walking in this 'nothingness' would see boring the feeling of flat vastness was very special for me… for one day at least… The fact that this terrain allowed us to travel fast also added to the positive day.

A lovely arctic aquamarine sea!