Date: March 31, 2009 Location: N85° 31.933' W074 46.189' Time Traveled: 10 hours Distance Traveled: 5.0 nautical miles AM Temperature: -32°F PM Temperature: -30°F clear skies, gusting, puffing S/SW winds, 8-10 knots
By: John Huston
Audio Transcript:
"Today the Arctic Ocean kicked our butts a little bit. We expect that to happen from time to time but it doesn't always feel good. For me, sometimes I have trouble keeping my hands warm. And also I just have trouble generating enough heat to feel warm while traveling, especially while we're stopping and starting all the time.
When we're traveling continuously on a nice flat terrain and I could ski for a few hours I can wear just a few layers of long underwear and my Bergans outerwear and stay warm, no problem at all. But when we're dealing with rubble or open water leads, as we were today, and we're stopping and starting and talking, that can get quite cold. So, I had a quite frigid morning and I put on my Bergans fleece and I was fine but it was very frustrating to have to work so hard to warm up my hands quite often today. And that's what being cold is all about really. It's a little pain, or a lot of pain, sometimes and a lot of hard work to warm back up and a lot of persistence. We don't get frostbite, we just work hard to stay warm but it can be frustrating sometimes.
So we traveled over some rubble, a few open fields, and then we came to a mist and, lo and behold, our first area of open water - open water lead running from the southeast to the northwest. It was about 60 meters across in spots to a little narrower in other places, so we traveled along it going northwest also to counteract the eastern drift that's been happening quite heavily now. And Tyler poked through. Both feet went in the water. He went over a little space of sketchy ice that he knew he shouldn't have but wanted to test. He hopped right back out of the water, no problem at all. He didn't even get his socks or his boots wet, just the outer part of his boot gaiters. But it was a good wake up call that we're now having a change in the expedition in that we are dealing with open water more.
So traveling along that lead took some time and crossing it took some time. And we also saw three seals pop their head up out of that lead, right through the ice. That showed how thin the ice was in the middle of the lead. It was too wide to swim across and too wide to find a place to cross. So we eventually found a place with some rubble and got over there no problem. And we are camped now by another lead that we hope will freeze overnight and it looks like it should do that but it also depends on the wind and how much the ice floes around us are moving, which they are quite a bit. We're moving east at 0.2 nautical miles per hour right now.
Okay, well thanks for listening. We're tired. We're ready for bed and we're ready for another day tomorrow. So good night and thanks for listening."
Date: March 30, 2009 Location: N85° 27.344' W074 34.404' Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes Distance Traveled: 7.4 nautical miles AM Temperature: -32°F PM Temperature: -28°F very clear and sunny, no wind in AM, slight S/SE breeze in PM 297 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: Tyler Fish
Audio Transcript:
"One of the attractions of the journey to the North Pole, at least for me, was the diversity of landscape that we would encounter from the beginning to the end of the trip, from mountains of rubble to huge ice boulders of the bluest ice to the flattest of the flat. But then there are those days when you experience all of that in one day and that was yesterday (3/30). It took us by surprise a little bit. We felt like we'd traveled backwards in time and then forwards in time very quickly.
We woke up on a slab of ice. That was about 6 feet thick of floating, frozen above the rest of the ice and we are camped there because we are in a heavy rubble field and it was the only place to camp. It's like our own little island.
Yesterday (3/30) was a heavy day. We traveled across what I would call the surface of a lasagna. It was very uneven with piles of hamburger here and there, and wavy cheese, some deep cut now and again, definitely a lot of Parmesan cheese strewn all over the place. But still even though it was a heavy, heavy day for us, we made a surprising 7.4 nautical miles. We did not think we had done that, so we are very pleased.
The only thing that we haven't seen so far that we're looking for is open water. We have not seen any open water. However, we did yesterday for the first time hear the ice moving. So, who knows what's going to happen soon. We ended the day yesterday camped on our favorite hard packed snow which is great for tent set up, so we're happy with that.
It was a tough day mentally. And we need to remind ourselves that we will see rubble and days like that go all the way to the North Pole. It was made slightly easier because it was the day after family day. What is family day? Family day is part of our weekly routine. Every Sunday, John and I call our family. Well for me it's my wife and for John, it's his girlfriend. So it's only one call apiece. But these people, both these people, have connections to the rest of our family and friends and the outside world. And that's something to look forward to. So on Saturday we start looking forward to Sunday if not before and a good family day phone call can take us all the way to Wednesday. So we appreciate those conversations. It's part of our positive routines that are going to get us to the North Pole. Thanks so much. Take care. Have a good last day of March."
John says "hello" to friends, family and everyone following the expedition.
Date: March 28, 2009 Location: N85° 19.943' W074 39.113' Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes Distance Traveled: 8.0 nautical miles AM Temperature: -38°F PM Temperature: -28°F slightest W/NW breeze, calm and sunny 280 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: John Huston
Audio Transcript:
"Tyler and I are lifelong educators. We have worked at Outward Bound for many years and Tyler still does work there. We are passionate about educating and teaching people to push their limits and to follow their dreams and to explore this wonderful world of ours.
The Victorinox North Pole '09 Expedition has partnered with two organizations to bring our expedition into classrooms around the country. We partner with Reach the World - Chicago to get our expedition into several public schools which I had visited a few elementary schools before leaving for the expedition. So a warm "hello" to those schools that I had visited.
We are also partnering with the Will Steger Foundation out of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Tyler visited several schools in the Minneapolis area. We also have friends who are teachers and just meet people who are teachers and have been in schools throughout the fall talking to students about our expedition, about following their dreams and about climate change.
So a warm "hello" from a cold tent to all the students from the different schools that we have visited. And just a reminder to dream big, be positive about yourself and about the people around you and to go out there, explore the world and learn about the environment. The environment is changing drastically these days especially on the Arctic Ocean.
And the Arctic Ocean for us changes every day. Today we started with perfectly smooth ice for the first two hours and we were thrilled about our progress and then things got slower and slower and slower and eventually we ended up in rubble like we had not seen for two weeks. Basically car size blocks of rubble everywhere in our path where we are camped right here. So it can be frustrating sometimes to run into little roadblocks but what we do is keep going forward with optimism and positive thoughts and we know that things will turn out in the end.
Well thanks for listening, everybody. We are happy with our travel day and hopefully we will get past this rubble tomorrow."
Date: March 28, 2009 Location: N85° 12.012' W074 30.144' Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes Distance Traveled: 8.9 nautical miles AM Temperature: -39°F PM Temperature: -28°F clear and sunny all day 288 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: Tyler Fish
Audio Transcript:
"Last week, John and I noticed, or made a few observations, about our progress. One is that the terrain flattened. We found ourselves traveling primarily on wind packed pans of ice, flat plains separated by lower and higher ridges. The lower ridges of rubble we could ski over and the higher ones sometime we have to take our skis off and climb over or down from.
We are also able to ski faster. We notice that our pulks are getting lighter as we eat and as we use our fuel. And we also changed from full skins on our skis to partials skins on our skis, which increased our speed dramatically. And our distances become more and more consistent. It's a better distance. It's longer and we notice that it's easier to ski all day and more enjoyable. So even though we're putting long hours and skiing further, we're actually, in some ways, less tired. Those are our observations.
The question that we've had this week and we've been unable to answer is, "How is the ice?" We know that in 2007 it was the lowest extent of summer sea ice ever, so the least area ever recorded. We know that in the 2008 it was not the least area but it was the thinnest that they ever recorded. So if we sit here on the ice of 2009, what is it? We really don't know. It's very hard to tell for us. But we're definitely curious.
And then the realizations about us and our expedition. Right now our expedition is sustainable. We feel really good about the work that we've put in. We eat well, we sleep well and we appreciate what we're doing. We're also calm. We feel like we have been doing the right things; either based on the advice of others - and we have got a lot of great advise and feel like according to most people's words we're doing well, or based on our own judgment, we feel like we are on our way to the North Pole. And things are dependable. We now know how to depend on our gear and we know when to use it, how to use it, and our routines are good. And we're a dependable team. We trust each other and we are going to make it."
Date: March 27, 2009 Location: N85° 03.187' W074 37.884' Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes Distance Traveled: 8.7 nautical miles AM Temperature: -42°F PM Temperature: -30°F light 1-3knot N/NE wind, clear and sunny all day 297 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: John Huston
Audio Transcript:
"Well, two days ago we stated that we hoped we would cross the 85° latitude in two days and today, thanks to great skiing conditions, we did that right around 2:30pm or so, maybe 2:00pm. We then traveled another 3 miles into camp. So we celebrate our crossing of the 85° latitude with a special concoction made by Tyler of leftover lunch nuts, a macadamia, pecan, and Brazil nut variety mixed with a little sugar and butter. We are quite looking forward to that. And just a wee bit of scotch mixed with a little water provided by some friends of mine in Chicago who donated that to the expedition.
So today was a very sunny day. It didn't seem quite as warm as yesterday although the temperatures were the same and most of that was due to a very small light breeze out of the north-northeast. It doesn't take much wind to really enhance the feeling of cold at these temperatures.
We are really enjoying the skiing these days. Our half-length skins on our skis are functioning perfectly and we are getting some more glide and our pulks are moving along much more quickly as well. There's a lot less friction due to the sun, but mostly due to flat ski conditions and nice hard-packed snow. So we are quite happy. We are very secure with where we are on our timetable, and we are right with or slightly ahead of other successful North Pole expeditions from recent years from Ward Hunt Island.
So, thanks for listening everybody, and have a nice evening. We will, too."
