Date: March 12, 2009 Location: N83° 34.625' W074 16.487' Time Traveled: 8 hours 15 minutes Distance Traveled: 3.6 nautical miles AM Temperature: -34°F PM Temperature: -34°F Distance to North Pole: 386.83 nautical miles
Audio Transcription:
"This is John calling with a short update report. Today was an up-and-down day. Kind of everything the Arctic Ocean had in some ways was thrown at us. We had a whole bunch of ice rubble in the beginning that made it very, very slow and it seemed that every route we chose, as far as we could see, we needed to then go back the opposite direction once we crossed over some boulders or something. Lots of kind of wiggling and crisscrossing our way north.
In the afternoon we came upon several frozen leads that were quite old and beautiful ice formations undulating and some of them were going in a northwesterly direction so we followed those leads as long as we could. And now we are camped just north of the last one that we crossed today. So those leads, if they are going in the right direction, can kind of be skiing highways, but it's kind of rare that a lead will run north-south; maybe it will run northwest-southeast or something like that, which is good for us, but north-south leads are kind of rare, so we often just cross the lead because they're running east and west.
That's about it for today. We'll send some photos tomorrow and have a longer dispatch. We're doing well; we're staying warm for the most part. It can be a battle to keep one's hands warm in these conditions and breaks are very, very short. I wouldn't even call them breaks. It's more like you cram some food in your little facemask hole and drink as much as you can in 2 or 3 minutes and then keep moving. We look forward to breaks because it gives us some sustenance, but at the same time they are a very cold time and we just look forward to keeping on moving so that we can stay warm.
Date: March 11, 2009 Location: N83° 31.109' W074 12.118' Time Traveled: 8 hours 20 minutes Distance Traveled: 4.7 nautical miles AM Temperature: -28°F PM Temperature: -22°F Distance to North Pole: 390 nautical miles
Audio Transcript:
"Hello, this is Tyler calling. The temperature this morning was a -28° F - a little warmer, and even warmer in the PM at -22°F. There was a light breeze all day from East/Northeast.
We traveled for 8 hours and 20 minutes and set a distance record of 4.7 nautical miles for the day. We are very pleased about that progress. And that means this is about 390 nautical miles left to the North Pole. As far as the day’s dispatch. I thought I would talk a little bit about how the day progresses.
When you wake up in the morning you’re feeling really good. You are warm all over because you've just been sleeping in your sleeping bag and you get out and you really feel like not even that cold outside. You can go outside, go to the bathroom if you want, do stuff in the tent and you feel pretty good.
But gradually, your feet get colder and colder and colder. So you start out your day with very cold feet and that’s one of your biggest worries is how to keep your feet from, worst cast scenario, getting frostbite.
And as the day goes on your feet get warmer and warmer and warmer and you usually end your day with very hot feet. Now the opposite is true with hands." (This dispatch was interrupted.)
Date: March 10, 2009 Location: N83° 26.482' W074 07.548' Time Traveled: 8 hours Distance Traveled: 3.4 nautical miles AM Temperature: -34°F PM Temperature: -38°F Distance to North Pole: 394 nautical miles
Audio Transcript:
We had a good day. We put in our 8 hours. We can't really go any faster in these conditions. They are quite labor intensive. It was a cold day. We both struggled keeping our hands warm all day, lots of flapping of the arms and hands. But no frostbite to report and we'll do our very best to keep it that way. But as soon as one lets their guard down out here, you have to be very careful and very proactive with warming up extremities.
We skied along. We each have 2 layers of long underwear on the bottom on our legs and our Bergans wind pants and on the top we have the same, Brynje net long underwear, 2 layers on top. And today we skied in our gator masks, so if someone were to have come across us, all they would see would be our eyes and our little mouths sticking out the hole in the front part of that mask. Our nose and cheeks totally covered to stay out of the wind. It doesn't take much wind at these temperatures to make it extremely cold. Then we had our ruffs up for most of the day as well.
So that is what we ski in even though it is 30 or 40 below zero. If we are moving, that's the very best way to keep warm. Breaks are very short, 5 to 10 minutes every 90 minutes. After 90 minutes of skiing, our hands start to get cold and we start to get a little chilly, so we have a lot of motivation to keep moving because that really is the only way to stay warm until we get into the tent.
OK, we will send the photo tomorrow and have a longer update. Thanks for listening.
Date: March 9, 2009 Location: N83° 23.071', W074° 05.560' Time Traveled: 8 hours Distance Traveled: 3.6 nautical miles Distance to North Pole: 398.53 nautical miles AM Temperature: -34°F PM Temperature: -34°F
Audio Transcription (NOTE: this was a 3/10 morning call reporting for the day of 3/9):
Good morning. This is Tyler calling in the update for the 9th of March. The temperature in the morning was -34 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature yesterday evening was -34 degrees Fahrenheit. We traveled for 8 hours and achieved 3.6 nautical miles. There was a variable breeze most of the day, a little warmer in the morning, a little calmer in the evening.
The last 2 days have been pretty exciting for me and John. After our very, very slow day 3 days ago, yesterday, the 8th of March, we crossed a lead. It was very frozen and had so many frost flowers on it, it almost looked like it had been snowed on. So we knew that it was very safe to cross - the more frost flowers, the longer it's been there. We crossed that and then over a little ridge and it seem like all a sudden the ocean had changed.
The environment had changed; we crossed into a new place. The terrain was much gentler, much less rubble, and we were able to make good time. So that 2 days ago, we were able to make 3.9 nautical miles. Now yesterday was a little bit slower. We traveled longer and made 3.6 nautical miles, so we still had pretty good terrain. So we're really quite happy.
Now some of you may be wondering how do they make it through that rough day, when they only went 1 nautical mile in a day? Don't those pulks make them angry? How do they stay optimistic? It's not enough to stay be positive, be optimistic. You actually have to set yourself up to do that. One of the things that I've done that is I've named my pulks. I have one pulk named "Shadow" and another pulk named "Bud", not "Buddy", "Bud". I named them after dogs. Shadow is an old Alaskan husky that we used to have. He was a very sweet, old wise dog and his is my bigger pulk. Bud is a playful, curious German shepherd, who loves me very much, and he is the smaller pulk. So it impossible for me to be mad at them when they jolt me to a stop or they are difficult to lift over or they tip over. I look back at them and say, "OK, you're turn, Bud," or "OK, Shadow. I'll help you," or "Let's go, boys," as I see their names on the front of the pulk and my attitude changes. I am much more able to stay positive. Sometimes you have to set yourself up to be optimistic.
On a funny note, it is kind fun compared to my mushing days; now I am the dog and the sleds in essence are the mushers, in some ways. That's it. We looking for a good day today. We are switching to skis today which should be exciting. You will hear more from us soon. Goodbye.
Date: March 8, 2009 Location: N83 19.526' W074 02.124' Time Traveled: ~7 hours Distance Traveled: 3.9 nautical miles AM Temperature: -38°F PM Temperature: -38°F
Audio Transcript:
Hi, everybody. This is John calling. This is the Week in Review of the first week of the Victorinox North Pole ‘09 Expedition. I'd say it's been a week of ups and downs, emotionally and physically.
We landed at Ward Hunt Island around noontime, Central Standard Time, on March 2nd. It was 40 degrees below zero and we took a few photos and then skied north across the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf which is broken in half and that's being studied by climate change scientists quite intensely. We actually saw a few of these pylons marking the edge of the ice shelf about 2 miles, a mile and half in width. So we skied across it and camped and then continued the up and down of the week, mostly up and over, huge chunks and ridges and rubble of sea ice.
We encountered ice blocks of all different sizes; some shoebox size all the way up to car size and some of them are stacked all the way up to what seemed like three stories tall, about 30 feet or so. Those shoebox size of rubble made for very difficult footing. Our snowshoes helped a great deal but still we are happy to come through some of those sections with our ankles intact. And the bigger pieces serve as landmarks but also huge obstacles to get around, up and over, and there's only one thing to do sometimes when you can't find a route, and that is Tyler and I just optimistically point our snowshoes north and wiggle our way.
Our progress is very slow and that's normal for these expeditions at this time of year. Don't expect to see our miles climb for at least another week, although we would love it to happen. We feel very comfortable with our pace and even more comfortable with the fact that we are successfully managing all systems and body parts at 50 degrees below zero for most of the week. It's warmed up a bit today, but it is overcast with very low visibility and a bit of wind, so we'll see how that feels for a change. It's a little frustrating to go so slow, but that's part of the game and we knew that would be part of the game. And we feel good in our mental approach, and we feel good that we're being patient, keeping ourselves warm, eating well, sleeping well and taking care of the little things that need to be done to keep the expedition successful.
Stay tuned. We are now able to send photos. We fixed the glitch in our email system so from this point on we will be sending a photo every other day. We will be sending coordinates and expedition data every day through our website northpole09.com and we will also be sending a voice dispatch that is transcribed to text every other day along with the photo. So you will hear from us every day in some form or another and more substantially every other day. Thanks for listening. It's a slow ride, but it's an interesting one. Thank you. Bye, bye.
