Skiing is all about going forward with everything we have. We feel the same about life.
Date: April 13, 2009 Location: N87° 41.772' W073 33.662' Time Traveled: 10.5 hours Distance Traveled: 8.4 nautical miles AM Temperature: -18°F PM Temperature: -16°F W wind in AM, SW wind in PM, 10-14 knots Clear, but some haze 138 nautical miles to North Pole
CaringBridge Family: Donna Hornik John and Tyler are commited to raising funds and awareness for CaringBridge.
By: Tyler Fish
Audio Transcript:
"This day was skied for Donna Hornik. Donna is a 3-year-old brain cancer patient from Indiana. Donna and her family use CaringBridge to keep family, relatives, and friends all updated on how Donna is doing. CaringBridge offers free services; free websites for anybody who would like to use them. John and I are encouraging people to use CaringBridge. We are trying to raise awareness for them and also trying to raise money for CaringBridge. If you're interested in donating to CaringBridge, you can go to our website, www.northpole09.com and there's a link that you can click on to go and donate to CaringBridge. So, Donna, we skied for you today.
Today was a great day for travel along what John and I feel is mostly older ice, the wind-packed crusts, the smaller pressure ridges, the kind you can see over when you finally get to them. It was smooth consistent skiing and we were able to stay close to each other and not have to wait for each other or catch up to the other person after rubble. Because it was easier to stay close, we've begun to have conversations, which I don't know what to call them, but they're either the longest or the shortest conversations on record.
Perhaps the longest because the conversations span miles before they're done or the shortest because it's just a sentence and an answer or maybe a couple sentences and then the conversation breaks for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then it continues. You see as one person checks the compass and checks the bearings to see where we are going, the back person can ask a question and then the front person can answer. The front person may then ask a question back, but then it's time to go.
The questions can be either about future plans for the expedition, the upcoming week and a half or two weeks, or they can be random personal trivia questions. And again, the answer may not come right then. We have to keep skiing. The person might interrupt and say, "Oop, got to go," or "Oh, I've got my point. I'm leaving." So it keeps our lives interesting, these conversations, and John and I think we'll continue them because we've enjoyed the company while we're skiing.
So it's been a fun way to go through the day. And right now we are camped on the south side of a lead that we came to at the end of the day and that lead happens to be open, or mostly open, and we decided that it was better to camp now and potentially have it freeze overnight and we'll be able to cross it rather than try something riskier at the end of the day. We did see one seal swimming in the water and we do wish that that seal could tell us what will happen. So stay tuned tomorrow to find out what we did."
Date: April 12, 2009 Location: N87° 34.015' W074 52.656' Time Traveled: 11 hours Distance Traveled: 10.5 nautical miles Drifted 1.0 nautical miles S/SE AM Temperature: -18°F PM Temperature: -18°F all day drifted E (1-1.5nm) NW wind in AM, W/SW wind in PM, 10-12 knots with gusts overcast with sun shining through high clouds
By: John Huston
Audio Transcript:
"Out on the sea ice, skiing 11 hours a day, our minds wander all over the place. Tyler can hum and sing songs. I'm not so good at that. We both think about our lives in the future, activities and spending time with the people that we love and our friends back at home. And we also daydream. Daydreaming is a very effective way to pass the time and it could be quite satisfying if we are patient with our thoughts.
However, certain thoughts pop in my mind, I am sure Tyler's too but I am talking about me here, more often than others. And in particular, I can think about food and almost taste food that I don't have here at great length, sometimes hours, like today, I probably had 10 or 12 different meals around ethnic restaurants in Chicago.
Tyler and I are eating roughly 7,600 calories per day. We just finished our dinner, a wonderful pemmican stew with some curry, salt and black pepper added in. Also, with freeze dried cheddar cheese, milk, and ramen noodles, along with the lamb, chicken, and vegetable pemmican. We really like it every night and every morning. It's just fantastic food.
So, one daydream I've been having is about the Fat Boy Burger. In November, Tyler and I had the pleasure of visiting Bergans of Norway headquarters in Hokksund, Norway, outside of Oslo. And we went out to lunch with Ragnar, Rune, Jon and Terja to a little bar/pub nearby. And everyone at the table ordered something called the Fat Boy Burger and I have been salivating over this burger at length.
The Fat Boy Burger is half pound hamburger, Norwegian cheese, bacon, fried egg, mayonnaise, catsup, tomato, lettuce and I'm not sure if there's avocado on there but I'm going to put avocado on there too, and then a whole plate of French fries on the side. And I have thought a lot about that Fat Boy Burger. And I want one. So, when I get off the North Pole, I'll probably have lost 20 to 30 pounds, and I'm going to be coming for that Fat Boy Burger. So, look out.
So, there's a little window into the simple minds of the long distance skier and how we often think about our loved ones and people back home or CaringBridge and people who that wonderful organization is helping out and our sponsors and people who support us. It all means a lot but also we could caught in wonderful day dreams, that are sometimes tantalizing painful day dreams, about food and the Fat Boy Burger.
So thanks for listening. We're on our way to the pole. It's a windy day but we are happy with our progress. We're drifting east quite a bit so that should be interesting to see how that plays out and tomorrow we'll put some more miles. Good night."
Tyler fills a water bottle. We love our 7L tea pot.
Date: April 11, 2009 Location: N87° 24.221' W075 26.748' Time Traveled: 11 hours Distance Traveled: 11.6 nautical miles Drifted 0.4 nautical miles S/SE AM Temperature: -20°F PM Temperature: -20°F NE wind in AM, NW wind in PM, 4-6 knots 156 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: Tyler Fish
Audio Transcript:
"Hello. This is Tyler Fish calling in with the Week in Review. Calling in on Day 41, April 11th. It is a Saturday. The title of this blog is "Science, Health, and Variety". The Week in Review will come in 3 categories; science, health and a variety of things.
In Science, to start off, John and I noticed that the full moon came and went without any huge consequences for us. Typically, the full moon brings the greatest tides, which break up the Arctic ice that is over the ocean. We did not notice too much going on here so we are pleased with that.
We have continued to make more ice observations for the National Snow and Ice Data Center - noting the amount of ice floating on either side of new leads, anywhere from almost nothing to up to 30 or 40 centimeters of ice. So, that's been pretty interesting to do that project.
And in energy, John and I have been concerned about a fuel shortage. We thought that we did not have enough fuel in milliliters per person per day to finish the expedition in the comfort that we wanted to have. We need fuel to power our MSR WhisperLite Internationals. Those stoves we use for food, hot water, heat and any drying. They're sort of the "one stop shop"-that's what we've got. Well, we can't get any more fuel so we decided we needed to change our habits. So we conserve. We become more efficient. We have water that is less hot. We wear our fleeces more often inside the tent and we're also now luckily able to take advantage of the natural light and heat of the sun. It has an affect on the tent on good days. So, we are very proud of ourselves. We've actually reversed our trend in fuel and we are increasing our milliliters per person per day that we had left. So, that is exciting.
In health, John and I are working very hard at protecting our faces from both the sun and the wind. They take a beating every day. In particular, my nose feels like a little bit of a stump. John has decided that his hands, the cracks in his hands, just won't heal until after the expedition. My cough, contracted in Baffin Island before the expedition, is now finally gone. And both of us are working hard to heal our chilblains, which is a surface freezing of the fatty tissues, often on the thighs, outer thighs, which is exactly where the both of us have it. What is a chilblain? What does it look like? Well, right now, just imagine a bruise with some scabs on the outside and then they break open a little bit, so we bandage those. The most exciting news though, in health, would be the boost. John and I have increased our calories to over 7000 calories per day that we are trying to eat as much as possible. Being good Midwesterners, most of this boost came from dairy products: chocolate, milk, and definitely some cheese.
In variety - last week saw us reach 86° and this week has seen us reach 87°. And now we're actually a third of the way on to 88° so we are moving consistently and we are very happy with that. The final two weeks are upon us so please expect a lot to happen.
This last week also saw John and me attempt to wear lighter long underwear due to a little bit of warmer weather. Well we have since changed back to thicker long underwear because we realized we are tired, our bodies are tired, we are thinner and it's become a bit breezier.
John and I have, in conversations, begun talking about what we want to do differently with our lives post-expedition; which I think is a herald of the different part of the expedition is upon us. It's towards the end. And the last thing in variety - our DeLorme PN40 GPS comes out every break to double-check our bearings and position so that we know that we do not stray too far from our northerly course. Victorinox watches keeps on ticking and their tools keep our gear clicking. They're really quite helpful. And Bergans of Norway keeps us protected all day.
Please stay tuned for the next two weeks of this expedition. It's bound to get very interesting as every day becomes more and more important and vital in our forward progress towards the North Pole."
The "two mile mess" was filled with various sized rubble.
Date: April 10, 2009 Location: N87° 13.047' W075 19.632' Time Traveled: 11 hours Distance Traveled: 10.1 nautical miles Drifted .4 nautical miles S/SW AM Temperature: -18°F PM Temperature: -17°F E wind 4-8 knots, clear but haze on horizons 167 nautical miles to the North Pole
By: John Huston
Audio Transcript:
"Tyler and I traveled 10.1 nautical miles today in 11 hours and we are extremely happy with that performance. It is a full moon today and that affects the tides by increasing them to their greatest extent and we are also near an area where we have heard there is a large lead. So we have been wondering about how the tides are going the affect the ice. Normally they increase the drift and action in opening up a lead. So we're a bit curious as to how that will affect the area that we are in. And last night, toward the end of the day, we noticed a whole lot of humidity in the snow and a bunch of recently frozen-over leads that we crossed the last 2 hours.
As we went to bed last night, we could hear in the distance, kind of a churning of the ice slowly moving as high tide came. This morning, about 12 hours later, we traveled through what we came to call the "two mile mess." The "two mile mess" was two straight miles of ice of all different sorts and recently frozen leads, most of them very frozen, of all different sorts and different directions as well. I don't really know how to describe it other than a labyrinth of new leads frozen over and just chunks of ice with frost flowers everywhere.
Some of the chunks of ice were as big as a car or bigger. Some were just kind of small cauliflower that we would ski right over. It's kind of frustrating to encounter an obstacle like this because it slows us down. However, while engaged in overcoming that obstacle, Tyler and I are never frustrated at our pace. We realize that we can only travel so fast and we actually enjoy the engaging route finding of going through rubble and kind of more open labyrinth type areas like the "two mile messes." Fun, as it makes the time go by quickly and we marvel at the power of nature and the Artic Ocean.
So we also encountered a "one mile mess" later on and then a "half mile mess". But the "two mile mess" took us 3 hours to go through. And to finish that and go quite slowly, take our skis off about 10 different times and walk pulling our sleds, and still do 10 miles in 11 hours of travel, we are thrilled. We are full of pemmican and happy. And we had some Cajun spice tonight in honor of my mother who is celebrating her 65th birthday with my father in New Orleans.
So thanks for listening everybody and we will talk to you (later). (Dispatch was cut off)"
Date: April 9, 2009 Location: N87° 03.306' W075 13.153' Time Traveled: 10 hours Distance Traveled: 9.7 nautical miles AM Temperature: -22°F PM Temperature: -18°F clear, light N/NE breeze 4-8 knots 177 nautical miles to North Pole
By: Tyler Fish
Audio Transcript:
"Well, our day was spent weaving our way among the rounded features of hills and hummocks of older sea ice and around and over some pressure ridges that were newer. We also crossed 6 frozen leads, gliding like silk over the frost flowers. It was a day that John and I like to call "heavy" but "steady" because we try to keep the pace so we're moving all the time. And during our day at some point in the mid-afternoon, we crossed 87°, our next degree of latitude, and so tonight we are celebrating and we are really happy that we made 87°.
So how far to the North Pole? It is 175 nautical miles or 210 regular miles that you are used to thinking about or 340 or so kilometers. That's to the North Pole in a straight line. Well how far is that? Well, I have 3 examples for you.
If you were to get on the freeway and drive 70 miles an hour, which the speed limit on some freeways is, if you drove for 3 hours you would be at the North Pole. That's if you're driving a car.
If you're biking on a road bike, you could do a century ride. A century ride is where you do 100 miles in a day. Means you woke up in the morning, did 100 miles and camped somewhere, got up the next morning, biked back home, you'd be at the North Pole. That's one way to get to the North Pole.
Then to stay with the cross-country skiing, there's things called ski marathons and John and I have a favorite. It's called the American Birkebeiner. It's named after a race called the Norwegian Birkebeiner, or the Birkie. The American Birkebeiner's largest such event in North America is very much looked forward to by all sorts of people. It's a 50-kilometer race (about 30 miles). Well if you did 7 Birkies you would be at the North Pole. That's one a day for a week. Now if your average time was about 3 hours and 30 minutes, which is a very respectable Birkie, if you did 7 of those, that would be about 24 hours. So you can think that, from a certain perspective, we have 24 hours left of skiing. Of course this would be if you had enough light all the time, you had groomed trails, easy food and water and if you were a little bit crazy.
Well John and I are, perhaps, a little bit crazy and we do have the light of the sun 24 hours, but we also have obstacles: rubble, open water, drifting ice - that kind of thing. So, it's not quite the same. It's not going to happen. And at -20° Fahrenheit no ski race happens. But we do keep skiing to the North Pole. So, you can choose however you want to relate the distance that we have left to go. But, that's how close we are and how very far away."
