Day 21: Not much happened today... but that's good!

86:39.910S 82:20.341W

Elevation: 1892 metres, up only 56 from yesterday.

Firstly, I have today received your blog comments from Dominique... Gee, it's just fantastic reading all your support, views, questions, etc.... I'm overwhelmed, and you have no idea how motivating they all are for me. THANK YOU, but also what I see is that we have a great joint adventure on the go... A special team, it's wonderful! Glad you guys are enjoying it, I'm really loving having you along, it's raising the whole experience to an unprecedented level! I'll try and answer your questions in the postings, as appropriate.

Well it 'would have' been a new record today, but I ended up stopping 1/2 hour early, as foot was starting to pain big time, and I thought best to stop, before damage. Anyway, a great 30.1 km done for the day.

Today was a REAL 'no event' day The weather was amazing, no wind all day, blue sky, and relatively warm, but the terrain was monotonously boring, unlike yesterday. I guess in all this vastness, I can expect a few days like this. They are very mentally challenging though....! Better than fog, blizzard, etc, so I am DEFINITELY not complaining!

The main event was that I had to have a pooh along the ski! Very unusual, maybe I'm eating too much! Anyway it sounds liike a pretty non-event, but it isn't: First the build up to the decision, as I don't really want to have to stop, but it gets clearer and clearer that I won't last out until camp at end of day. So once the decision is made, a suitable sastrugi must be found...One that has 'access' and a 'cavity' that can be covered in afterwards by collapsing the sastrugi mound, as my shovel is not readily accessible... Can't leave such an unsightly 'foreign object' in pristine Antarctica. It just doesn't seem rright!

Found it, now the hardwork starts: park the sled, remove and drop my poles, unclip and take off backpack, remove skis, remove outer mitts, so one sort of has fngers again, store mitts, remove hands-free compass from around neck... Oh, it's entangled with the GPS neck chord... Hmm, swearing!

Next it's off with windsuit top, so I can access trouser braces, hmmm, it's quite cold, time to move fast, hope nobody is watching....! Then drop trousers, facing away from the light wind, but right over the chosen sastrugi cavity! Now the easy part: having the pooh! Perfect accuracy, all that remains is to break over the sastrugi so it falls over the now 'spoiled' cavity, and everything looks natural and born here again. Then it's putting all the stuff back on, and some 15 minutes later I'm back skiing! (My pants do have a real access velcro fastened flap, but this isn't good for me.) So, I'll try not have too do that again... Planning the body hey!

On a not too disimilar vein: Many of you will know this, but it is one of the things about cold weather outdoor activities that drives me nuts, sometimes I could almost cry I get so 'useless': As it gets colder one has to put more layers on, layers of trousers, layers of tops, and layers of gloves / mitts. Well each layer makes things more complex, and you more 'useless' trying to help yourself, and you also start feeling like clumsy Michelin man! I get so frustrated not being able to do a simple 'bare finger' task, as my mitts get in the way, or I have no fingers to undo something... Sounds simple, but when you have all this gear on, it's because it's REALLY cold, and that's when you need things done quickly so you aren't standing still, getting cold... And so too much fumbling around and a cold spiral begins! Not fun, specially for my impatience!

It is a BEAUTIFUL evening out here 'tonight', totally stilll, wind and sound, the sun is streaming onto my tent so it's warm inside, and solar panel charge rate is at max, I have unlimited suply of the purest water around, this is free living!

Interestingly, I decided to not bring any artificial 'boredom distractors' along, eg iPOD, MP3, etc. I love music, and reading books, but on all my adventures I have a golden rule that says I'm JUST going to deal with the environment 'one on one', as naked as possible, so I can listen to 'Nature', experience it, and take it all in... I can listen to my iPOD anywhere, anyday, but I can't listen to Antarctica often. The so called 'boredom' is part of the whole experience that I signed up for, why try annd selectively screen it out. I feel very strongly about this, and have huge debates with some who wants to listen to books while they ski or bicycle, or whatever.... Each too their own, but I will not go there, and find that what happens is my senses get more sensitive and deliver an even deeper experience.

So continueing the 'Not Wasting Life' thread from yesterday: (it will take a few days to get through this. That's if you haven't got disillusioned along the way!)

In our lives we have what I call our 'signiificant activities', those 3-5 things where we spend most of our time in a year. So look back on your last year and try and come up with those 3-5. These aren't the functional things, like eat, sleep, hygiene, etc. For most 'normal' life people, they maybe things like, work, nurture a relationship(s), participate in extramural activity, enertainment, etc... You must get the list down to no more than 3-5, capturing where you spend your time.

Now where we spend significant time we obviously do it for a reason, either we just love doing it, or we do it for a desired outcome, or both reasons.

So for each of the 3-5 think through why you do the activity? Then...

Ask yourself, firstly: Does your soul 'feel good' everyday (or most days) you do the activity? We all know when our soul feels good, I'm not expanding more on that! But are you happy, passionate, excited regularly by the activity?

If your answer is "YES", you are not wasting your life in that activity, but unless you have a "Yes" answer for the next question you may not be achieving the most worthwhile personal life value out of that activity.

The second question is:

Do you HIGHLY value the potential outcome / product / result of continuing the activity? Will this outcome give you Personal Height? Remember all these activities have some interim, ongoing or end 'result'... Including nurturing relationships etc.

If you answer "Yes" as well to this question, then you DEFINITELY aren't wasting your life in this area, and are actually on the purpose Holy Grail path - ie you love what you do, and the OUTCOME of doing it is highly valued, and will give you Personal Height.

'No' answers for both questions for an activity clearly point to a serious 'Wasting Life' situation. You need to make big change and soon!

A "No" for question 1, but a "Yes" for question 2, puts you in a high risk of wasting your life situation - i.e. you don't like what you do 'each day', but you want the end point outcome from the day's activity. This is often unsustainable, and happiness / satisfaction is too linked to the end goal, so if the end goal isn't achieved, 'you' would have wasted your life in this area... Let's take the activity of 'Work': I meet many who hate their jobs (ie a 'No' for question 1), yet need the monthly, annual, etc, income it provides, or are waiting for stock options to expire, etc (a 'yes' for question 2). These people are on a fine line between wasting their lives or not.

This two question test is equally applicable to a mother raising kids as it is to a businessman or an adventurer like me... I have tested the concept across these vastly different people with different 3-5 life actiivities, and the 'wasting life' principle applied across all...

Not sure if this all makes sense.... I'll add a last piece tomorrow, once I've thought about what I have written here on the big walk tomorrow!

Gee, I never thought I'd get into all this while out here, but I guess it's the freedom of thought and meditation time that facilitates it... One of you insightfully picked up that we don't do enough thinking / meditating, well this adventure and my way of life in general offers me a huge amount! In fact one of my 3-5 life activities is ' Thinking', by my own lifestyle design... Now isn't that cool or bloody weird?

Ok, cheers again.

PS: It was a year ago, my 1st ex wife, Trish, died of cancer, and my thoughts are with many of my followers who were close to her. I have other friends fighting with cancer and dealing with their own more extreme solo South Pole challenge...To them I wish you all the strength and courage to win the battle.

Day 18: Half way and a good one

85:52.805S 82:25.801W

Elevation: 1616 metres, biggest single day climb today....

You probably picked up from yesterday's blog that I was struggling a bit.... I woke today a bit worried whether things would go further down or spiral upward back to the positive days prior to 'Nunatak day'. It was mainly my right foot issue that was affecting me, but also I find reaching halfway comes with mixed emotions... It's like Wednesday of the working / school week: You are halfway through, but is that a long way you have come or long way still to go?

Well, with a total route distance of 914 km, I now have 461 to go, so almost spot-on halfway. That feels pretty good, and it also means Christmas day at the South Pole is a very real possibility, but 'Mother Nature' will no doubt decide!

Back to the start of today.....

I'm not a pain killer person, never take them, but today I packed 4 in my wind pants pocket, JUST IN CASE. I put an extra sock on my right foot (now 5 socks, including vapour barrier layer!). For those that haven't dragged a sled, it's not just like normal walking: one's back and shoulders are being yanked back, so your toes have to constantly fight back to keep the front of your boot from lifting upwards. When one really pushes the pace or has a very heavy sled, the toes get quite stressed, and almost need like a grab rail in your boot to help them claw back. This is the problem I have, where my toes and ball of my foot are now traumatised.... Anyway enough detail...

The extra sock helped a lot, I had a great day, and forgot about thee painkillers. Not that it's all hunky dory, it will take a while, but a least now I can manage the situation by wiggling my toes, yesterday I could do zip...

The day started with a moderate head wind, and in a big sastrugi obstacle park. I felt good, and patiently made detours around all the big ones... Not good terrain for getting into the zone, but I somehow managed a good average speed. Two hours later I was in exactly opposite terrain, not a sastrugi in sight, not even the occasional one, but just smooth VAST open desert... With the cloud shadow giving it a strange brown tinge, it really looked like warm desert sands, This was the start of the big hill today, but also perfect for getting in the zone, and so I did... The kilometres flew by, and my mind lapsed into a huge philosophical journey! Gee, I missed you on the other side of the debates... (I'll come back to the content later below.)

The now, infamous nunataks are STILL with me, but believe you me, I haven't been seduced again! Two days later they are stlll clearly visible, but other than them, it's just vaste ice wilderness. Today, as I stopped a few times to take it all in, it really hit me how vast and awesome it really is... strange shadows, magnificent skies, deceiving virtual hills and valleys, and nobody around, no sounds, other than the wind when it blows. I take my camera out, but almost each time I realise you can't capture on camera or video what I am experiencing and seeing... Photos will be scorned as showing nothing and that would be tragic, because there is SO MUCH in the scale of things and the experience. I use the 'Mother Nature' thing quite a bit, but today I thought , I'm SO small, and instantaneous in her vast timeless wilderness that 'she' is probably indifferent to my presence.

I managed 28, largely, painfree kilometres, in 9 hours of marching. To try and minimise further damage to my foot, I've decided that provided I'm over 25 km for the day, I'll stop at 9 hours.

You may wonder why I never mention the actual temperatures out here? Well, I'd been warned about Antarctica: At this time of the year it's not the still air temperature that is really cold, probably only -10 to -15 C. It's when the devilish wind blows, the windchill is biting. It's hard out here to estimate the temperature with windchill, but at the headwind peaks it definitely feels like the minus 30s. The worst is that one gets caught out by the warmish still temperature, almost becoming casual and complacent. Two of my fingers have big white frost nip blisters from just that, and most of my fingers are sensitive to touch from minor cold damage... I need to be more careful!

As I went through my planning tonight, it seems it's going to be touch and go as to whether I get to the Pole on or before Christmas day? I'll be pushing to try and do it, but largely weather wiill determine it. I plan to dump (burn off!) quite a bit of fuel soon, I have far too much, and can save 3-4 kgs.

So, my philosophical excursion today....

Well, I've been living out here for 18 days now, I'm halfway, and I asked myself: "So what are you craving for, what are you missing or needing?" I honestly couldn't find one item, thing, activity, etc. I then thought, that's a bit strange, because this life is SO different to breakfast at Empire café, socialising with friends, hours on the laptop, reading the latest news, etc, etc.

I definitely don't miss shopping, going to gym, paying bills, doing laundry and kitchen dishes, spermarkets, traffic, garbage duty, etc, etc. I'm eating the same basic food each day, wearing the same clothes each day, not shaving nor brushing my hair, not showering, I have no idea what's going on in the world, I haven't seen or spoken to anyone yet there is NOTHING I feel I need or want?? Not even a hot bath! Why in that 'other world', do 'we' need so much variety, external stimulation, so much socialising, news, gadgets, material pleasures, etc,etc? Strange hey, but why is this I asked?

The answer appeared to be in: I'm doing what I REALLY enjoy (holisticly), in a very spiritual aand healthy environment, ALL my BASIC needs are well satisfied, and above all I have huge meaningful, and all consumng PURPOSE. A purpose that is linked to me gaining 'personal height', a concept my friend Imi introduced to me back on our Yukon trip. As he said the words, I knew "That's what it's all about!" A sense of inner spiritual development that is free of ratification or approval, or motivated by others. It may involve others, but doesn't have to, and once gained, nobody can ever take that personal height away from you... A good concept.

Out here I have no need for the so called luxuries, boredom distractors, pampering, etc, and my life is SO simple, and free of clutter that I can get within myself and live and feel me!

So if some of this is true, then maybe it's all about having that meaningful and consuming PURPOSE? That then leads to the big question: So, what is the PURPOSE OF LIFE?

This took me back to day 35 in my full-on North Pole expedition, where in the same mind space as today, I had a Damascus experience, where I discovered my response to the question...! I''ll leave you with these thoughts and share with you further in the coming days...

Since 2004 I have been trying to live what I call 'Simply Adventure', a way of life which is Simple, as outlined above bit. But one also centred 'Simply' around adventure, because in adventure Ii find In can find myself and my soul, while still having strong meaningful purpose.

In sharing this with you I'm not trying to say I know the answers, and have it all sorted, I know many of you are much further down your own tracks... All I'm trying to do is share my exploring of an alternate approach.... And maybe it triggers a few thoughts for your journey...!

Lastly, this Blog and your participation, whether active or passive, provides a very important social / human connection for me, one that enables me to not have a craving need to 'get out of here', and be with friends / others....so thank you, it's a very special part of the 'not alone' part of 'Solo but not Alone'

Please feel free to post up your comments, disagreements, views, beliefs...It's all serious fun!

And you just thought this was a South Pole expedition, hey!

Off to bed, feeling very content... Bit of a wind outside, but nice and warm inside my little tent!

Day 17: Back at work, and a day of 'everything'....

85:37.235S 82:18.002W

Elevation: 1470 metres

Under 500km to go: 487, to be exact!

After the variety and excitement of yesterday, I had sort of prepared myself for getting back to the harsh realities of pounding my way direct to the Pole! The rigours of the 2hr, 1.5hr, 1.5hr, 1.5hr, 1.5hr, 1hr, 1hr (last hour optional!) the much-looked-forward-to but bitterly cold 10-minute breaks spent huddled behind my sled, and then the 'getting started again' process, putting skis, and backpack back on, and starting the warm-up process. It's a full-on routine that varies depending only on the weather, terrrain, and what layers of clothing I have on.

It may seem mindless, but it requires focus, concentration and a good sense of understanding of one's body and how it deals with the cold.

When all goes well, and everything is in tune, I lapse into this form of trance, where my focus moves automatically between the compass, a distant sastrugi 'beacon', and a point 1-2 metres on the ice infront of me. These three sources of information are scanned subconsciously, processed and micro adjustments made to course, weight bias and foot movement so I effortlesly cross the uneven terrain, but in a line as straight as an arrow, on the desired compass course, and as fast as possible....! I'm on autopilot, and at one with the environment, my mind is sort of void, but flipping through non conceptual things, often bringing up thoughts about you guys... but all nice and peaceful... In this space, the kilometres fly by, time is irrelevant, at the break when I look back the sled tracks are straight as an arrow disappearing into the rear horizzon, and the GPS confirms that the course and speed were 'perfect'!

My brother-in-law, Bob, a respected sports psychologist, who makes quite a few comments on the blog, would say, "I'm in the zone". This is the place I desire to be in, for the 10 marching hours of the day, but it's not always easy...

So much out here contributes to being able to get in this zone. Being too hot or too cold makes it impossible, lots of sastrugi obstacles, calorie stores, equipment / clothing issues / irritations, and maybe most importantly my frame of mind, are the main doors / barriers to entering into 'the zone'.

Well today was a day with lots of different weather, from clear skies, a bitterly cold headwind, still, flat light greyness, to a valley hole that was windless, and felt as hot as Death Valley! This all requires lots of clothing layer changes, which makes it hard to be relaxed and enter the zone. I was pretty restless, and tryiing to delay layer changes in the hope I wouldn't need it often took me close to being too cold and 'worried'... At one point I was walking with my wind pant leggings rolled up, with 'skinny' black underwear-only legs sticking out to keep cool. Too hot is almost as bad as too cold. At another time I had three layers of gloves, full windsuit with my face wrapped in ruff, and just being warm enough. Given all this change and the difficulty of getting into the zone, I was pleased with the day's distance.

I am still concerned about my right foot: about 7-8 hours into the day, I get excruitiating pain, and am busy working through some options... This pain certainly does make entering the zone easy! Anyway, nobody said it would be easy skiing to the Pole!

I'm reckoning on another 20 days out here, which basically means I musn't think about that, and just get on with the now, and enjoying being out here, like I have been. Yesterday's excursion was good confirmation to me that I'm fully entrenched with life in this Antarctic environment, so that's good!

Finally, its great to have a few school classes along: BJHS, ESL class are doing their usual amazing stuff, and a big welcome to Rancho Bernardo students (Chaparral Elementary, BHMS, RBHS and Poway High). I wonder how many of you have experienced cold, snow and ice? Remember school can be a huge personal adventure, you just need to set your 'South Pole' goals for yourself for school and then grab the oportunities school provides to reach your school 'South Pole'. It's not your teacher's adventure, it's yours, just like this one is mine, for me!

Lastly, I hope you guys also take the opportunity to learn about Antarctica. It's such an important place to our earth and we humans in so many respects. Explore, learn about it, and then you can help protect it for the future...

That's all today... Hopefully I'll be back to 'normal' tomorrow!

Day 6: Sastrugi and sled problems, but another 30km day!

File pic of Howard training on Muizenberg beach:
No sastrugi in sight!

83:26.048S 71:06.447W

Hey sorry about the late Day 5 Post... One of the problems of sat phone comms. I thought it had been sent, but it hadn't. Quite frustrating when one stays up to try give you something live and special! Anyway, as I commited, I will send one every day, at least to 'The Diary'. I can't guarantee comms delivery though!

Ok, so here is Day 6:

I started out at my new 06h30 start time, all very positive about another 30+ day ahead, with my new shorter march times (yes, the skis are called marches, because of the military discipline needed!). It was another beautiful, clear, crisp, and light wind morning, the stage was set!

Well within 20 minutes my sled had hit a small, 'badly angled' sastrugi and it was pushed right over upside down. That's how the day continued - more than 20 sled capsizes forced me to look at better balancing the sled content but no real improvement! This is what goes with taking a 'non-conventional' performance sled! The sastrugi didn't help as today I saw by far the talest sastrugi of the trip....it was like an obstaacle course for much of the day, although there were a few great flat (relative!) sections.

When I get focus in the zone, and am well caloried up, with good terrain, I feel my body remove itself from me and become machine-like. That happened quite a few times today, so I feel capitulation point maybe near. For the first time ever on an adventure, I have thought that I may never hit capitulation point, and that this might be just a mammoth no fun struggle, like I have never had to deal with.....! Hmm, that's a scary scenario.... However, I do get glimmers of hope that within the week I'll be looking forward to each day.... The two things that are providing hope that I will master this life out here on the ice cap: The first is how lovely it is getting into my tent after a good distance day. It's really quite warm in the tent with the sun on it all 'night', and also I'm well into a cooking routine, and love my tent food now. Sleep is bliss, I'm sleeping well, and if I wake in the night for a pee, (in my pee bottle in my sleeping bag ofcourse!) I'm always surprised how many hours to the alarm there stil are to go... That's a good sign. Mornings are never 'grumpy' - I almost loook forward to getting on the road. Emphasis on "almost"! At capitulation one can't wait to get out there and ski everyday!

The second ray of hope is that today I could feel my body getting stronger and like a racehorse wanting to 'train' and get stronger. The first few days it basically was in shock, pains everywhere, and resistance from every area. I think it said: Ok, 'he' has gone crazy for a day or two again, just do what 'he' says, and it will all go away in a few days. The 'new' food was resisted, to its own detriment, but now that it believes this is a SERIOUS 30+ day struggle, the new food is welcomed, and the muscles are learning their new 10-hour a day job! I sense that now this body strengthening is happening, the 'enjoyment' wil soon come, and it will become a game rather than this current suffering slog. (I am choosing to share with you exactly how I feel, rather than sugar coated, positives!)

These polar expeditions are all essentially a race, a race against time, when your food and fuel runs out. Take more food and fuel, and you go slower, so you still have to race just a different one. Very few life activities are so single mindedly focused for the duration of the expedition: Everyting I do out here has ONLY one SINGLE purpose: To enable me to ski as productively as possible each day, almost machine like so I can win my race against the Antarctic Ice Cap. So when my sled overturns it distracts the machine, takes it off rhythm, and that's why it's so frustrating. Moving to the machine-like and being at one with the ice is my post-capitulation goal, I just hope it comes quick!

Today, quite a strong and chilly headwind, about 18-20 knots popped up, luckily only spoiling for only 3 hours, another perfect weather day.

You may wonder what I wore today? 3 pairs of socks, 1 long thermal pants, 1 fleece pants, 1 windshell high cut oilskin style pants, 1 thermal underwear top, 1 full face balaclava, 1 pair dark ski goggles, 1 set inner gloves, 1 set outer mittens. I prefer to be 'cold' on my upper body, as the ski work soon gives a temperature balance. When the headwind picked up I added a full wind shell top, with hood and wolverine fur ruff.... Very cosy, and I can deal with anything like that!

Regarding Penguins: No I won't see ONE, this is the first environment where I have been where there appears to be not one single other living thing here. I do have a penguin for Ruth in my resupply bag - a surprise for her at the pole. Penguins are only found where there is sea ice, and close to food for them. That question from my all-time favourite class in Alberta, Canada!

Time to hit the sleeping bag....