86:07.645S 82:32.191W
Elevation: 1725 metres.
Yeah, crossed the 86th south parallel, three more then the big 90! Every day a new milestone for me: The furtherest south on the planet I have ever been! It's quite special as I imagine the globe and see myself 'upside down' walking to its southern-most point.
The other thing about crossing a line of latitude, I get to open one of Ruth's 'latitude cards' she made for me.... Small things, but they mean a lot out here.
To reward myself for achieving the milestone, I delved into my spare food stocks, and found two pieces of Josee's delicious lunch fruitcake: one for desert tonight, and one for breakfast in the morning. It should have been an extra whisky celebration, but stock is 'very tight'! (Not from excessive helpings, but rather, being heavy, it was always going to be a scarce resource!
Talking about scarce resources, my daily food ration is not quite enough... I eat every crumb, and am always scrounging around for 'hidden' spare. It's amazing how hungry I get, and my daily rations are very generous (vs some other expeditions).
Well, the GPS says: 29 kilometres reeled out today, in nine hours 'marching'. It was an 'Amundsen day', perfect according to plan, and perfect weather to complement. A light headwind in the beginning, dropped by lunch, and then almost 'hot' conditions. Blue sky and sun the whole day, no clothing layer changes, and no frozen hand problems. So much 'in the zone' time, and not much to report!
My foot was much better, but still not 100%.
After downloading all that philosophical stuff yesterday, today, was a 'private, mindless' on-the-ice, day!
I'll give you another day or two re the 'Purpose of Life' insight....
This morning was the 1st morning I slept through the alarm. Mainly due to a late Blog night... Haha, I do enjoy writing to you guys, but I'm taking an early night tonight. Give you a chance to hone those comments to yesterday's blog!
Cheers
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!
85:19.669S 80:19.977W
Elevation: 1351 metres
Only 522km to go! Sled is getting lighter every day... I must be down 20 kg since the start... I'll be flying soon!
A gruelling, but productive two days behind me.... The human being likes routine and I had just settled down into my daily sleep, eat ski, routine, and then yesterday's bad light visibility gave me no option but to change things. It all came so sudden, one moment I was in clear blue skies, then within minutes the fog had moved in and I had to deal with this dull grey atmosphere that blends seamlessly with the ice. You can't make out bumps and humps, and it all feels very eerie. It's debilitating trying to ski in the rough sastrugi terrain I was in, as you stumble and fall almost each step. I'd been going so well, it was 3.5 into the day's marching and I'd already mentally banked the day's record... That's whaat happens, hey, when one makes assumptions: 'Mother Nature' turns around to show you who is in charge!
Anyway, it was eventually the sun that pushed me across the line to stop and take a 5-6 hour rest. There was a very dull sun coming through the fog, but enough to provide depth perspective when facing the sun... I was going away from it. Here where I am the sun basically goes around in a full circle, almost the same angle to the horizon the whole 24hr cycle. It's quite bizarre at first, but in preparing for the North Pole, I spent time REALLY understanding why, and if you don't it's quite a worthwhile exercise. It may also take you to the significance of the Arctic and Antarctic circles, they are both defined by 24 hour sun criteria....! Ok, so I got distracted:
Well knowing that even if the fog didn't lift, 5-6 hours later the sun would start being in front of me, so the visibility from my perspective would be 100% better. Better still the fog might have lifted, so it seemed like a theoretical no-brainer. How to get my body clock to accept the plan with minimal resistance was the practical challenge.
Anyway, it all worked out great, other than today feeling like a particularly punishing day, after just 3 hours sleep last night.
Yesterday I also reached the point called Thiel corner. Now clear of the mountains, I could make a 30 degree easterly 'turn' to start heading almost direct south for the South Pole. Just one more crevasse area to be detoured around, but that's 250 km off still.
The area I have been skiing in the past two days appears to be an old crevasse field, with 150-200 metre crevasses covered with hard snow/ice running 90 degrees to the direction of my travel. These provide great flat ski surfaces, and a little bump to ski down, once you are over the hump up to it. Now and again the ice underneath lets out a load groan as it resettles somewhere under where me and my sled have caused some weight stress. It was a bit spooky to start with, but know I understand it, it's not a problem.
The weather today has been amazingly warm (I'd say -10C at the very coldest) , no wind, but a bit of the dreaded fog. Lots of nunataks, and like last night I'm camped right opposite about 5 mountain peaks just sticking through the ice, maybe 1-200 metres above the surface ice... Pretty cool!
It was great to connect back to my usual heart dinner again, I missed my dinner time in my little tent last night, it's really cosy, and starting it off with a whisky cocktail sets the atmosphere for a 4 course dinner that ends with 'muscle milk for dessert... Very important for recovery from the day's work.
My feet are very sore, not sure exactly what the problem is, but tomorrow I'll be plastering my toes up to try and help. Noot whingeing, just giving you the whole picture....!
Looking forward to my 6.5hrs sleep now...
G/night!
84:48.644S 79:07.781W
27 km done today, 588km to go, and I'm at 1320 metres - another 1500m still to go up!
Today was an Amundsen day: All went according to plan! I'm definitely more of the Robert Falcon Scott type! "She'll be alright, and if 'she' isn't 'we' will somehow make a plan to recover." Not that I could ever be compared to these amazing adventurers. December 14, it will be 100 years ago... That blows my mind to think how REALLY hard it must have been... No-one knew what to expect, as no one had ever been there... never mind the basic technology... Heroes!
It was good to have a 'quiet' day, even the weather responded: After the usual headwind, by mid morning it was dead still and blue sky, which all made for a relatively warm day.
Repaired pole is holding up, I'm thankful every day.
I did pass the crevasse field I was expecting... 'rung' after rung of 5m wide, snow bridged, crevasse that stretched for maybe 1km. I kept well clear, and didn't need to cross them.
Also saw another nunatak, so impressive, I was very close to making a 'tourist' detour, but decided best to venture on ahead. I think these were the tops of the Thiel mountains.
I'm having an early night tonight... Presume you are all out enjoying yourselves, so ok for me to head to bed?
Talk again tomorrow
83:26.048S 71:06.44W
So what you been up to today? Seen lots of people, chatted to many...?? Well I haven't seen a soul, I swore at myself, shouted and punched the air with joy, but all alone. In fact the only colours I've seen are ice white and sky blue! I was so desperate of needing to see another human I took a photo off myself....! I looked a bit scary too... Totally unkempt and a bit wind chilled!
When I wake up, first thing I do is go outside and appreciate the remote vacantness Often on the ski, I just stop and wonder at this sterile beauty. This is the REAL experience I was referring to yesterday: I couldn't experience this heightened feeling if I was flown in, and dropped at one of my campsites. It's because I'm experiencingg it each day walking and seeing its endlessness. My ears ring from the silence, I'm sure they can't believe there is no sound so they create one! It's tough here, but STRANGELY special.
A big day today, it's been coming!
So I finally managed my 10 hours skiing - going back to skins and the tortoise approach worked. It definitely was trying to go too fast yesterday. Fortunately it was very icy at the start, forcing me to switch back to skins... Thanks for forcing me, Mother Nature, as I wasn't going to change.
A lo..oong day, but I broke through my goal of +30km in a day: 30.5 to be exact! I'm ecstatic, and see how changing my marches helped. 2.5 hrs is too long to try and stay focused in a trance. It's now 1.5 hours, with speed breaaks inbetween: I don't remove my backack, and just sit on the ice with it on. It's a schlep putting it on each time with mittens and my hands-free compass. Anway we shall see how this new approach works tomorrow. I sense I maybe JUST fine tuning, and there is not breakthrough panacea!
The weather has been ABSOLUTELY amazing, another warm, virtually windless day. This can't last forever, and I'm sure "epic day" will take on a new meaning from today's level, sometime before the 'end'. I guess that does sit as a constant worry in my mind....Things could get quite a bit tougher!
Today was also pretty eventful relative to the other days I've had, and one event is of concern and has reduced my safety margin:
My sled turned over 4 times today, I think the sastrugi was taller and more 'evil' shaped today, but it's quite a pain turniing it back and finding all the fuel cans had dislodged. (The fuel is kept outside the sled bag which keeps all the other contents from falling out!) Maybe I was just driving badly today... bored with tortoise pace!
I also ended up falling on my arse 4 times, the once real bad, that resulted in me breaking a ski pole! I think it's my heavy backpack causing the problem when I suddenly hit sheer glass like ice, and the sled at the same time, a few metres back hits a sastrugi obstacle and rudely yanks me back. Backpack pulls me over backwards, feet and skis shoot up in the air, and whoopsie I land on the ice, quite angry... a few swear words usualy machine gun out! It's funny, but it's not funny!
The broken pole is not good news, as although I am now using my only spare, there is now less scope for more awkward falls. I spent some time tonight working through a repair solution and will implement tomorrow night.
I talk a lot about sastrugi, and I'm sure many of you know what it is, but as it's very much part of the Anarctica ice cap, here is my description:
It's ice that has been eroded into wonderful aerodynamic carvings by the wind, just like sand dunes of the desert, except much smaller. The biggest sastrugi I have seen here so far is probably 0.75m, but most are less than 0.3m high. The ice is really hardened from the wind, and so they are pretty serious obstacles, that force skis and sled over / around them usually. The shapes are amazing, sometimes there is a whole patch that looks like a mini Grand Canyon, then another patch as sharp and mountainous as the Alps, then others just like minatures of the Namib desert sand dunes...All fascinating, but because the wind generally blows from SE the sastrugi furrows run at aboout 70 degrees to my ski course making for very rough, bumpy, and constant obstacle crossing skiing. I'll try send through a photo over the next few days....Sorry, photo's are just very time consuming on the satphone and my sleep hours are vital... I hope you understand?
Tomorrow I plan to wake at 04h30 Punta Arenas time, a half hour earlier than I have been, as my new 1.5 hr strategy means more breaks, and more time out there, to get the s 10 hours march (ski) time. The next day I'll do another 1/2 hour earlier, so I can wake at 4am, with the goal of leaving for skiing by 6am. Yeah it takes 2hrs to wake, make breakfast, water, packup, pull down tent etc... Quite a mission, and I'm perfecting it each day!
That's it for today, my body just aches everywhere, and each night I wonder how my feet are going to recover so they can 'produce' again tomorrow... Hmmm, I'm asking a lot of them... Lovely foot massage after all tthis!
Thanks for all the new emails and comments. Dominique shared some with me.... Just wonderful, you have no idea how much I think of many of you each day out here... Lots of thinking time!
Bye till tomorrow
