Friday, April 20, 2012

Longyearbyen Once Again

The team brought the North Pole celebration from the icecap back to civilization today. How wonderful it is to rediscover the marvels of indoor plumbing after toughing it out day after day on the icecap, not to mention modern heating.

After hot showers and a bit of relaxation, the team went off to dinner to toast their success and share stories about the expedition. As the rigors of daily life on a North Pole ski expedition--cooking breakfast in separate tents, breaking camp, putting in miles, taking short breaks, pitching camp, cooking dinner in separate tents, etc.--don't always allow the team to regularly gather as a whole, having a leisurely dinner together when it's all said and done is extra special.

Some team members will depart soon. Others will linger on a while--Longyearbyen is a great place to spend a few days dogsledding, snowmobiling, skiing, museum visiting or just poking around the very charming town. The team shared an awesome journey together. One they will certainly never forget.

Big thank you's to everyone who followed along.





Thursday, April 19, 2012

At the Borneo Basecamp...

After spending the night at the North Pole the team was picked up by MI-8 helicopter and transferred to the Borneo Basecamp. Borneo is a very unusual basecamp that only exists for a few weeks every year. The team is enjoying the heated mess tent and having a great time celebrating their accomplishment. They are dancing, drinking & there have even been a few naked plunges into the Arctic Ocean!

We've received a few audio updates that get cut off but we will post them soon. The team will be returning to Longyearbyen tomorrow and they are, no doubt, looking forward to hot showers, a several course meal that's not served in a bag, and a warm bed.

Check back again tomorrow for the final update from the team!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The North Pole!

They made it! But before we join the celebration, here's a quick account of the lead up to the team's awesome accomplishment:

Pitching camp south of yesterday's big open lead paid dividends today. By the time the team broke camp this morning, sections of the lead had frozen solid enough to support sled and body-weight. The team found an easy route across, and carried on towards the Pole.

Up until the final half mile they progressed very quickly, but Sedna, the goddess of the Arctic Ocean, wasn't willing to give the Pole up without a fight. The team met some of the most challenging rubble fields that they're encountered thus far when they were literally in sight of the Pole! It took them a little over an hour to cover the last half mile.

It's celebration time now! Word around the cook tent is that the Hearns have a small supply of sloe gin and Keith and Rick always travel with a well stocked party stuff sack. In any case, the team will have a great time calling loved ones, celebrating and reflecting on their great accomplishment.

Thanks again for following! Check back for expedition photos.



Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Nearly There

After navigating through more challenging conditions--ridges, rubble and deep snow--the team pitched camp after covering about 6.5 nautical miles in as many hours. Their current location is 89 north 89 degrees, 53 minutes. The team had the energy to continue on further, but they came upon the largest open water lead that they've seen so far. A lead is the open water between two or more plates of ice that have drifted apart. Leads can sometimes resemble rivers with clean, well defined banks that stretch on for considerable distance, but they often have irregular edges and narrow sections where teams can cross by building ice block bridges.

Sometimes leads force teams to ski east or west to find a safe place to cross.


The team opted not to cross the lead tonight because it's often easiest to simply wait for narrow sections to freeze up to the point that they can support sled toting skiers. If they continued on tonight, they may have found a way across the lead and through the rubble, but they would have had to expend A LOT of energy to travel a short distance, compromising their energy stores for tomorrow's push for the Pole.

Finding safe routes across rubble-filled leads is a crucial skill.


The night before possible "Pole days" is an exciting time. You can never take tomorrow's goal location for granted, but it's hard not to dream about standing on top of the world! To make the evening even more exciting, the team has already seen one seal in the next door lead. It's a bit colder today (-22 C), but seal watching provides a lot motivation to leave the warmth of a cook tent.

To celebrate the team's proximity to the Pole, PolarExplorers is holding a photo caption contest on our facebook page. Find the the photo of a past team member taking a dip in a lead on our facebook wall and post your caption as a comment. The author the best caption will receive a phone call from our team at the North Pole!



Monday, April 16, 2012

Striking Distance

After a good hard day in fields of compressed ice, the team is resting at north 89 degrees, 46 minutes, east 166 degrees. Compressed ice, by the way, refers an environment where individual plates of ice smash into each other, and the fringes pitch upwards forming pressure ridges and rubble zones. In addition to forcing the team to scale vertical obstacles, compressed ice environments also degrade snow conditions--think pulling a wagon through sand versus across pavement. Windswept snow accumulates in all those little valleys between bumps and ridges, and, all the sudden, instead of skiing on a hard-packed icy crust, you're trudging through ankle, shin, even knee-deep snow. Sounds like fun, huh!?

More flat light up north today


Hardships aside, the team had another great day, covering ten nautical miles, and barring any serious weather deterioration, they've set themselves up to make the Pole by Wednesday night! And all that hard work has built up full-blown expedition appetites. During their call in, the team was tucking in to hearty noodle soups, fry pan pizzas and chicken teriyaki.

Contrast is hard to come by during flat light days.


As for the weather, the mercury topped out at -15 C with a 10 knot wind at their backs. However, the tailwind, and the positive drift, had ceased by the time the team pitched their tents.

Way to go, team! If they keep it up, in two days they'll get to stand on every line of longitude at once!

Bonus Post!

The team is currently finishing off their day on the trail, and we at the PolarExplorers headquarters eagerly await their satellite phone update. In the meantime, we'd like to share our video collection. Check out our YouTube Library. It has everything from training and gear tips to an awesome video of last year's North Pole Dogsledding Expedition, narrated by Rick Sweitzer, the founder of PolarExplorers.

Short breaks are crucial. Resting for 5-10 minutes restores energy levels, but resuming physical activities afterward keeps the cold at bay--just part of an expeditioner's daily life.


We'd also like to open the floor to any questions you might have about the goings-on of polar expeditions. Needless to say, day-to-day is quite different on the icecap, and piques curiosity. So, if you're wondering about how the team cooks, travels, brews safe drinking water, what they wear throughout the day, etc., the floor is yours. Fire away!


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Past Halfway

After a trail day with relatively few pressure ridges, the team is resting for the night at north 89 degrees and nearly 36 minutes, east 166 degrees, 55 minutes. With fewer obstacles in their way, the team clearly gave a huge effort to cover a great distance while conditions allowed.

Making Miles in the Flats



If you've been following for a couple days now, you might have noticed that in addition to traveling many minutes of one degree of latitude, the team has covered many full degrees of longitude. This is because, unlike degrees of latitude that are a constant 60 nautical miles wide but vary in length, lines of longitude have a constant length, but, near the Poles, their width compresses. So the team allocates 7-10 days to travel the width of one degree of latitude, but, depending on icecap drift, they might travel across many "compressed" degrees of longitude in just one day.

Check back tomorrow for another update from the Arctic!








Saturday, April 14, 2012

Rubble Fields and Flat Light

The team put in another great day, traveling about 9 nautical miles during their 7 hours on the trail. They pitched their tents for the night at north 89 degrees 23 minutes, east 155 degrees. For those of you who don't typically follow expeditions or practice precise navigation recreationally, a degree of latitude measures 60 nautical miles (1.852 kilometers; 1.15 statute or "normal" miles), and consists of 60 minutes, each of which, as you might expect, equals one nautical mile.

The team faced two challenges on the trail today. First, they encountered quite a bit of rubble and pressure ridges, which require a lot of time and energy to traverse. Second, overcast skies shrouded the icescape in flat light. Most everywhere else on the planet that's not such a big deal, but, on the Arctic Icecap where visual contrast can be hard to come by, flat light can hugely affect visibility and even impede one's balance. When everything around you is a similar shade of grayish white, it's easy to lose your equilibrium and stumble as you ski, even when you're on totally flat ice! It's a unique environmental challenge.

Sled, tent and...Where's that horizon?


A southeast wind swept across the icecap today, which drops the temperature a bit (about -20 C today), and also directs icecap drift. Fortunately for our team, the current wind conditions are creating a slight northerly drift. They can't rely on the drift to carry them to the Pole, but it sure gives them some peace of mind. When you zip up your sleeping bag for the night it's always nice to know that the drift won't carry you further away from the Pole while you get some sleep!

As Michael mentions in his audio update, the team came across some polar bear tracks today--an awesome, wild experience. Not to worry though, the team is carrying a small arsenal of bear deterrents: flares and blanks to scare away unwanted visitors, and shotgun slugs and shells, though these are hardly ever necessary.

Check back for more updates on this very impressive team!



Friday, April 13, 2012

Day One; Good Fun

Ten miles in a little over six hours, that's team's travel stats for day one, and those are very impressive numbers. The team clearly worked very hard on their first full day out. However, lower travel numbers do not necessarily denote low effort. More often than not, ice conditions, rather than effort, determine how far the team travels on any given day.

As Simon ("Badge") touches on during his audio update, the team rarely skis on totally flat ice for more than 25 meters. They must constantly swerve around freestanding snow drifts and ice blocks, clamber over pressure ridges or find navigable passage across open water leads. When the team encounters more of these obstacles and fewer pans of flat ice, their mileage may decrease but their effort certainly does not.



The first full day of any expedition can pose problems for any group of adventurers, but the PolarExplorers team is already looking strong. Feel free to send in any question you might have about the expedition, and check back soon for more updates. You can also stay update on everything PolarExplorers via our facebook page



Thursday, April 12, 2012

On the ice!

The team reports today that they are comfortable in their tents after having soups and hot drinks, and they are ready to hit the sack. They had an "awesome" day and they are looking forward to skiing all day tomorrow and putting some miles behind them. Their current location is N 89.01.319, E 164.29.246. The temperature is -29C and there is a light wind.

The charter flight from Longyearbyen to Barneo, the base camp on the pack ice, was approximately 2.5 hours in an Antanov plane. Onboard, passengers take turns peering through the Antanov's windows (there's only a couple near the front), and take in the surreal aerial view of the icecap. There's only a few places on Earth that can match the cold, vast, seemingly flat icy vista. Despite the icecap's obvious lack of major topography, the team can already tell you from experience that it more closely resembles an wintery boulder field than an frozen prairie. Flat, I suppose, is a relative term.


Tomorrow the team will settle into their expedition schedule, and that means rising and breaking camp at consistent times each day, putting in 6-10 hours of skiing and helping one another navigate pressure ridges and leads. Check back soon for more updates.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Ready, Set....

The Polar Explorers Last Degree Ski Team is set to jet. Tonight they sleep in comfortable beds next to toasty modern heating systems. Tomorrow, barring any unexpected inclement weather systems, they begin to ski, camp and thrive on the Arctic Icecap! But before that, let's backtrack a little. The team, consisting of 10 adventurers hailing from four different continents, gathered at dinner last night to discuss the logistics of the fast approaching expedition.

They spent today testing and then packing gear. After pitching the tents, firing up the stoves and laying out their cold weather gear (just make sure that everything was in tip-top shape, present and accounted for), they broke it all back down to pack it up in neatly organized sleds--the sleds that they'll pull 60-100 miles across the icecap to the Pole.



After the gear testing and packing session, the team dropped it all off at the Longyearbyen airport to be loaded on their icecap transfer plane which is set to depart tomorrow at around 3 PM. Until then, since there's nothing left to check and double check, the team will rest up for the 6-10 hours of skiing they'll put in each day en route to the Pole.

Thanks for following, and check back soon for more updates!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Counting down the days!

Welcome to the 2012 PolarExplorers North Pole Ski Expedition blog! We are very happy you found us and we hope you stay tuned as we follow our team of intrepid explorers as they ski the last degree of latitude to the North Pole.

The expedition is just around the corner and team members are in the final stages of preparing for this incredible adventure. We will begin our daily reports on April 10, 2012 so make sure to check back to follow the team!

We look forward to sharing this expedition with you :)