9 days in a row: cold, wind, and pushing through

Ninth day in a row and a schedule of 6 sessions of 1 hour 20 minutes

Well, that was another long day. The ninth in a row, actually. We stuck to the schedule of walking 6 times for 1 hour and 20 minutes a day. You can really tell, because our bodies are getting a bit tired. Everyone was absolutely exhausted when we arrived here at this campsite, camp 23. It was another beautiful day in itself. The good weather is holding up, but so is the cold. The photo on the blog is from the second break, around 11 AM. You can see it’s still minus 18. That’s pretty intense.

Cold, hands, and the never-ending wind

That’s also one of the things that are quite tough here. We talked about it this week: what do we find difficult about being here? For one person, it’s getting out of the sleeping bag in the morning when it’s so freezing cold. And then having to take down your tent with cold hands and cold fingers. Especially when the wind is blowing, there’s just no glove you can actually work with that keeps your fingers truly warm. So it’s just a moment of misery and pushing through to get from your sleeping bag onto your skis in the morning. For someone else, it’s the wind. The practically never-ending wind, which literally leaves you nowhere to hide unless you’re in your tent. That wind is also starting to take its toll on our faces. Because even if you wear a face mask all day, you always have a bit of moisture from breathing and a bit of a runny nose behind that mask. With that relentless wind, everyone is starting to get scabs on their noses. It’s almost impossible to prevent it from getting a bit irritated with the wind and the cold.

Weather forecast and a possible rest day

The wind was supposed to pick up on Monday, but luckily that has now shifted to Tuesday. That means we have two more days to really go for it. If the forecast stays as it is now, it might just happen that we don’t head out at all on Tuesday and stay in our tents for the day. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get some extra rest, as this is already the ninth day in a row we’ve kept up this schedule. Everyone is truly wiped out, but no one really wants to take a rest day as long as the weather is this beautiful. Then we just want to cover as many kilometers as possible.

Sleep deprivation and a power nap during the fourth break

But you can tell—I haven’t slept very well myself the last few nights, for example. Eight hours of sleep is actually sacred during an expedition because you really need it to recover since you’re working so hard. I felt this morning that it was really starting to wear me down. My balance was off and it was a real struggle to keep up from the second shift onwards. I was so tired that when we stopped for the noodle break during the fourth break and I lay down on my pulk for a moment to stretch my back, I spontaneously fell asleep. Right there, in the sun, wind, and cold, I took a fifteen-minute power nap. After that, I woke up feeling like a different person, wolfed down some noodles, and the fifth and sixth shifts went like a dream. It just goes to show how important it is to sleep well. So I’m not going to make this too long and I’ll crawl into bed soon, hopefully to sleep a bit better and be in good shape tomorrow.

Cloud front and zebra landscape on the ice sheet

Something else that’s nice to share is that today’s weather change was heralded by a kind of cloud front, with small fleecy clouds in front of it. It created a beautiful spectacle on the ice sheet. Because the landscape is slightly undulating with some sastrugi, and those clouds drift past the sun, it becomes a kind of zebra landscape that constantly changes from sun to shadow. It was just a super cool sight to see. With the fresh energy from the power nap, I really enjoyed the fifth and sixth shifts, which usually involve a bit of a struggle.

Wind direction and looking ahead to tomorrow

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. It’s supposed to get gradually windier. At least we finally have the wind coming from the side for once—not from behind yet, but maybe that’s still to come. We’ll see.