Adventure in Greenland: day-to-day challenges

Birthday and messages from Basecamp

Before I start about today, I completely forgot to say something about my birthday yesterday. And that is that it was so incredibly cool to receive messages all day from Basecamp that you left on the website. I think Henk-Jan had a full-time job dealing with them, because they were coming in non-stop and that was really awesome. It was also a great distraction.

Weather, clothing, and finding balance

Today, for instance, it was actually almost windless when we set off. And that actually made for quite difficult weather, because it was minus 20, but already during the first shift, after the first 10 minutes, everyone was hot. We actually—I even took off my hardshell, so I was walking in a T-shirt and a thin long-sleeve. That was fine until a bit of wind picked up at one point, then it was too cold again. Then you had to put the hardshell back on, and the sun visor and sunglasses went on. Then the sunglasses would fog up, so those had to come off again. So it was a bit of a fashion show today. Everyone was looking for the best way to dress for this temperature. In the end, we managed pretty well. Somewhere in the second or third shift, everyone had found their rhythm.

Snow, distance, and expectations

Where we thought: well, the weather is beautiful and we’re going downhill, so now we’re really going to cover some miles, we’re going to race along, it turned out to be a disappointment. It looks like it has snowed quite a bit here in the last few days or week. The snow is really deep, over the ankle, and we have to pull those pulks through it. That’s the next challenge now. Because of that, it doesn’t feel like we’re going downhill at all. It actually feels like we’re still just going up. Today we did 27 kilometers. Yesterday about 13 kilometers of descent. So in 40 kilometers, we’ve actually only descended 100 meters. That’s not very much either. I’m a bit distracted because they’re cooking in the other tent and Neil is on his way to the tent. People are shouting all sorts of things, so I was distracted for a moment. But yeah, we’ve had another top day.

Daily rhythm and fatigue

Everyone is a bit tired. It’s a fairly Spartan rhythm. We get up at five-thirty and by seven-forty-five we’re on our skis. Then it’s skiing until five o’clock, pitching the tent, cooking, and trying to be in bed by nine-thirty to get our eight hours of sleep. But pitching that tent isn’t just putting up the tent. It’s also snow on the sides, digging a cold well, getting your bed in, and bringing in your tent bag. And organizing all those things, drying everything. So we’re actually quite busy with it. There’s very little time for ourselves. Also, the long shifts are taking their toll on everyone. We’ve been doing six shifts of an hour and twenty minutes a day for almost a week now. You can tell everyone is just tired because it’s incredibly tough.

Food, calories, and keeping going

We’re all hungry. You have to find a way to eat those 6,000 calories in our day bag at some point. That means thinking ahead all the time and making sure you have everything ready to hand. For example, if you also need to pee during your ten-minute break, it’s best to drink something first and pour a few nuts into your mouth. And then, while you’re chewing, quickly do your business and then continue eating. Otherwise, you just won’t get your calories. The same applies in the tent in the evening. Basically, with everything you do, you try to be chewing, because the body just needs it with such long days.

Final kilometers and looking ahead

Even though the weather is very beautiful, the snow conditions are still tough. We left this morning with the ambition to do around 30 kilometers, but we got stranded at 27 kilometers. The last shift was a real struggle just to keep moving. There was just nothing left in the tank today. We hope the snow settles a bit tonight and gets harder, but I’m afraid it won’t. We’ll probably be trudging through deep snow for a few more days. But oh well, that’s Greenland and that’s part of it. And we can handle it.