equipment - Teaching On Ice

5th December
The daddy of all hills was finally conquered yesterday evening! It took three days and an awful lot of effort, but at about 5pm yesterday we got the last sledge to the top of the pass. The GPS shows that we climbed 500m and that the average slope angle was 30 degrees!! And you have to remember that we’re not travelling light. We're hauling:

• rock samples
• spare tents
• spare fuel
• spare food
• ropes
• crevasse rescue kits
• a generator
• a laptop
• two satellite phones
• and all our personal kit!

Despite the physical strain of the last few days there has been no let up today. We’ve spent six hours hauling the pulks down the other side of the pass and then 10km down the Horseshoe Glacier.

Considering this is a scientific expedition you may ask why we’re doing all this hauling. It is simply because we have no other way of getting back to Patriot Hills where we fly out from. No transport back to the base has been budgeted for. It wasn’t all hard work today though.

At a few points the slope was briefly steep enough to allow us to hop on board our sledges and toboggan along. This was great fun until I found myself heading, at speed, towards one of the guides who had fallen off. My solution was to apply the emergency brake – that brake was me. I flung myself to the ground and, as I was still attached to my sledge by my harness, eventually the trace went tight and I became the brake … I stopped the pulk with only metres to spare!

One of my concerns is the amount of calories we’ve been burning over the last few days. To try and get my strength back I’ve upped my food intake. For example I reckon that tonight's dinner of a cup-a-soup, two tortillas (tuna and salami), rehydrated spag bol with pemmicam, chocolate and haribo was about 2000 calories! And I’ve probably eaten another 2000 calories over the rest of the day. Yet despite my intake being double the RDA for an adult in the UK I’m probably still deficient. This is due to the tremendous effort everything takes here: walking through the snow is tiring, keeping warm takes lots of energy, etc.

It’s not only physical fatigue that comes from everything taking thought and effort, it’s also mental fatigue: boiling my water for drinking during the day takes an hour, going to the loo requires thought about clothing, even brushing your teeth requires you to remember to defrost the toothpaste!

22nd November
We have exhausted the scientific opportunities in the Henderson Glacier and so today we packed up camp, clipped on our skis, put on our harnesses and started hauling towards the apparently spectacular Connell Canyon. We headed out of camp up a hill, then onto the flat, then up another hill to arrive at the foot of a very steep hill; at that point we put two people to each sledge and relayed to where we are camped now, about half way up.

In my sledge was all my personal kit, half a tent, a stove, a saw, 12 gallons of fuel, a laptop and a solar panel. It was a tough, sweaty (despite wind chill temperatures being about -20 deg C or lower), tiring day, particularly for my calves which are cramping every time I move my feet. 

Making camp was no easy matter as all day we have been battered by winds gusting to well over 30 mph; there was a real danger of losing a tent or getting frostnip on any exposed flesh. I’m now in the tent trying to dry all my sweaty clothes before morning as any moisture will freeze when I step outside, making the start of tomorrow pretty horrible. 

Tomorrow, winds allowing, we hope to make the top of the pass then lower the sledges down into Connell Canyon. Bring it on!

Yesterday was all about sledge hauling. We moved from Patriot Hills to a camp about four hours away. We are just four tents in a vast valley; the scale of everything here is hard to comprehend! The hauling was fine until we encountered a sizeable hill, how sizeable wasn’t obvious until we got half way up and couldn’t haul any more. We anchored our sledges, put two people onto each sledge and relayed up for well over an hour. Although exhausting, it felt good to be physically active again after all the sitting around waiting to fly.

Today we walked to the other side of the glacier we’re camped on (a walk of about an hour or so) and continued to hone our scientific techniques. I’m working as a field assistant to Ruth whilst taking weather obs and we’re getting the hang of doing science in pretty extreme conditions now.

The main problem here is that everything takes so long. Getting up, getting dressed, boiling water for breakfast/drinking water and packing the rucksack/sledge takes about two hours! For breakfast I have about quarter of a pack of muesli (with a dairy milk on top it’s delicious!), a cereal bar and a chocolate bar, lunch is more cereal/chocolate bars, peanuts and haribo, dinner is boil in the bag meals (spag bol tonight) with pemmicam (don’t ask!), more haribo and drinking chocolate. The diet is fine at the moment, but I feel after four weeks it could get a little repetitive!

Overall I’m beginning to feel more comfortable in my environment. I feel safe, I feel I have the right kit and I’m able to look around and appreciate the experience much more.

If you have any comments or questions then please e-mail them to me (I cannot see comments on the blog – although please do make them so other readers can see them and respond). The e-mail address is dannyboy@bullexpeditions.com (make sure my name is in the subject line).