Yesterday's low mileage didn't leave us in a good mood but it forced our hand and gave us an opportunity to finally make some decent mileage.

I've looked at these past few weeks as a necessary staging of our efforts from here on out. While our distance to date has been minimal at best we've needed that time to get through the roughest ice. Unfortunately, that also means having the supplies to keep us fed and warm which makes our sleds heavy and nearly impossible to move.

Its a classic catch 22. Try to travel light and fast here and all your equipment will break or you'll get frost bite or worse. So we have been carefully metering our time and energy - like tightening a spring waiting for the he moment when it can be released.

Today, we made the decision to only do single pulls from here on out and it made a big difference in our mileage and we logged our best distance to date.

It wasn't easy however. Our sleds our still very heavy and it doesn't take much of an incline before we are locked in an epic battle of inches just to gain a slight mechanical advantage over the load. We fall a lot.

Luckily, the ice gods were smiling down on us and we were able to string together a series of flatish pans together with only minimal pressured ice. I thought we would spend all day on our skis but a late afternoon whiteout and cold wind reduced visibility so we strapped on the MSR snowshoes for the last shift.

But not even bad weather could dampen our spirits. We are finally on our way to the pole.

Maria sent a few DeLorme inReach messages about new words Merritt is learning over the past week: bird, water, coconut...

Its incredible to be able to stay connected across thousands of miles, but as a first time father missing these moments is an unbearable burden.

I wrote back, 'My heart is broken.'

Still, this was a reasoned choice to be here. The story of this amazing (and more often overwhelming) place needs to be told forever changed.

And while I don't expect Merritt to follow in my footsteps, my hope is that this ice will still be here.

Distance traveled: 7.74 nm

Image: Ryan skiing in front of a sun dog / halo.