Ryan Dispatch: Ask an yee shall receive... For several days now we have been going on about just needing some wind to harden up the snow surface. The weather powers that be answered today with a vengeance.

The tent started flapping a bit last night just before sleep time which did not cause much of a stir other than Eric proudly announcing "great you can snore all night and it won't matter". No comment.

We awoke to gnarly wind on the tent and white out conditions. Such is life. We had actually drifted over 5 miles to the east northeast. We were careful to pack camp as things were blown in and covered but finally got out on skis. The start appeared like a long long day was ahead as we got bogged down in some pressure right away since making navigation decisions was hit or miss in the total blinding white. Thankful to make it out we found some clear areas and got to work.

The funny thing is that the clear areas never really let up the rest of the day. Skiing on our bearing using wind direction across the skis and a small somewhat orange dot in the sky, apparently the sun, we cruised on the better surface and most likely helped by drift managed our best distance day yet over 11 miles.

Covered in snow from the 45 mph wind all day blowing drifted power on us and slightly worn out from almost falling over all day on the flat light surface, we celebrate tonight with Pringles in the tent. A highly sought after local commodity in this lone tent out on the frozen ocean.

Distance traveled: 11.4 nautical miles

Image: Ryan using his the MSR Lightning Ascents to helpmus get out of some bad ice.