It was a day that started around 7:30 and it's now well after midnight and I'm still going. I know I've said this a million times before (not hyperbole btw), but I can't wait to get out on the ice so I can catch up on my sleep. Because polar expeditions are generally so long, we base our travel schedule around eight hours of sleep.

There are other factors of course, like how long it takes to melt snow in the evening (about three hours), if we are behind schedule, the 'drift' of sea ice, etc... However, we can't start cutting out sleep from the start. The expedition is just too long. Therefore, for most of my polar training courses and Last Degree expeditions, I can pretty much count on getting a good full eight beautiful sleeping bag ensconced warm night's sleep. At home in Boulder, I'm usually up before the kids, trying to eke out a few emails before the day's chaos begins.

Today was all about food packing with our ultimate goal being reducing the packaging, prep time, weight and waste of all the food that we eat on the ice. While I love Mountain House meals, the packaging is quite heavy and surprisingly bulky. Therefore, each meal is opened and poured into a lightweight baggy. This also reduces the volume of trash we have to pack out. Additionally, we add a small slab of butter to each dinner which increases the calorie count. Equally important is portioning our food - so we don't take too little (or too much) as well as cutting up things like cheese so that we don't have to do it on the trail. Try sticking your knife into a block of cheese at 30 below - it's like a brick. After that, we dole out snacks, Skratch Labs drinks and chews, chocolate, etc. Each day's rations go into their own light plastic bag. Our entire 10 days 'bags' of food then fit snugly into two large Granite Gear stuff sacks.

The beauty of the system means that webdon't spend a lot of extra energy while on the trail dealing with cooking (remember I only cook one thing - melted snow) or sorting food. At the end of each day, we pull out a bag of food from one of our GG stuff sacks and bring it in the tent which contains our dinner as well as breakfast and lunch for the next day. One additional benefit of this system is that it allows each team member to eat different meals while still meeting their overall daily caloric needs - around 5500 per person per day (on average).

As amazing and efficient as this system is, it does require a lot of prep work and I jokingly told Maria that for every day we will be on the ice, I've spent at least a full day prepping both food and gear. These are difficult trips with very small margins of safety. On the ice, we can go from status quo to survival mode in a few minutes (or seconds if we fall through the ice). Therefore, the time we spend now will reap major benefits.

We had a short guide's meeting with the team from Barneo - Victor, Victor and Leo where we received the positive news that the Antonov-74 had all the paperwork cleared and would be flying here tomorrow from Russia. The Antonov is the plane that relays crew and Last Degree skiers from Longyearbyen to Barneo, the temporary ice runway (currently positioned 33 nautical miles from the pole). This is good news. While we may be delayed upwards of 12 hours or so, things appear to be running fairly close to schedule.

Which is a big relief. Last year, the 1,200 meter ice runway at Barneo cracked in three places. We were delayed for over a week uncertain if we would even get to the ice, let alone ski to the pole.

Image: Butter!