June 4, 87 00.17N:73 47.29'W
Day 35. We seem to be camped near a wildlife oasis. Today, what appeared to be a lone snow goose flew directly over our camp. A snow goose! So, we've done a bit of quick math and figured that we have had feathered visitors at all but 86 degrees.
Of course, we were in a raging blizzard at 86, so maybe there was a special avian visitor and we simply didn't see it.
We crawled out of the tent and found a bright sunny day. Lucky for us as well, someone had decided to open an Arctic spa. We took full advantage and 'showered' and shaved. Once finished, we barely recognized each other, having both taken years off our thin faces.
We also took short baths outside. A crisp north breeze kept the cleansing to a minimum, however.
The rest of the day was spent making some small adjustments to our equipment in preparation for the additional supplies (and weight) and the push to the pole.
We also took advantage of the bright light to make a video survey of ice chunks as well as some cool underwater shots of leads.
All in all it was a pretty uneventful day, but we aren't complaining in the least.
Word of the day: titivate - after cleaning up and reading a bit of the dictionary, this is hopefully what we are.
June 3, 87 00.17N:73 47.29'W
Day 34. Houston we have 87, but actually we say Huston, for John Huston our expedition manager. Of course, they're pronounced the same, but for the sake of being accurate we thought we'd spell it out for you.
Special 'props' go out to Huston for coordinating our resupply, managing the www.oneworldexpedition.com web site, writing and sending out enews (as well as Ann Possis - thanks Ann), answering emails, taking our phone calls at all hours and giving us encouragement. Thanks superstar!
The weather has warmed enough (just above freezing) for us to be uncomfortably warm during the day's travels. Now, we usually take off our Wintergreen jackets after a 10-minute warm up, then it's just long one layer of long underwear. The warmer temperatures are beginning to make some of the deeper snowed-in areas fairly soft as well.
We have still been encountering drifted and pressured areas which have slowed us down a bit. However, we have also come across some of the flattest pans we have seen so far.
We are at the northern limit to where we can receive our resupply. Therefore, we traveled with the GPS within close reach for most of the afternoon to check our position. After traveling across a flat pan for nearly an hour we knew we were close. A quick check revealed just how close 86 59 09'. Unfortunately, we were on the southern side of a large lead.
While we were getting the sled-canoes ready to catamaran and paddle across, a seal poked its head out of the water. A seal!? Swimming at most likely what was exactly 87 degrees north latitude. We watched in awe for a few minutes while it tilted its head back, slid underneath the surface and resurfaced nearby.
What must it think of us? We can only offer our biased conjecture in the time it takes to paddle across the lead.
Now, we are camped safely on the high side of 87. Tomorrow is officially a full rest day which we will use to our full advantage. However, we will also be stationed here until our new supplies arrive. When, you ask? We're not sure exactly. A lot depends on the weather. Luckily, we do have 6 days worth of rations remaining.
Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," opens this weekend. It is getting rave reviews. This is from a review in The New York Times: "I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling."
If you have a chance, please go see it.
Word of the day: skulk - we're loitering steathily at 87.
June 2, 86 53.45N:73 58.39'W
Day 33. The solar radiation heats up our tent to nearly room temperature as we sleep. Sometimes it gets too hot and we have to lay outside our bags - a scary and smelly phenomenon.
We paddled across three leads today and managed to do some filming of the process. We have taken about 7 hours of video so far with more to come. We are hoping to provide some visual documentation of global warming's assault on the Arctic Ocean and its iconic figure, the polar bear.
Our metabolisms are running in overdrive now and we gobble up every last crumb of our daily rations. We have even gone so far as to count our evening crackers to make sure we both get equal share. On the downside, our stomachs are still adjusting to the additional calories.
We thought of another limerick. Hopefully, this one rings a bit more lyrical in all the critics' ears out there.
There once was a pair of long underwear, Whose stench was way beyond compare. On the verge of turning green, In an unpleasant dirty sheen. To the more refined, they smelled of a cheese so rare.
A study in Nature today revealed that, 55 million years ago, the average temperature of the Arctic was 74 degrees F. These findings are proof that too much carbon dioxide - more than four times current levels - can cause global warming, said another co-author, Henk Brinkhuis of Utrecht University.
A special thanks to Kieran Mulvaney, our point man at Greenpeace, for all his hard work. Also thanks for all the positive notes from other Greenpeace folks - you're with us in spirit.
Word of the day: miasma - the source... Our long underwear
June 1, 86 45.56N:73 36.19'W
Day 32. Raindrops keep falling on our heads. Raindrops keep falling on our heads and coating our glasses as well as the entire right side of our bodies with ice.
Despite the inclement weather we made great northerly and westerly progress. The ice has once again shown us a new side and we are starting to encounter more large cracks with less brash ice in them. In fact, we had to catamaran the boats five times today.
Paddling across one of the larger leads seemed a lot like being on a lake canoeing back home in Minnesota - except for all the snow and ice, of course.
Part of our research for NSIDC is to measure the freeboard (height above waterline) of the ice at a lead during the day. The process is easy - we just use a ski pole that has a thin meter tape stuck to it. Hopefully, this information can be used to better determine how much the Arctic sea ice is thinning.
As of Day 31, we are 244.2 statute (normal miles) or 212 nautical miles from Cape Discovery (our starting point), and we are 235.8 statute/204.6 nautical miles from the Pole. Pretty exciting if you ask us.
News of the weird: Lonnie's boots have picked up the distinct odor of sour milk. We've done the smell comparison and only Lonnie's boots seem to produce this olfactory mystery.
News of the aging: Eric celebrated his 35th birthday today. There are a few gray hairs (2-5 ONLY) now. No big celebration except for the notable exception of an extra, you guessed it, Clif bar.
Word of the day: redolent - Lon's boots the reminiscence of good milk gone bad.
May 31, 86 35.493N:72 12.30'W
Day 31. The day started with sun but as usual was gone after the first hour of skiing. We had some nice flat pans during this same time. There were few serious obstacles today, with the exception that we had to catamaran the canoe-sleds twice to cross leads.
The ice is becoming better with longer flat stretches giving reason for our record 13 miles. We had a lucky break last night drifting nearly an additional mile north, but east as well. Our hard work moving west has paid off a bit today.
We apologize for not being able to provide you with more heart-stopping X games type action. While exciting at times, our Arctic journey plays out slow and arduous - hardly the stuff for adrenalin junkies. Rather, Arctic explorers are simply doggedly tenacious.
The endless horizon leaves more than enough time for reflection. We are so insignificant here. Pardon us for waxing so poetic, but it just happens. However, now that our artistic side is out in the open, we thought we'd share this limerick with you.
Up here lives an animal called the polar bear. Hiding behind an ice chunk, it would certainly you scare. But what of its fate? When the ice does abate, Will anybody still make an effort to care?
We'll work on something better for tomorrow.
Word of the day: gumption - it's what it takes to keep going every day.
May 30, 86 21.49'N:71 49.30'W
And then it was easy, the weight of the sled-canoes nearly vanished behind us, our legs swishing back and forth effortlessly, smooth unimaginably flat ice for a quarter mile. We stretched our arms out bird-like and pretended to fly. But this was the last 20 minutes of the day; there are nine other grueling hours in this story.
"It was the best of ice; it was the worst of ice," the first line of 'A Tale of Two Pressure Ridges' would most likely read.
Much of the day was spent slowly weaving in and around drifts. The sled-canoes continually yank us off balance as they careen down a slope or slip backwards anchor-like. High stepping to lift ski tips above drifts is an additional burden.
There was also a lot of negotiating large slabs of ice with leads in-between. This process is similar to rock climbing in the sense that each path has a crux - stepping onto unstable brash ice as it sinks, heaving a sled-canoe up a steep embankment, balancing on wedged ice while trying to pull.
The experience is as emotional as it is physical. Observe, plan, anticipate, action, relief. Then again a moment later. Observe, plan, anticipate, action, relief. This time add crisis management because you are sinking into the ocean.
Midday we ran into some decent conditions that allowed us to make a few miles - a total of 11.5 nautical miles, our best yet. But at what price? This was one of our hardest days to date. We feel completely fried in both body and mind. Our legs ache.
We are still drifting east. The wind has abated considerably, but the ice continues to move. We seem to be fighting a losing battle with our endless north-northwesting.
We are continuing to collect data on snow depth and density and ice free board for the NSIDC. Hopefully, this will add to their understanding of how the Arctic ice sheet is melting.
NOAA has predicted an active hurricane season, and is anticipating 10 hurricanes in the North Atlantic this year, of which four to six may become "major" storms.
Word of the day: camellia - something that isn't ice.
May 29, 86 10.14'N:72 46.49'W
Unzipping the vestibule this morning, we were greeted by a two-foot wall of snow that had covered the leeward side of the tent, sled-canoes, skis, snowshoes and anything else in the vicinity. The snowdrifts from yesterday's storm also disguised dangerous pockets of open water, thin ice, and slush.
Several times, we both had to catch ourselves with our poles to avoid going headlong into the water. We also managed to fall into many of the innumerable cracks we crossed today as they were completely concealed by the new snow.
A stiff southwest wind is pushing us to the east at a pretty good clip. We tried to counter the drift by traveling northwest today, but with limited success. While we slept last night the storm moved our camp nearly a full degree of longitude east. The wind and sun weathered our faces as we fought for 10 hours earning 9 hard-won nautical miles.
We did run into some good ice today, but we didn't use our normal gesture. When the lead skier gets on a huge flat pan, it's usually ski poles in the air 'raise the roof' style. We have developed other language using our ski poles as well. Waving them back and forth means 'Hey, I'm trying to tell you something.' They are also directionals, like 'This route is horrendous, go more to the left.'
Obviously, our Swix ski poles have other purposes. They help us keep balance, catch us on a slip, test the thickness of ice, push the sled-canoes and many others. Skiing or snowshoeing with these poles makes us as stable as a tripod. They rarely leave our hands during the day.
Word of the day: haute couture. Looking good is important out here.
