I go back and forth. In one sense, I'm perfectly built for polar travel - I love Mountain House freeze dried food and Clif Bars. I equate crouching next to my sled at 40 below eating soup out of my Stanley food insulated food jar similar to service at a fine restaurant. I judge the quality of my life by how many nights I get to spend in a tent each year. I'm really good keeping warm when its really cold. Close calls with polar bears, while nerve wracking at the time, provide me with an endless supply of one liners.

'Oh look mom, what flavor are the blue ones with snowshoes?'

But then there is the other side. The overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. The scale of this place. All the obstacles between us and the pole. Thoughts of home. Maria sent an inReach message that Merritt is learning all sorts of new words. It's difficult to be missing out on his life.

Of course, we didn't have to wait at any stop lights today again.

We made 2.25 nautical miles north today. Our best effort to date. Still much slower than we would like to be going, buteven a slight improvement out here provides a little hope.

The weather cleared just enough to provide a little better visibility. We decided to split our loads today which actually made the weight a lot more manageable. We had brought a second sled to Resolute but opted not to bring them to the start as we didn't want to leave the sleds on the ice. Needless to say it was a bad call on our part considering how rough the ice has been. 317 pounds is too much to move in these conditions.

So we left half the gear on the ice and set off for the North Pole. Then, we turned around and came back for the second load. In making 2.25 miles north we actually traveled nearly seven miles (probably more if you account for all the weaving around).

The ice changed enough to give us at least another slice of hope. We managed to find one pan that was flat enough that we were able to take off our MSR snowshoes (first time) and put on our Asnes skis.

Of course, were there's good ice bad ice will follow and we spent much of the late afternoon veering around in a maze of drifts and jumbled ice.

Image: Ryan looking for a clear route.