Wake up. Brush the frost of the tent walls. Bring our Nemo sleeping bags outside to freeze dry (we're continually amazed that they are so warm even though actual ice chunks are in them). Light the MSR XGK's. Melt snow. Make hot soup in our Stanleys. Eat-drink-get dressed-pack up-boot boots on. Sweep snow/frost out of tent. Pack tent. Pack sleds. Put on Asnes skis or MSR snowshoes.

Then... Another day on the ice.

The task of getting to the North Pole is so daunting that we focus solely on each 'step'. We live in a series of short moments.

We are still struggling with a variety of bad ice and pressure. While we have crossed a few larger leads most of what we've been dealing with are large swaths of broken ice all uniform thickness and few large pans so we spend a large part of the day just trying to find 'routes' through the drift and pressured ice. There are very few distinct pressure ridges which is very different from what I've experienced previously.

We almost catamaraned the sleds to raft across a small lead but we found a place to jump across then float our sleds. Trying to ease the sled down into the water (from the opposite side by rope) is no easy task and lifting them three feet up while keeping everything dry isn't much fun either. My sled managed to lodge itself under the lip of snow and I had to hang over the snow/ice edge and push it back (while it was floating).

Then another lead. We veer west and find a jagged ice peninsula but it only spans three-quarters of the distance. Luckily, there is a semi-frozen ice chunk turned on its side that only sinks a little bit as we stepping stone across.

Before crossing that lead, I had clipped my tug line to my ski binding and threw it across (so the rope wouldn't be on the other side to pull the sleds). It flew in a perfect arc and stuck into the to opposite snow bank.

Its the simple pleasures.

I've been listening to some music on my Nokia Lumia 1020 the past few days and for some reason I've only felt like listening to one playlist of more mellow music. The advantage being I've actually figured out some of lyrics to songs that you never really know the lyrics to - that is until now.

Distance traveled: 9.83 nautical miles

Image: Ryan skiing along an open crack as we're trying to find a place to cross.