While I knew we would encounter soft snow during our Greenland traverse, I don't think I fully understood the extent... or perhaps a depth is a better word - although both apply to our situation.

To make matters worse, the summer weather (and by summer I mean temperatures just below freezing versus the single digits of our entire journey) has made the snow a soft sticky mashed potato consistency. Our relatively light sleds became pallets of bricks. Our progress went from nearly 20 miles a day (30 kilometers) to less than 10. Sunny days were brutally uncomfortable.

My personal opinion about all these hardships is fairly matter-of-fact. We take each as it comes and adjust accordingly. I have a 'rule of three' that I try to follow. It takes three examples or instances of a situation or condition before I make a change. I usually don't make big swings in my strategies.

Before we left, Diogo and I looked at a sunrise/sunset chart noting that by late May the sun would set for only a coupe of hours every night. While it's not enough time below the horizon to make it dark, temperatures do cool significantly as a result. And even more importantly, the snow becomes firmer.

With this in mind, two days (or is it nights) ago, we switched to night travel opting to sleep away the 'heat' of the day. On our first night ski, we immediately noticed the difference. No longer were we slogging through wet mush. Our pace, and as a result, our daily mileage, increased immediately. Unfortunately, we caught the tail end of a very warm morning, but overall, the new plan worked.

Yesterday morning... or was it last night... we woke up at 11 pm and were on the trail by 1 am. We would have started earlier but we wanted to wait for it to stop raining... yes, that's right, rain.

'We have now officially had all the kinds of weather,' Diogo cheerfully announced as we started skiing.

It was another all day (but really night) whiteout. Weather varied from snow to sleet to rain to wet fog. By the end of the day when we set up tents, the rain came down heavily enough that we had to race to get inside just after tipping our sleds upside down so as our gear wouldn't get soaked inside.

Tomorrow, is another monumental day. We have reached the end of our allotted time in Greenland. If the weather holds, a helicopter will meet us at a prearranged point and we will be effortlessly whisked away.

However, we still have a lot of miles to cover but it's late in the day and we have to... go to sleep.