….awoke at 1000 after a good sleep to find the inside of our little cocoon completely covered in frost and everything rather damp. Immediately jumped out my bag, stowed it away and begun cooking our morning scran with Andy Brown
Breakfast done (along with the customary human call of nature completed in minus 30deg c outside the tent!), we set off at around 1300. The day consisted of five 60min legs with leading being far the most ‘enjoyable’ part of the days proceedings as one truly experienced the awesome wilderness and scale of Antarctica. It is definitely the case that one does seem to get a phenomenon (well known in military circles) as ‘leaders legs’. This entails setting oneself a considerably faster pace than that of your following colleagues. It can be somewhat annoying if one is following and so is something we will have to keep tabs on. The leading man must ensure he continues to periodically check his rear ensuring a large gap does not develop, particularly in poor visibility.

The scenery today was truly spectacular with several small mountain ranges prominent to our east and west together with several ‘Nunataks’ present in the distance; this particular set known as ‘Three Sails’. (Nunataks are essentially mountain tops protruding through the immense ice sheet, and whilst often there may only be several hundred visible feet, there could in fact in some instances, be thousands of feet of mountain buried below the ice sheet.
A pleasant meal was had tonight (expertly prepared by Andy Brown and I) consisting of Cod & Potato together with prawns along with the obligatory lump of melted butter. Everyone is finding it a little difficult at present to digest the large new quantities of fat that have been introduced to our new Antarctic ration plan!

This really is a white desert; ahead there is not one single living thing for over 650 miles until we reach the South Pole.

At its centre, the South Pole actually sits high on a plateau some 9300ft above sea level on top of a landmass underneath and ice sheet, which many find amazing as the North Pole is literally often only a few feet of drifting ice pack on top of the Arctic Ocean. The unique weather systems which spiral out Antarctica and the South Pole mean that we are essentially travelling uphill and into a constant awesome wind from sea level at the edge of the landmass, all the way to the South Pole which due to the equivalent pressure – feels more like 10500ft above sea level. This altitude makes our expedition all the more challenging and often debilitating as bodies weaken and weight is burned off as we shall see in the coming reports.

Diary Extract – Tuesday 14th November 2006 ‘finally flat!’

….slept in by nearly half an hour but following a speedy and efficient tent routine, we recovered well and in 4 hours travelling time we managed to haul 6.5 nautical miles, a considerable portion of which was up extremely steep and uneven terrain.

After the uphill stretch we finally made relatively flat ground, albeit littered as far as the eye could see, with windblown sastrugi (Sastrugi is windblown ice caused by the powerful Antarctic unabating fierce Katabatic winds which race unchecked across hundreds of miles of barren continent. They can range from inches high to waves metres in height.)

Our previous 3 days effort we feel at this early stage, may yet prove some of the most difficult terrain we may encounter over the entire journey. The route now should be a very gradual climb until the steepening section approximately 90 miles before the South Pole – or at least we certainly hope so!!

After careful examinations of our personal medical state we discovered that I had the early onset of some frostbite in the form of 4 fingers being very slightly damaged. I am rather worried now and must be extra vigilant particularly at breaks during the day where outer gloves are removed for short essential tasks. Sean Chapple & I on cooking duty tonight and all was completed efficiently and in good time. Communications / Navigation fell to Andy Brown and Paul Mattin tonight which was also swept up in good time.

Finished writing this at 2140hrs….

The chart we navigated by was 1:25000000 with few reference points thereby making navigation quite different compared to other conventional maps etc. Our portable GPS (global positioning system) provides exact locations and allows us to plot way points to march on. On a day to day basis we use a Suunto compass to follow our bearing together with our shadows which have proven very effective so far. I really must work out a solution to the niggling problems with our little cookers….

Diary Extract: Thursday 16th November 2006 ‘ Day Dreamer’

…following some more cooker problems this morning, I led off on the first leg of the day and all went smoothly. Goggles were crystal clear which made navigating relatively easy. This first leg set the tone for my day and it really flew by and was most enjoyable – my strongest day yet.

I quickly slipped into a state of near hypnosis and spent most of the day day-dreaming, mostly about Vail / Colorado in the USA – the place where I worked 3 winters and 2 summers and have so many fond memories of.

Minus 17deg Celsius was the lowest temperature of the day and with two balaclavas along with my wolverine fur-lined hood, It didn’t feel this cold. In my little cocoon of clothing, hood and goggles I actually felt untouchable today by the harsh environment in which we travelled.

We managed a total of approximately 8 nautical miles in 7 hrs time which may not sound like much, however given the conditions, terrain and early stage of the expedition….things do look favourable. All in all morale is excellent, we are enjoying each others company and the usual banter that is ever present. It is however a seriously physical drain and we are all more than ready for our sleeping bags come the end of the day.

The highly effective layering principle whereby one opts for thinner but several layers was adopted and proved highly efficient. Following careful selection and subsequent training mini expeditions to Norway, we primarily adopted a thin first thermal layer from Sub Zero, on top of which was our faithful Paramo Mountain shirt which was fleece micro-lined. This garment proved invaluable as even in the fiercely cold Antarctic temperatures, the zip vents allowed sweat to escape. Sweat, one may be surprised to find, can be very problematic due to the extreme effort of dragging the heavy sledges / pulks. It is when one stops for a short rest break that the problems can arise due to any moisture within the clothing instantly freezing thus possibly leading to hypothermia down the line. This was combated at such stops with the use of our Rab Down Jackets which simply went on top of everything else and proved excellent. They were then taken off literally at the last second before setting off again and stowed at the very top of the sledge inside for maximum accessibility.

Our little solar panels proved tremendous in powering our satellite phones, Ipods and Video equipment. We carried one each with Paul Mattin (the video man!), having the largest one capable of powering the video equipment. Hopefully without the ensuing lawsuit from Apple, I can categorically say at this point, their devices in extreme cold were pretty dismal and died shortly into the expedition. I didn’t possess an Ipod and instead carried my previously trusty Sony HD5 MP3 player which had always been bombproof. However for some reason the cables leading from the solar panel to my specific device did not work after a while, whilst the Ipods still functioned adequately albeit not for the entire day’s skiing. The Ipods then completed died a couple of weeks in and at the same time I butchered some spare cables we had brought and managed to cobble together, a new charging system. My little Mp3 player then lasted all day every day until the end of the trip and we took it turns to have this little bit of morale throughout each day!!

Back to the important kit and in summary we had several pairs of gloves, again usually layered but dependent on individual preference. Thermal long johns and a simple Gore-Tex shell top and bottom which we manually fleece lined in the knee and groin regions to prevent wind damage and to aid when kneeling which was constant when erecting tent / fixing kit throughout the day etc.

Diary Extract: Monday 20th November 2006 (‘into double figures!’)

…..a good start to the day and the weather is again continuing to be kind at these early stages. One wonders if we will pay the price later as this weather cannot surely keep up. The ever present Southerly biting wind continues however making the temperature around the -20 mark.

It was my turn to lead off from our dismantled little campsite with a very respectable 2.4 nautical miles gained over one and a half hours; a new record leg! Today we agreed that we’d try a slightly different schedule of manoeuvre – previously we had worked up to six legs of one hour and twenty minutes but today we increased slightly up 90mins over 5 legs. The result in practice was good although I do hope 90mins is the optimum as one does begin to feel utterly drained towards the end of the leg.

We completed an excellent 11.5 nautical miles thus breaking through the ‘ten’ mental barrier and into double figures for the first time in our journey.. I ended the day’s skiing with the final leg and it was a good feeling to have navigated and contributed 2 legs of the 5 to set our highest mileage yet!
Morale remains high both during the day, and night whilst completing our various routines – long may it continue…….

More updates as he posts them!

A nautical mile differs from a normal ‘statute’ mile that most are familiar with in that it is slightly longer to enable us to account for the curvature of the planet. A nautical mile is 1.15 statute miles and is based on the circumference of our planet.

If we look at the equator as a circle we then divide it into 360 degrees, then divide each degree into 60 again (minutes). We can then divide it further into ‘seconds’ thus we were working in degrees / minutes / seconds as is the case with all polar / sea travel (latitude & longitude). This unit of measure is used for air and sea travel the world over. A ‘knot’ as I’m sure many will have heard of, is a speed of 1 nautical mile per hour.

Hopefully not too complicated! And some may ask if Antarctica is indeed an ice covered landmass, then why do we not use conventional maps such as those we find in the UK?? Antarctica’s surface has never been mapped in the same way as here in the UK by for example Ordnance Survey and its scale and proximity to the bottom of the world is such that charts such as those used on oceans are utilised.

Diary Extract: Tuesday 21st November 2006:

** attached as a photo from my actual diary **