Big White
We've had a few scorchingly sunny days recently, and in an effort to train in conditions more like Antarctica than Antigua, we set the alarm for 0300 this morning. We were rewarded with near-perfect conditions: -15 degrees or so, a howling, biting wind, ice all over the inside of the tent and a gorgeous sunrise.
As a result of our work on processes yesterday, we cooked breakfast, melted seven litres of water and packed our kit up in double-quick time and were in our harnesses, leaning into the wind an hour and forty-one minutes after our alarms went off. Many two-man polar expeditions take two to three hours to get ready in the morning and we felt a mixture of pride and indigestion as we skied for the first session.
The wind and cold refused to let up for the entire morning, and we faced one final climb before the end of our journey. It wasn't as steep as Tuesday's back-breaker, but the surface was particularly challenging. The snow was iron-hard in places and had been blown into huge serrated ridges and ruts, much like the sastrugi common to Antarctica. It was tough going and I heard Tony call his sledge a few unusual names as he laboured up the slope. I found navigating through this terrain oddly similar to negotiating the fractured sea-ice surface of the Arctic Ocean and was soon absorbed in 'joining up' patches of smoother ice and snow.
Reaching the peak,it swiftly became apparent that we had reached the outer limits of the Kangerlussuaq Mountains. In front of us was the largest, barest expanse of white I've ever seen. The Greenland icecap. Both Tony and I were stunned into silence; it was as if we were seeing Antarctica for the first time. The view from our tent as I write is stunning in its contrast; in one direction a jagged jumble of snow-capped peaks, in the other, a frozen desert of absolute immensity stretching to the far horizon .
Armed with force-meters, stopwatches and heart rate monitors, we're planning to carry out some back-to-back testing of our top-secret, prototype sledges (resplendent in Brooklands purple!) tomorrow – I'll let you know how we get on.
Right now, it's time for an early night…
— Filed under Greenland