Number-crunching
A friend emailed me when we were delayed in Reykjavik and we agreed to meet after Tony and I were back from Greenland. "And when you are," she said, "you can tell me exactly what it is that you're doing out there".
So, what exactly are we doing out here? Last year we came to Greenland to test new equipment – a new sledge design, a new tent and a new type of flexible solar panel that we hoped would reduce the amount of batteries (and perhaps even fuel) we'd need to haul in Antarctica. It was also, at four weeks, the longest period Tony and I had spent together under expedition conditions; a chance to see how well we gelled as a team.
This year, we're here to fine tune things. We're testing a few new pieces of kit, including two different combinations of ski and skin (the strips of fabric on the base of our skis that give us traction on the ice). But principally we're here to gather data; to compare our speed wearing rucksacks to our speed hauling sledges with the same load. In Antarctica later this year, our plan is to lay depots of food on our outward journey and then ski from depot to depot with rucksacks on our way back to the coast at Berkner Island. The information from this Greenland trip will help us make our crucial food/fuel/daily mileage calculations for our 120-day trek down South.
Speaking of which, the scenery is looking particularly Antarctic today. A 360-degree expanse of featureless white, stretching to meet a distant pastel-blue horizon. The weather's becoming more authentic as well; the sun seems impossibly high and the wind is wrestling with our tent, spindrift fizzing against the taut fabric, inches from my ear. All we need now is for the temperature to follow suit and freeze the powder we've been dragging our sledges through. We'll see what tomorrow brings…
— Filed under Greenland