This is the Week in Review. I'd say this week has been about some old and some new. Having survived the bitter cold of the first week, the negative 50's and negative 60° temperatures, we have now moved on to the consistent cold of -30° to -40°. And we've also added now a breeze, which varies in direction, but necessitates the face mask so we've been wearing masks most days this week.

Having left behind the large consistent and amazingly random rubble of the first week of the trip, now it's the every day undulating wind blown landscape separated by veins of rubble where large pads of ice have collided together and thrown up huge obstacles in our path in the way of ridges and sometimes huge boulders.

So now it's, at least every once in a while frustrating, everyday is the same. And now we travel more like nomads across the desert, not surprised and amazed by our location as we were in the first week, but now more of, "how do we get through everyday?" And we decided we do what we can and we do it as well as possible.

So, we're starting to rely to our routines, feeling very good about what we do everyday and being efficient and good to each other and good to our equipment and we travel by the clock. We use our watches, which haven't missed a beat. We trust ourselves, our choices and our gear. We also know that we're in about in the same position as other expeditions that have gone before us. Some have been a little faster, some have been a little slower, but considering how the Arctic Ocean can vary so much from year to year, we feel very confident at this point.

So, here we are at the end of the week. One of the things that we realized is that we can't see the mountains of Northern Canada anymore, which have been consistently behind us. And Ward Hunt, which stood for awhile as a constant reminder, is gone. I was sort of, in my mind, referring to it as the lonely mountain, especially when the sun was behind it. But no more can we see that. So instead we focus more on looking forward. And we look forward with optimism and we're hoping to reach the 84° mark early in the week. That's it for now. Take care.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: March 14, 2009
Location: N83° 42.946' W074° 16.704'
Time Traveled: 8 hours 30 minutes
Distance Traveled: 3.7 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -42°F
PM Temperature: -34°F

WEEK IN REVIEW 3/9-3/15