DAY 33 - MEDICAL UPDATE

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by John Huston

This is a long expedition and in many ways it's an expedition of self care. The better we take care of our bodies and minds the greater our chance for success. So we structure our expedition around that idea and gain a bunch of weight beforehand so that we wouldn't be burning muscle when the cold hit us in the beginning.  And we also have very strict routines which we adhere to, to propel the expedition northward efficiently and safely, but also to take care of our bodies and make sure we're getting enough sleep. So far, things are going very, very well. We have had very little complication physically 

Tyler started the expedition with a cough and cold, and a kind of a nasty illness that he picked up in Iqaluit. And after three weeks or so it dissipated quite a bit and now it's finally gone. He has taken no medications; he's stretching a bit more to help knots that are forming in his legs, and that seems to be working well. He's got a little slight bit of frosting on his left cheek and the left side of his nose and that's clearing up. His fingers have been numb a bit and they are still a bit dull, but they are working fine and there is no damage. And he has no chronic aches or pains. He has a little bit of chilblains on his thighs and those are healing up. Chilblains are the very surface level of frostbite or frost nip and they kind of feel like a bruise and then they itch and then they clear up.

I am doing well. I have very little to complain about. I have taken four Excedrin and that's due to some headaches at two different times, no problem. I had some minor inner thigh chafing and that has been cleared up, but it can potentially be a serious issue if legs are chafing quite a lot. And I have pretty good chilblains on my outer thighs, but they don't itch and I'm taking care of those, just no problem.

We are hungrier than we have been in the past, but we're happy with our food. We eat the same food everyday, but we love it. Everyday, no joke, we look forward to every meal. And we love the taste of the food and we're happy with the amount of the food, we feel we have enough calories.

We've lost most of the weight that we're going to lose on the expedition.  We started 20, 25 pounds heavier than our normal body weight that we would have if we were ski racing and we have lost most of that fat, if not all of it. We'll probably lose a few more pounds from this point forward, but we're definitely skinnier people than when we started the expedition 33 days ago.

That is the medical update. Really we are super pleased. We have no blisters on our feet. We have a few split skin issues on the tips of our fingers, but that's normal. And we have no pulled muscles or anything that's really wearing on us. Cross your fingers that that stays the same and so will we and we will check in tomorrow. Happy 86th everybody.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: April 3rd, 2009
Location: N86° 00.274' W074 46.742'
Time Traveled: 10 hours 30 minutes
Distance Traveled: 10.4 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -22°F (5:30), -10°F (8:30)
PM Temperature: -20°F
sunny and warm, GREAT weather, no wind/SWpuffs

DAY 32 - WILDLIFE (PART 2)

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An Arctic ice cave.

by Tyler Fish

I looked over to see the beast on top of John and then it looked at me. But something wasn't quiet right, I could tell. It's teeth were huge, and it's eyes were bulging but it's mouth couldn't really move which actually is pretty lucky. Thank goodness.

Before either John or I could say anything, it exclaimed in perfect English, "Thank you finding me. I was suppose to be brought to the island of misfit toys but I fell out of the sleigh. I've been living in this blue ice cave ever since.

And it seems to take me more than a few seconds for me to realize that I was talking to a small, excited hand puppet. It said, "I was a misfit because my huge teeth and my mouth won't close. So I'm neither scary nor funny, so no one would want me. That's why I'm a misfit.

Both John and I were near speechless.

Unless you know someone that I could leave this cave." I thought about it for a little bit and then I told the excited puppet, which had scared both John and me, "Well it just so happens that I know of a six month old boy who would likely love you. I can bring you to Norway to meet him. But you'll have to go to the North Pole first and ride in the pulk.

Well, the puppet was pretty excited and decided that that was a fine thing to do. And we learned that it's name is simply "Monster". So, we now have a small puppet, no longer a misfit toy on our expedition.

We should mention that we did see some fox tracks today. So that was exciting, we saw some tracks way out here. I am not sure where that fox is going. Take care.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: April 2, 2009
Location: N85° 49.895' W074 42.583'
Time Traveled: 10 hours
Distance Traveled: 9.4 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -30°F
PM Temperature: -24°F
clear and sunny, SW breeze 3-4 knots

DAY 31 - WILDLIFE (PART 1)

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An Arctic ice cave.

by Tyler Fish

The day began as John and I experimented with the newly frozen lead near where we had camped. We had camped the night before on our side of a lead that was very open in hope that it would freeze overnight and indeed the temperatures at least as cold as -30°F probably colder. It did freeze. We had at least 3 cm of spongy ice. Sea ice is a much "strechier", more flexible than fresh water ice. Anyway, as we skied across it, it sank slightly as we shuffled our way.

When we got across, we were able to ski north again, which was quite a relief for us. During one of our breaks, we were discussing the wildlife that we had seen the day before, the seals. And we are very thankful that we were given the opportunity to see seals but also thankful that we did not see Polar bears and the one attracts the other.
 
Well then off to the east we saw a cave. This Arctic Ocean version of a cave is an ice cave, made by slabs of old ice, multiple feet thick, thick piled together. And where they were piled together and there was a hole. It was a very blue hole made by the light shining through the ice. And we saw some tracks by it that and we really couldn't identify and we thought, "What is this?" "Do we want to find out what this is?" We weren't sure if it was a good idea but we were curious. So I got down on my knees to peer inside this cave and John peered down and looked right behind me. Well, what was in this cave surprised us so much. It was probably as surprised as we were by it. It left out of the cave so fast that I ducked, barely, and John fell over.
 
That's the end of the blog for now. Thank you. Goodnight.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: April 1, 2009
Location: N85° 40.464' W074 43.564'
Time Traveled: 10 hours
Distance Traveled: 8.8 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -36°F
PM Temperature: -26°F
very clear/sunny, light SW wind 4knots
260 nautical miles to North Pole

DAY 30 - A HARD DAY

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by John Huston

Today the Arctic Ocean kicked our butts a little bit. We expect that to happen from time to time but it doesn't always feel good. For me, sometimes I have trouble keeping my hands warm. And also I just have trouble generating enough heat to feel warm while traveling, especially while we're stopping and starting all the time.

When we're traveling continuously on a nice flat terrain and I could ski for a few hours I can wear just a few layers of long underwear and my Bergans outerwear and stay warm, no problem at all. But when we're dealing with rubble or open water leads, as we were today, and we're stopping and starting and talking, that can get quite cold. So, I had a quite frigid morning and I put on my Bergans fleece and I was fine but it was very frustrating to have to work so hard to warm up my hands quite often today. And that's what being cold is all about really. It's a little pain, or a lot of pain, sometimes and a lot of hard work to warm back up and a lot of persistence. We don't get frostbite, we just work hard to stay warm but it can be frustrating sometimes.
 
So we traveled over some rubble, a few open fields, and then we came to a mist and, lo and behold, our first area of open water - open water lead running from the southeast to the northwest. It was about 60 meters across in spots to a little narrower in other places, so we traveled along it going northwest also to counteract the eastern drift that's been happening quite heavily now. And Tyler poked through. Both feet went in the water. He went over a little space of sketchy ice that he knew he shouldn't have but wanted to test. He hopped right back out of the water, no problem at all. He didn't even get his socks or his boots wet, just the outer part of his boot gaiters. But it was a good wake up call that we're now having a change in the expedition in that we are dealing with open water more.
 
So traveling along that lead took some time and crossing it took some time. And we also saw three seals pop their head up out of that lead, right through the ice. That showed how thin the ice was in the middle of the lead. It was too wide to swim across and too wide to find a place to cross. So we eventually found a place with some rubble and got over there no problem. And we are camped now by another lead that we hope will freeze overnight and it looks like it should do that but it also depends on the wind and how much the ice floes around us are moving, which they are quite a bit. We're moving east at 0.2 nautical miles per hour right now.
 
Okay, well thanks for listening. We're tired. We're ready for bed and we're ready for another day tomorrow. So good night and thanks for listening.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: March 31, 2009
Location: N85° 31.933'  W074 46.189'
Time Traveled: 10 hours
Distance Traveled: 5.0 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -32°F
PM Temperature: -30°F
clear skies, gusting, puffing S/SW winds, 8-10 knots

DAY 29 - THE WHOLE TRIP IN ONE DAY

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Some ridges require a helping hand.

by Tyler Fish

One of the attractions of the journey to the North Pole, at least for me, was the diversity of landscape that we would encounter from the beginning to the end of the trip, from mountains of rubble to huge ice boulders of the bluest ice to the flattest of the flat. But then there are those days when you experience all of that in one day and that was yesterday (3/30). It took us by surprise a little bit. We felt like we'd traveled backwards in time and then forwards in time very quickly.

We woke up on a slab of ice. That was about 6 feet thick of floating, frozen above the rest of the ice and we are camped there because we are in a heavy rubble field and it was the only place to camp. It's like our own little island.

Yesterday (3/30) was a heavy day. We traveled across what I would call the surface of a lasagna. It was very uneven with piles of hamburger here and there, and wavy cheese, some deep cut now and again, definitely a lot of Parmesan cheese strewn all over the place. But still even though it was a heavy, heavy day for us, we made a surprising 7.4 nautical miles. We did not think we had done that, so we are very pleased.

The only thing that we haven't seen so far that we're looking for is open water. We have not seen any open water. However, we did yesterday for the first time hear the ice moving. So, who knows what's going to happen soon. We ended the day yesterday camped on our favorite hard packed snow which is great for tent set up, so we're happy with that.

It was a tough day mentally. And we need to remind ourselves that we will see rubble and days like that go all the way to the North Pole. It was made slightly easier because it was the day after family day. What is family day? Family day is part of our weekly routine. Every Sunday, John and I call our family. Well for me it's my wife and for John, it's his girlfriend. So it's only one call apiece. But these people, both these people, have connections to the rest of our family and friends and the outside world. And that's something to look forward to. So on Saturday we start looking forward to Sunday if not before and a good family day phone call can take us all the way to Wednesday. So we appreciate those conversations. It's part of our positive routines that are going to get us to the North Pole. Thanks so much. Take care. Have a good last day of March.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: March 30, 2009
Location: N85° 27.344' W074 34.404'
Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes
Distance Traveled: 7.4 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -32°F
PM Temperature: -28°F
very clear and sunny, no wind in AM, slight S/SE breeze in PM
297 nautical miles to the North Pole

DAY 28 - EDUCATION

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John says "hello" to friends, family and everyone following the expedition.

by John Huston

Tyler and I are lifelong educators. We have worked at Outward Bound for many years and Tyler still does work there. We are passionate about educating and teaching people to push their limits and to follow their dreams and to explore this wonderful world of ours. 

The Victorinox North Pole '09 Expedition has partnered with two organizations to bring our expedition into classrooms around the country. We partner with Reach the World - Chicago to get our expedition into several public schools which I had visited a few elementary schools before leaving for the expedition. So a warm "hello" to those schools that I had visited.

We are also partnering with the Will Steger Foundation out of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Tyler visited several schools in the Minneapolis area. We also have friends who are teachers and just meet people who are teachers and have been in schools throughout the fall talking to students about our expedition, about following their dreams and about climate change.

So a warm "hello" from a cold tent to all the students from the different schools that we have visited. And just a reminder to dream big, be positive about yourself and about the people around you and to go out there, explore the world and learn about the environment. The environment is changing drastically these days especially on the Arctic Ocean.

And the Arctic Ocean for us changes every day. Today we started with perfectly smooth ice for the first two hours and we were thrilled about our progress and then things got slower and slower and slower and eventually we ended up in rubble like we had not seen for two weeks. Basically car size blocks of rubble everywhere in our path where we are camped right here. So it can be frustrating sometimes to run into little roadblocks but what we do is keep going forward with optimism and positive thoughts and we know that things will turn out in the end.

Well thanks for listening, everybody. We are happy with our travel day and hopefully we will get past this rubble tomorrow.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: March 28, 2009
Location: N85° 19.943' W074 39.113'
Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes
Distance Traveled: 8.0 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -38°F
PM Temperature: -28°F
slightest W/NW breeze, calm and sunny
280 nautical miles to the North Pole

WEEK IN REVIEW 3/23-3/28

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Moving through rubble ridges.

by Tyler Fish

Last week, John and I noticed, or made a few observations, about our progress. One is that the terrain flattened. We found ourselves traveling primarily on wind packed pans of ice, flat plains separated by lower and higher ridges. The lower ridges of rubble we could ski over and the higher ones sometime we have to take our skis off and climb over or down from.

We are also able to ski faster. We notice that our pulks are getting lighter as we eat and as we use our fuel. And we also changed from full skins on our skis to partials skins on our skis, which increased our speed dramatically. And our distances become more and more consistent. It's a better distance. It's longer and we notice that it's easier to ski all day and more enjoyable. So even though we're putting long hours and skiing further, we're actually, in some ways, less tired. Those are our observations.
 
The question that we've had this week and we've been unable to answer is, "How is the ice?" We know that in 2007 it was the lowest extent of summer sea ice ever, so the least area ever recorded. We know that in the 2008 it was not the least area but it was the thinnest that they ever recorded. So if we sit here on the ice of 2009, what is it? We really don't know. It's very hard to tell for us. But we're definitely curious.
 
And then the realizations about us and our expedition. Right now our expedition is sustainable. We feel really good about the work that we've put in. We eat well, we sleep well and we appreciate what we're doing. We're also calm. We feel like we have been doing the right things; either based on the advice of others - and we have got a lot of great advise and feel like according to most people's words we're doing well, or based on our own judgment, we feel like we are on our way to the North Pole. And things are dependable. We now know how to depend on our gear and we know when to use it, how to use it, and our routines are good. And we're a dependable team. We trust each other and we are going to make it.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: March 28, 2009
Location: N85° 12.012' W074 30.144'
Time Traveled: 9 hours 30 minutes
Distance Traveled: 8.9 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -39°F
PM Temperature: -28°F
clear and sunny all day
288 nautical miles to the North Pole