Tracking
the Journey
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Distance to go:
0 Mi
Distance
Ben and Tarka will cover 1800 miles starting from Scott's Terra Nova Hut at the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and back to the coast again. That's equivalent to 69 back-to-back marathons hauling up to 200kg each (the weight of roughly two adult men) of kit and supplies necessary to survive.
Distances here are shown in statute miles.
No Easy Miles (Day 66)
Day 66: S88° 58' 43.56", E157° 53' 21.72"
Duration: 10 Hr 30 Min
Daily distance: 21.6 Mi
Distance to go: 827.8 Mi
Temperature: -22 °C
Wind chill: -30 °C
Altitude: 9888 Ft
Tarka called today "Unequivocally the toughest day of the expedition" and it certainly ranked up there with the most challenging for me too. Perhaps naively, we thought that the mileage would come relatively easy on the flat(ish) plateau with our sleds at their very lightest, but Antarctica always seems to have a way of showing you who's boss and we've really struggled hard for every metre today.
We'd set ourselves a target of 36km per day until the next depot, but I called it a day just shy of 35km this evening after about ten hours on the move, and with Tarka getting worryingly cold as the temperature dropped. Thankfully I seem to be a human furnace and usually wear one layer less than Tarka when we're on the move, though of course the flip side is that when he's on form I have to bury myself to keep up with his lanky strides.
We'd thought we'd be able to retrace our tracks all the way to the top of the Beardmore, as Shackleton and Scott did, but we lost them yesterday in a lot of fresh snow and in a very flat light when the ky clouded over for an hour or so, so we set a bearing straight for our last depot -as of course unlike the men here a century ago, we have its coordinates saved as a GPS waypoint- only to rediscover our old tracks again this afternoon.
We seem to have passed through a weird Bermuda Triangle up here near the Pole; our satellite tracking beacon is on the blink and has turned itself off twice now, with a battery indicator that goes from full to flat in a few minutes, and our spare GPS (a little Garmin Gecko) conked out a few days ago and needed a hard reset that deleted all its waypoints. In addition, our main GPS was giving us some very wonky magnetic bearings to follow as we approached the Pole, but it seems to have sorted its act out now. It's quite alarming to realise how much faith we have in these tiny gadgets, and how utterly reliant we are on them to find our depots on the way home.
It's another late night now here (nearly 11pm as I type) so I'm going to sign off now. We're rushing to get off the plateau, but we pick up our Pilot at the depot so we'll have way more bandwidth for videos, decent photos and answering questions again. Thanks for following as we trudge north again, and sorry if I'm moaning a bit at the moment!
Comments
# Ar2R, December 30th 2013
Come on U guys! You’re tough! I simply can’t believe such a trip, feel some simply words of our warm support from Poland. Keep WARM :)
# George Chapman, December 31st 2013
Well I see the guys have updated their position and it looks like they traveled about 23 miles today. It’s good to see they can still do updates even if it’s only once a day. That’s some really good mileage assuming my figures are correct. We will have to wait and see what’s happening on the route when we get their next post in the morning. Take care guys and stay warm.
# Matt, December 31st 2013
Well, it’s going to be downhill from here down to Ross Ice Shelf. All those false horizons you saw while climbing up to the plateau will now be working in your favor. Of course, the Beardmore is going to slow you down some, but each day on the glacier will add a lot of oxygen to each breath you take.
Gravity, breathing and hydration are all coming to your aid; you’ll be thinking about getting back to the ‘world’, hot showers and warm toes, and your skis will fly you back.