Day: 6
Camp: 6
Location: N 52 44’ 41.1” W 98 03’ 03.4”
Distance: 20.6km
WX: – 32 deg daytime, winds N to North West morning and afternoon 20km, veering to the south in the pm
Travel Time: 7hrs
Great day and as usual another cold morning, I was up at 7am and started going through the motions. I lay there just before getting up running through my mind how quickly I will get through the morning process. I peel out of my sleeping bag and all of its layers and pull on my Gore-Tex pants and two jackets being super careful not to knock down all the frost that has accumulated inside the tent over night. Then zip out of the tent into the reality of the day, dragging along with me my sleeping bag, VBL and sleeping pads all packaged into one unit inside my bivy sack. Then I prime and light the stove as quickly as possible, pour today’s three packages of maple brown sugar oatmeal and three tablespoons of butter into my mug. I then bring the liter and a half group water that was melted the night before to a boil, feed Frisky his morning hot bowl of Mr Noodles with extra snow, scarf down my breakfast without taking a breath. Then once the guys get up we will take apart our packaged sleeping systems and shake out as much of the accumulated frost as possible. Then we take down the tent, shake that out along with the fly and stuff it into its two bags which is always fun. We pack our sleds and then start our non stop 6 to 9 hour slog hoping to put in 15 to 25km!
So far we have traveled over 40km on a bearing of 135 deg and have been traveling in a bang on straight line the whole time, great practice. Easy enough terrain today, nothing to crazy as far as ice fields go, just a combination of hard packed snow, soft powder, glare ice back to hard packed snow. The sled is getting worse as the days go by, there is no chance that it will make the whole trip, I suspect I will have to ditch it in the next two days or so and then split the load. Hope Neals sled holds up ok as he has a few slices in his already but not nearly as bad.
Had to see a man about a horse today and took what shelter I could behind a descent sized block of ice, but still ended up frost nipping about six of my fingers, -35 deg temperatures plus a the wind-chill at 20km an hour doesn’t give you much of a chance!
Thought I lost one of my good head lamps today along with a stuff sack for my down parka but found both in one of my many pockets! This brightened up my day minus the fact that it felt as if I was dragging a rolled up carpet behind me. Got to work quit a bit harder to keep a good pace, oh well good training and exercise!
Another beautiful sunset, lots of layered pastel colors of blues, greens and pinks. Marc was navigating the last hour of the day, must have been tough as we were traveling on almost glare ice so not much to go by for reference points. Very crisp clear night, other then an obvious front moving in from the west, going to be a really cold tonight I think. Put Frisky in the back vestibule tonight, should be a lot warmer especially with what ever system is on its way in.
