LAKE WINNIPEG EXPEDITION DAY 7
Day: 7
Camp: 7
Location: N 52 38’ 27.6” W 97 55’ 00.0”
Distance: 14.5km
WX: – 25 deg daytime, SW to SE winds 35km Dusty ice pellets
Visibility: Less then 150ft
Travel Time: 6hrs 45mins
Freezing cold this morning, I was the first up again I took Marc’s cooking shift for him as he wanted to be last out of the tent so that he could polysporne and duck tape his inner upper legs as they have become badly chaffed, hope for his sake it doesn’t get worse. Windy and almost foggy looking today, visibility once we were all packed up was down to about 100 feet and blowing hard in our faces. We weren’t sure how far we would even make it today, but we wanted to keep pushing as hard as possible. Navigation was the ultimate test today with next to nothing to see. Our eyes burned as we squinted into the horizon with small ice pellets peppering our eyeballs, we tried desperately to get a fix on something/anything in the distance within our bearing to walk towards. Wondered how shitty it would be if we got disoriented with out knowing it and started trekking in vain in the wrong direction gaining no distance even with all our efforts.
We all took turns in the lead/navigation position until our eyes couldn’t take it any more. Some times we had to pull out our compass every 50 feet to re take a bearing, sometimes all you had to go off of was the different shades of the ice surface. One challenge today was making sure that we were eating and most importantly drinking enough so as not to dehydrate, loose energy, freeze or be more prone to frost bite, not easy to do in nasty elements when all you want to do is keep moving. Neal didn’t consume enough food or water today and it caught up to him, he was still super strong in our opinion but he said he could feel the effects. Regulation of our body heat was not to difficult today believe it or not but keeping your face covered up was hard, especially when your face mask or balaclava has turned into a sheet of ice from the moisture of your breath freezing. Neal was starting to get a white nose but we were able to take care of it quite quickly as we were all keeping a regular eye on each other.
Near the end of the day my sled saw its final legs as the whole left side tore open on a piece of ice. I now have no choice but to burry her at sea and split my load tomorrow between the other two sleds. We need to be selective in the division of the weight as Neals sled isn’t doing the best either. We shut down a bit early today because of the sled, Neal feeling the effects of mild dehydration and our eyes took a beating. We all had goggles and other eye protection but in covering your face up we could not keep our goggles or glasses from completely freezing and fogging over. We set up camp in the middle of no where more then 60km from the nearest shore in any direction and about 200km from any roads. We used ice screws to secure the tent and fly down and we started to set up our stove and now cook in the vestibule at the front of the tent. This new system worked out great and this evening ended up being quite warm in the tent. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening drying gear, eating, mapping and boiling water. Frisky is sleeping in front of the vestibule on his bed with a full stomach of Mr Noodles with extra water. Big day planned for tomorrow and we will be getting up at 6am.
