Day: 8
Camp: 8
Location: N 52 32’ 07.6” W 97 45’ 19.7”
Distance: 16.3km
WX: – 30 deg daytime, NW winds 50km in early am 25km later in the day.
Visibility: N/A
Travel Time: 5hrs 30mins
The plan was to get up and start vestibule cooking at 6am, the wind completely died down, Marc and I were both excited to get a big day in, but like some one pressed a magical button all of a sudden the wind started gusting like a bastard from the NW and wouldn’t stop. We decided to try and sleep it out and by 9am the wind had let up a bit I guess but was still blowing hard and cold. At least the wind was blowing in the direction of our favor and now the sun was out! We have figured out our new vestibule cooking system and I think it will work quite nicely for the rest of the trip now that we know how to operate more efficiently.
Had to sadly put my sled down today, after stripping her of her carabineers, cord and poles, Marc gave her a proper burial under some heavy blocks of wind packed snow, I just couldn’t watch, to bad I couldn’t get one last photo, so many good times together! Hope Neal’s sled holds up for the team as it has a few good slices in it now as well, and like mine it is unfortunately only a matter of time. When you got al the drive in the world but you equipment fails it’s very frustrating, but you just got to keep on keeping on and this is where innovation and imagination kicks into play for keeping things rolling, its all part of the game. So we split the load between the remaining two sleds and it worked out well.
We literally froze our asses off this morning (late morning) as we were taking down the tent it was hard to keep our butts out of the prevailing winds. I guess our choice of long underwear were insufficient for the direct winds. I honestly thought I got frost nip on my but cheeks and it took a few hours for them to warm up, never had that before, they are ok no permanent cheek damage.
We have been using ice climbing screws to secure down the tent and the fly as the winds gust and continuously blow so often. Lots of places we make camp the snow is not deep enough to use ordinary tent pegs. If there is a good wind blowing as we are setting up camp we orient the front of the tent away from the prevailing winds, attach two ice screws to the back corners of tent body. This allows us to work hands free to get the poles set up and attached as the wind blows the tent flat in the direction that our heads will be facing. Once the poles are in, we repeat the process with the tent fly. At the back of the tent we use one single screw to secure the back of the fly to the ice, then with the help of the wind we pull the fly over the tent to the front, pull everything tight and stake out the front vestibule with two more screws. Very secure system that we can rely on 100% in any wind conditions. Also nice to have the freedom of no hands sometimes when trying to get all the components of the tent together and guy lined out. We just reverse the process for the tent take down; the only difference is that we need to shake all the frost and snow out of the tent and off the fly. When we do this we always have two people with hands on the tent or fly as soon as they are not attached to any ice screws.
You cant afford to make any mistakes here, loose a piece of the tent, drop a glove, get your sleeping bag wet, break a stove, dump fuel any one of these things and many other small mistakes could end your trip instantly or worse. Everyone needs to work together and you need to think about every move or action you make/take.
Were getting good at following a compass bearing in a perfectly straight line, today we made good ground in the 5 ½ hours till sun down knocking off 16.3km. Not bad but we need to start puling off 25 to 30km days to get to our finish point in reasonable time. This should be no problem as long as the weather and the sleds hold out. Set up camp quick as we were freezing our arses off at -32 deg or colder. Full moon tonight, clear crisp sky and bright stars, hope its warmer tomorrow.
I keep racking my brain about how to get another sled or two, nothing at all for the next week and after that there still really isn’t anything at all. Hecla Island has a Rd that goes out to it, but I don’t think there is anything all that close to there that wouldn’t take me a day or two return travel to go out and get something. This is a bit of an express trip so 21 days max we need to be in Winnipeg. If all else fails and we need too we can get all our gear into Marc’s sled as the food and fuel weight and bulk will be considerable reduced by then. We can also carry a lot of gear in our packs to further reduce weight and bulk on the sled. We still have the kites but we haven’t had any conditions even close to reasonable to try and use them. The ice conditions have been way to rough, we would surly bust our legs if we got cruising in a strong wind and hurt ourselves.
Saw a man about a horse again today and pretty sure I frost nipped my fingers again during the meeting, hard to do anything about that though? Neal has also nipped his fingers as well as Marc for the same reason. Other then our finger tips we are all in great shape and health, feeling good with no real problems. Marc had chaffed his inner thighs, but the polysporin and duck tape has taken care of things and he is feeling a lot more comfortable. I changed into clean new pair of expedition long johns tonight, think I’ll wait a few days for fresh socks, something to look forward to!
