Part 5: routine

we woke at 730 am ice frozen onto the inside of our tents any movement created a minor snow storm in the tent. sleeping bag thickly covered with frost but totally water proof (well for first few days) I popped my head out of my bag.

it was freezing minus 25, try and get dressed in my ba
you have to take your outer layer of clothes of and sleep in thermals only to get the most out of the goose down bags designed for temperatures of minus 70. Alan our guide and my tent mate (Very lucky break that....) would crank up the stove and heat would make the ice melt on tent and clothes etc, so it became damp. we boiled snow and then added water to our dehydrated foods in the morning it was porridge, fill our thermos up with soup and hot chocolate this took about an hour and a half.

Then pack up the tent squeeze sleeping bags into dry bags (everything done i huge mitts) and any other items we had out for the night, i had about six dry bags, food, drinks, spare warm clothes, big down jacket , small down jacket and medical stuff. then out into the cold load sledge getting balance right otherwise they toppled over easily, make sure emergency clothes were at the front easily accesible in case of bad weather, take down tents , pack them on mine robs and alans sledges, (the others carried other communal stuff) then go to the loo i won't go into any detail except it was freezing and you had to be very quick......... you peed in the tent in a bottle stupid to go out in the cold. strap on sledge and off we went.

the terrain is very variable generally it was slightly rutted rarely smooth we would have long flatish bits then have to weave through rubble, that was hell, sledges got caught on obstacles always having to turn around and pull it by your arms, if the sledge in front toppled over you helped put it up right. we would come to pressure ridges huge piles of massive ice blocks which we had to get over or get around, alan was brilliant at this and generally found a tortuous route quite quickly through the twisted rubble, then we had leads, where the ice has split like a river and we had to find a safe way over it, again alan had a canny knack of finding a route, he really knew what ice was passable and what wasn't. We were incredibly lucky we didn't have any open water or huge leads at any time, we only had two occasions where the ice started breaking up and he noise and power was indescribable, once when we were crossing a lead, it started moving with a rush and roar as the arctic ocean fought the ice, that was amazing i have never seen people move so fast, and aga

in during a crossing where the ice started coming together groaning and crashing and roaring.

we stopped every hour for a drink and snack and relentlessly punched out the miles it wasn't at all monotonous but i can't tell you what i thought about but i was never bored.

we stopped about 7 pm unloaded tents put them up unpacked our sledges, this all took about an hour and a half in minus 25 we dug our tents in with snow and used our skis and poles as pegs then got into our tents boiled water got some heat on and added water to our dehydrated food anything from stew and spuds to pat thai or curry all tasted ok as we were hungary after our exertions then sleep at about 1030 in broad day light and the hours sped by until it was 7.30 am and the routine started again.