This morning the team woke to a small hiccup in the journey. Throughout Tuesday, due to the heavy snow, Dines, one of their guides, and the second dog sledge had to travel at a slower rate then the skiing team. They lost contact with him at around 6pm so stopped and set up camp in the hope that he would catch up later that evening. Dines was able to call his wife, who gave a message to our contact in Greenland, to let us know that he was ok but that due to bad weather, he’d had to set up camp by himself an estimated 9km back from where the team had stopped. This meant that today the team has had to stay put in their camp and hope that the weather clears enough later in the day for Dines to make his way to their coordinates.
Tues 12th Teams Coordinates: 66.15.506N 39.31.604W, Traveled : 517Km, Altitude: 1942m, Temperature: -2 degrees C, Windchill - 19 degrees C
Tues 12th Dines Coordinates: 66.14.769N 39.23.553W
They have to be conservative with their Sat phones as Dines has the charging equipment on his sledge, but they are due to call in the morning of the 14th to let us know if Dines has been able to make progress towards them and how they spent the day entertaining themselves in camp.
Chloe’s quote for the day: “Its so good to take your hat off and feel the Arctic wind blow through you hair” - Current temperature : - 5 degrees C, with wind chill: -15 degrees C!
The team called in bright and early this morning to give coordinates and movements for yesterday.
Mon 13th : Coordinates: 66:01N, 38:58W, Traveled : 19.3Km, Altitude: 1750m, Time skiing: 12pm -6.45pm
They are all doing very well and are starting to gain more momentum on the skis. James and Chloe are alternating the use of Chloe’s pole and Chloe has quickly mastered the ‘Penguin walk’ when without them. They had a gorgeous evening in camp last night, with beautiful calm blue skies and a light mist reflecting the sunlight. The temperature is dropping the further into the icecap they head and over night the tents are now frosting up on the inside as they sleep.
Chloe has asked if the person texting to request a web cam to be attached to her head, to please make themselves known through another text as she is currently unaware of your identity. On that note, if you are sending them texts, it would be great if you could sign the text in some way so they each know who you are - Thanks. They love receiving your texts so please do keep sending them if you get a chance.
The team have called in today with the coordinates and distances for their time on the ice cap to date.
Friday 8th - Coordinates: 65:50N, 38:30W, Traveled : 5.3Km, Altitude: 1000m, Time skiing: 3.30pm -6pm
Saturday 9th -Coordinates: 65:52N, 38:35W, Traveled : 12.3Km, Altitude: 1200m, Time skiing: 11am -5pm
Sunday 10th -Coordinates: 65:57N, 38:46W, Traveled : 11.5Km, Altitude: 1543m, Time skiing: 12pm -6pm
Last night there were forecasts of storms, so as a precaution, the team packed up camp down to one tent and shared through the night. Thankfully the storm did not materialise however Chloe did get her 1st experience of having the smell of the boys to get to sleep too ,which of course could be a storm in itself! They have woken to light snow and continuing mild temperatures and are hoping to cover another 12km today. They send all their love, thoughts and thanks to everyone.
In good clear weather and temperatures of 5 degrees centigrade, the team successfully completed a 15km stretch of their journey yesterday. With fresh snow, the soft ground conditions continue to make it tough going, so they are hoping by traveling inland they will find harder ground on which to gain speed and use less energy. James unfortunately left his ski poles in the settlement in Tasiilaq, which is making his job a million times harder with the fresh snow, however being super fit and able to adapt to conditions he has been able to keep up with the others.
Whilst skiing yesterday, they came across a unusual scene, a decapitated fresh dead goose in the middle of the ice. Conny saw a large white bird flying away as they approached and the guides think it was a white hawk that had traveled with its prey from the coast to the secluded location for feeding. Wildlife is a very rare sight on the ice, so although dead, they said it was a striking sight.
Chloe’s back has started to play up and she has the 1st sun burnt nose of the expedition, however, she is staying strong and soldiering on. James is struggling with his temperature control and last night, had to hang all of his clothes in the tent with the stove on inside, in order to dry them out. Today he is experimenting with his layering in the hope of avoiding a repeat of the tent laundrette at camp tonight. Conny’s feet have developed the dreaded blisters, which are currently under control but could very quickly be trouble. Although all three have tired bodies, they are in high spirits and were able to enjoy a stunning sunset over the mountains last night.
Today they are leaving the mountains behind them and moving further into the white desert ahead. The weather has closed in and it is lightly snowing with a gentle but cold wind blowing. They are looking to cover 20-25km and set up camp at around 3pm to get an early night and an earlier start tomorrow.
The 1st call in has been made from the Ice Cap. The team reached the start point safely yesterday after an incredible and surreal helicopter flight with their guide, 12 loud barking dogs and a sledge. On the Ice cap they met up with their second guide Mikkel and his dogs, so the expedition team is now complete.
The weather yesterday was clear and bright, so to get into the grove of things, they did a 6km ski before setting up their 1st camp. Due to heavy snowfall over the last month, the dog sledges found it heavy going which allowed Chloe, James and Conny to ski ahead of them, avoiding the 1st experience of the smells associated when skiing behind ! They still have this pleasure to come…..
The process of setting up and dismantling camp is a lot more time consuming then they antcipated, although as they establish a routine it will get much quicker and easier along route. There was snowfall over night and they have woken to an overcast and mild day in which to set off on their 1st full day skiing. The route today will take them 20kms closer to their final destination.
The Team set off together on Tuesday 5th May to fly from London to Iceland. In Iceland, it looked as if plans might have to be delayed by a week, as their flight from Iceland to Greenland was cancelled due to bad weather which had a knock on effect to all other transport bookings. However, after several different options of transportation were explored and last minute accommodation in a small settlement village was found, Air Greenland were able to reschedule the Helli shuttle and the team are back on track with timings. They met up with their guide Dines in Tasiilaq last night and they fly today ( Friday 9th May) by helicopter to the starting point of their incredible journey.
If you would like to send us messages of encouragement and support while we are on the ice you can send text messages to our Sat Phones for free! Apologies that we are unlikely to be able to reply but we would love to hear from you.
We have been told that the phones need to be on in order for messages to get through so the best time to send a message is between around 1pm -3pm GMT time as we should be packing up camp and will try to have the phones on. Apparently sometimes they are ‘held’ for sending but not in the same way as normal phones.
The easiest way of sending the message is to go to the link below and fill in the iridium template. It already has the 1st section of the numbers in so you just need to complete the number by adding the digits below.
Chloe: 31573450
Conny: 31573595
James: Can use both of the above.
http://messaging.iridium.com/
Another means to text is by sending an email from your personal email.The email MUST NOT have anything in the subject heading and must only contain 160 characters or less.
To text Chloe email: 881631573450@msg.iridium.com
To text Conny email: 881631573595@msg.iridium.com
To text James: Use either of the above
We look forward to hearing from you.
We still have available for purchase some gorgeous, collectible, limited edition IceCapStation T-Shirts. If you would like to support our Charity and purchase a T-Shirt please donate £15 online at our Just Giving web page and then email Rachel on rachelemilyreynolds@gmail.com with your postal address and size request.
Thank you
We’re all SO excited with only four days till lift off! It has been a jam packed week finalising all the final preparations. Our new team mate James has been making a mad dash around town buying all his kit, ordering ski’s, boots and bindings from Norway, getting his big down jacket filled and logo’d up, ordering food, booking flights, hotels, insurance .. the list is endelss and is a huge challenge in such a short time frame. Conny and I are delighted to have him on the team and I’m chuffed to be going with two such gorgeous, strong and brave men!
The Ice Cap Station Arctic Challenge launch party was a huge success and it was wonderful to have the support of so many friends and family on the night. The charity fundraiser tombola went down a treat and the queue to the Husky Den snaked around the dancefloor. Lots of people like the idea of owning an icy-mile and that we will have “nice” thoughts about them for that mile. The highly collectable and limited edition expedition t-shirts flew off the sofa (!) and we have a sackfull of post-cards to scribble from Greenland. The “sign our ski’s” option seemed to attract a lot of takers and our ski’s now look like a Banksy masterpiece! I’m also delighted that one of our sledges has been named after my gorgeous god-daughter Willa - I know she will be “Willaering” us on all the way!
On the night we raised just under £2k which is fantastic - ! We still have a few more thousand to raise to hit our target of £10,000, so please visit the CHARITY page on this site and follow the link to our Just Giving page. We really appreciate your generosity in supporting polar science.
We are delighted to have PROFEET as a new sponsor. Conny and I had a full analysis with them this week and now have seriously high-tec custom made insoles fitted in our boots, which will provide essential support for our feet during the long trek.
I had the huge honour of meeting Robert Swan OBE this week for a cup of coffee and a chat in the warm sunshine. He gave me some fantastic last minute tips - I now have the word “FEET” circled in large stars and words like .. warm spots, vapour barriers, dry socks and Mitchams foot anti persperant. Our feet will be well and truly pampered and groomed religiously day and night to avoid big juicy blisters.
Happy Bank Holiday from the Ice Cap Station Arctic Challenge Team - our last few days of warm sunshine … we mustn’t indulge too much - freezing cold showers, bucket loads of carb’s and jacket potatoes filled with oozing warm butter for the next four days!
FOUR WEEKS TO GO, GO ….
Our first ever blog …! How exciting. Lots of news to report - sub-sponsors are rolling in faster than the sets down on Polzeath beach – we’ve just secured WAYN as a media partner. For all you fellow adventurers, it’s a great travellers’ lifestyle and social networking site with 2million active unique users per month.
Being a bit of a Cornish chick at heart, I’m delighted to have award winning, ethical clothing company Finisterre as a sponsor. They are kindly providing us with some of our base layers – apparently it’s far less smelly to have Merino wool than synthetic fibres close to your armpits – considering we won’t be having a bath or shower for three weeks, the wool option definitely gets my vote and I’m sure Conny’s too! Iceland Air have also generously said they’d sponsor our roundtrip flights from UK to Iceland.
Training is going well and the gym is definitely my second home with delicious “complimentary” chilled water. My amazingly patient trainer Ross, known affectionately as “Ross-the-Boss” is keeping me on my toes, whilst quietly going insane – who needs a shrink when you’ve got a personal trainer? Current programme is a combination of cardio (x-trainer, uphill walking, rollerskiing) and weight training six days a week, with a wonderful lie-in and rest day on Sunday. Biceps and thighs are starting to swell! It’s now becoming far too scary to look in the mirror.
The big scoff is also well underway – Conny and I both have to put on at least a stone (14llbs) in fat, for added warmth and as reserve on the ice. To most couch-potatoes this is no big challenge – the thought of being given free reign to munch on big pizzas, take-away curry’s, oversized burgers and chips is some people’s idea of heaven.
Unfortunately for us more health conscious Arctic adventurer types, these foods ultimately slow you down, decrease energy levels and performance as well as containing very little nutritional value. My preferred “get fat” foods include healthy fats like avocados, cashew and walnuts, chicken stir-fry’s drowning in “good oils”, wholewheat pasta, porridge with honey and the odd warm chocolate Gu pudding and ice-cream, as a quick calorie top-up!
Just about to order all our expedition food … Heston eat your heart out - freeze-dried spaceman packet food is definitely “hip”. We will be consuming 4,000 calories each per day, so I’ve just raided the entire sweet section of my local supermarket, to ensure our “nose bags” are filled with chocolate treats to keep us smiling.
More news soon …
|
