I have many many entries to write but nothing surpasses this. It’s James letter to Dan about the first week of his Pole to Pole expedition. All I can say what a fantastic letter home!!
Hi Danny, hope you’re well, just arrived in Siorapaluk after a pretty intense few days, but her’s the story until now…
When we first got here we had an absolute nightmare with the helicopter, it seemed that even when the weather was perfect the pilot found some excuse not to fly like the suns too bright or something! Anyhow after a week at 78 degrees north and getting seriously bored twiddling our thumbs we decided that the only way we were going to get anywhere was overland and sea by dog sled. Was quite surreal actually getting ready to go - walking into the supermarket up here and putting a rifle and bullets in your trolley along with some apple juice and a pizza!
Was seriously cold to begin with, and then we got delayed by a huge storm… never seen anything like it at the time, couldn’t stand up outside or see past the end of my nose… then more bad weather but we carried on slowly north with the dogs, pretty difficult getting the massive sled over all the rocks and ice, almost broke my leg a few times getting stuck behind a block of ice and getting pulled by the dogs at the same time!
Eventually we got to the pole on April 7th and started out in (more) bad weather on the 8th. Very hard to begin with pulling our sleds, 100kg each, through deep snow and icy rubble blocks, then going through another storm which had blown apart the ice so we had to swim across some open water. I was terrified, first there was this thick soupy icy water which you could barely move in and I kept hjaving this image of a walrus (apparently there are lots up there) biting on my leg and dragging me under…
We then had to pull the sleds up onto the glacier and the first two days over the rocks completely ripped up the bottom of them, they were practically impossible to pull you felt like every step the tendons in your legs and back would snap I can only compare it to trying to pull a plough up a mountain! Those few days were unbearably cold, I thought I’d got frostbite a few times and my breath was literally freezing on my lips as it came out my mouth. Then another storm…… this time two days long but so much snow built up in the back porch we thought it was going to collapse on us during the night. Then we went onto the glacier and more huge effort to pull the bloody pulks uphill! I have to say there’s isn’t much more mind numbing than pulling a dead weight hour after hour with nothing to look at other than blank snow! And a face full of wind blown snow…
Eventually we started descending yesterday and we found it was quicker to sit on the pulks and sledge down, was great to begin with but on the second time the hill was a little to steep and after sliding over some huge crevasses at about 60 kmh my sled flung me off and then hit me and tangled me in its lines as we tumbled down the hill, was amazed I hadn’t broken anything but I can barely sit down at the moment my bum is so sore! Then we made the even bigger mistake of taking a wrong turn in almost hurricane force winds and found ourselves being pulled over an ice cliff by our sleds with massive crevasses on either side. We spent hours pulling the sleds back uphill into the wind and off to the side to relative safety where we could descend down a steep snow slope. We eventually were able to pitch the tent at midnight but the winds were so strong they flattened it as we tried to erect it and now all the pole are bent and some snapped - not a comfortable night. We new we had to reach a village called siorapaluk - the northern most settlement in the world today so we left early this morning and continued to descend down the glacier in strong winds and after slogging it out all afternoon we’re eventually here, happy to be alive after yesterday and even better smelling fresh from a nice shower! We’ll probably stay here another day to recover and then carry on to Qaanaaq which is about 4 or 5 days away andis the town we started from with the dogs, it seems like a beacon of civilisation at the moment!
I’ll call again when we get to Qaanaaq, but send everyone my love and take care,
Lots of Love,
James
www.180degrees.co.uk
