737 Leg 6 The North Pole - Day 117

Hi Guys. We skied for 9 hours today and travelled 20.51km.

We went to bed last night and when woke up this morning we had drifted 6.6km east and a little bit north but it didn’t make a big difference in terms of the pole and we’ve not drifted backwards which is a positive thing.

Today has been a really cool day, a tough day. It started off really great visibility, clear, about -20c and about half way through the day the clouds came in and the visibility dropped so we had really flat light which was difficult to navigate and even see what obstacles were in front of us. We had the full bag of tricks thrown at us, we had pressure ridges, which were 2 metres high, which we had to pull our pulks over and clamber over. We had to cross an open lead so we clipped together our pulks to make a raft to get over quite a short lead and we also had a big lead which was pretty new ice which we had to cross gingerly as it was moving underneath us but we have an awesome guide and a really strong team and we are making really good progress. Fingers crossed we keep this up as we will make good time.

Also I put my foot through some ice today, nothing serious and all is well, it got my heart racing. A lapse in concentration and just goes to show we have to be totally on it at all times, it’s unforgiving out here.

Steve spilled his noodles all over the tent! We are getting on great, working really well together and have adapted to tent life together again pretty well.

There’s just no let up, its really cold and just keeping warm around the stove in our tent is about all we can do.

Speak tomorrow, Rich and Steve.