THE TRIP TO THE POLE
Our trip started in Oslo, Norway where we then continued to fly northwards to the island of ‘Longyearbyen’ and the small mining town of ‘Svalbard’. After exploring the local area by skidoo and witnessing wild herds of reindeers, we did a final gear check, re-packed all our equipment and then headed north towards our goal…the Geographic North Pole!
A Russian Antonov flew us to high up into the Arctic Circle landing at 89 degrees latitude at the temporary Russian built ice station called ‘Barneo’. From here we were left on the ice with nothing except for our sleds filled with food, fuel and equipment for our ski journey to the Geographic North Pole, which was roughly 125 kms true north of us and about 2 weeks of skiing.
Being out on a frozen ocean was an unnerving feeling at the best of times and certainly challenged us both mentally and physically. Although we had experienced a lot of these challenges during our time in the mountains, nothing could have prepared us for the grueling and harsh conditions of the Arctic. The terrain was far from flat and we would spend most days navigating over and around pressure ridges and sastrugi, over huge fields of ice rubble and finding paths around open leads of water where the ice had pulled apart exposing the ocean below. Such dramatic movement of the ice break up occurs due to the strong ocean currents moving beneath the ice, together with the storms and high winds pushing the ice around on the surface, creating something similar to a jumbled jigsaw puzzle. All of these components led to our very difficult and slow traverse towards the pole each day. In actual fact on a really excellent day, we didn’t notch up more than about 10-15kms depending on which direction the drifting ice was moving in. On a bad day, we could drift back 10 kms eradicating our previous hard earned efforts…that was hard to take. During our time at the North Pole itself we were stuck in a storm that lasted for three days and the ice was moving so fast that we drifted 16kms south in one night. Then with a bizarre temporary lull in the weather, the eye of the storm, the wind suddenly turned 180 degrees and we drifted back over the pole again without actually moving from our tents!
The most beautiful thing about being out on the ice was the incredible silence around us. At most you’d hear the wind and your skis occasionally ‘squeaking’ as they slid over the sheer blue ice. It was an odd silence but a wonderful time to reflect. Sometimes you’d think someone was calling you and you’d stop to look around, but everyone had their heads down...all deep in thought.
The worst thing was the intolerable cold. No matter how many layers we were wearing, the only time we could generate any kind of heat was when we were moving. Putting on frozen boots every morning was a real challenge and we would have to run around the camp to keep our toes from freezing until we were ready to start skiing. Each day we left shortly after sun up. The trouble was the sun never actually went up or down. Being so close to the North Pole at this time of the year meant one long day…every day. Sleeping required eye shades and was very disorientating at night because you never had any idea of the time or how long you had slept.
Finding a campsite every night had its own set of challenges. This would involve finding a place that was not near an open lead of water and generally camping on older ice that was not likely to break up beneath us during the night. We also surrounded the camp each night with a polar bear alarm. This consisted of a set of posts around the camp with flares attached strategically to them and joined together by a fishing line that acted as a trip wire. Luckily we did not have any encounters with the bears but did witness fresh polar bear tracks most days, so we knew they were close by. We even saw tracks very close to the pole which apparently was very unusual. This was evidence that their hunting territory was being reduced around the perimeters because of the melting ice and was driving them further north to look for food.
To remain nourished and to fight the extreme temperatures, we needed to eat around 6000 calories a day. This was a diet mainly based upon fat and food high in carbohydrates to keep our energy sustained during the long, cold days and to get us through the extremely cold nights. At the beginning of the trip, getting thorough 3 or 4 family size bars of chocolate a day seemed like a chocolate lover’s paradise, but the excitement soon diminished as biting into yet another ‘frozen brick’ became a chore to say the least and of course our toothpaste remained permanently frozen along with our mitts, jackets, sleeping bags, goggles and everything else that had stiffened like cardboard because of the heavy moisture in the air. That was one of the big differences to being on Everest. Even though in the mountains it was cold, the air was very dry and down clothing kept us nice and warm. At the North Pole the moisture permeated into everything making our clothing extremely damp and uncomfortable to wear.
Drinking 4 liters of liquids a day was hugely important for our performance but also one of the harder jobs as the ice had to be collected and melted which took hours every day. Also when the gas stove is lit inside the tent, you have to have ventilation which always made the tent even colder. However it was all worth it as one of the days highlights was drinking our guide Ola’s secret recipe ‘hot blueberry soup’ from Sweden! (he never did disclose what was in it!).
When we finally arrived at the pole, we knew we were there because our GPS said 90 degrees north! We were at the most northerly point on the planet and from here we could only head south! The funny thing was there was absolutely nothing there…just ice all around us. Within the hour we had arrived, a huge storm had started to set in. We had been warned of it for the last 24 hrs as the sun had been surrounded by a halo…a sign of frontal activity ahead. We were literally just finishing putting up the tents when the storm began to rage around us and then lasted for three solid days with no respite. It was so cold as temperatures plummeted down to minus 40 degrees C and the barometer just kept falling. It was extremely disheartening. We were also moving very fast on the ice flow and the only thing we could do was to try and keep warm in our sleeping bags.
Finally the storm abated and we were able to get our helicopter pick up. It was a brief window however and not very long after we had made it back to Barneo, another front came in and lasted for a week this time. Luckily we were stuck at the camp with some scientists and fellow explorers and we whiled the time away in true Russian style with vodka and a lot of singing! To finish off, the ice runway broke up twice and by the time we got to take off our runway had been cut in half, but the Russians just took out the seats to lighten the load and happily proclaimed ‘Nostrovia!’ As we flew back to Svalbard we looked out across the barren ice desert that had been our home for the past few weeks. With a bird’s eye view over the vast sections of open water below us, that we had so painstakingly had to navigate around, we wondered…how long will this ocean remain frozen?