How Can You Possibly Sweat at 20 Below?!

We made it to the jump off without any drama. The DC-3 circled a few times to make sure that the landing area looked good, then set down pretty smoothly. There are no markers or other aids on the ground, so it was very much a "visual approach". Since we are, literally, in the middle of nowhere, and the temperature is around minus 20, they kept the right side engine running the whole time the plane was on the ground, while we unloaded, bucket brigade style, from the left hand cargo door. Total time on the ground was only about 15 minutes, then we were left on our own at 88 degrees, 59.76 minutes South of the equator. We sorted our gear, took some quick photos, and got ready to move.

The other sub-team veered a little left of due South, and we veered a little right. Our plan is to try and meet up on Christmas Day for a festive group supper. It will be interesting to see how we will fit all 12 people into a tent designed for four that really only sleeps three comfortably. (We have four of them for the twelve of us.) The usual schedule we are using is 55 minutes of skiing, with a 5 minute break every hour. It is surprisingly hard to get in food, water, and any necessary gear adjustments in just 5 minutes, but the alternative is everyone getting too cold, especially when it is windy. We all keep our big down parkas handy to pull on whenever we stop for just that reason. Today, conditions were pretty ideal: virtually no wind, about minus 17' and clear skies (meaning plenty of sun, which makes a huge difference in how warm it actually feels).

The snow conditions were also pretty good - firm but not hard. The terrain is pretty flat, with just a moderate number of six inch to foot high sastrugi scattered in our path. Unfortunately , it does slope mostly uphill to the Pole, and there is relatively little glide to the snow (it is too cold to create a slippery layer when the sled slides over it). It is more like dragging over very smooth dirt. Still, that is a lot better than dragging tires on Tarmac. Nevertheless, despite my best efforts to pare down my gear load, my sled is pretty heavy, relative to some of the others'. We marched for three hours, taking it pretty slow since we have not yet acclimated to the altitude (9,000', but the air is thin at the poles, so physiologically more like 11,000'). I did pretty well for the first two marches (all of that tire dragging had to be good for something), but really started to flag for that third march, arriving in camp at least a few minutes behind the team.

Not sure what the problem was (not altitude illness, per se) and I feel fine now, but definitely disappointing. One contributor may be that even at minus 18, I still get too hot, even with just one thin layer on on top, plus my shell jacket, unzipped. I felt like I was skiing in a sauna! Even at that temperature, sweat was dripping down my back. Tomorrow, if it is not too windy, I will try skiing without a shell on. Overall, we made about 3.5 miles towards the pole, so only about 66 to go...