The thing I fear the most

In the dark recesses of my mind, I still have nightmares about the crevasses of the west coast of Greenland. The last 3 days of the crossing are hard to recall in detail without talking in the 3rd person about the experience, as if somebody had told me the story of how someone else had crossed them and I was relating the story to a friend.

It took me nearly a month before I could sleep through the night without waking in the early hours, convinced the floor had cracked and the bed was going to fall into a deep crevasse.

One evening in particular, I think it was the 3rd night before the end of the trip, Charlie and I had just left the plateau of the icecap and the ice was starting its decent towards the coast. At the cusp of its descent, the ice starts to split up into huge deep blue, bottomless crevasses, caused by ice stretching as it falls towards the sea. These cracks run across our path, and therefore we need to cross them, they are all we can see for miles (in fact it took us 3 days to get out of the disturbed ice zone.) Traversing them can sometimes be as simple as finding a stable snow bridge and skiing across as quickly as possible before the bridge collapses, or they can be so wide and precipitous that you could spend 20 minutes negotiating them, or at worst, be forced to detour for many miles before you can safely cross.

Our campsite that evening was a square of ice about the size of a tennis court, with deep and wide crevasses bordering us on all sides. While we put the tent up, I fell into 2 small 12 inch wide pressure cracks that were hidden by a thin layer of snow, this doesn't happen when you have your skis on, as your body weight is spread evenly across the length of the ski preventing you from sinking. Both falls freaked me out! As the glacier ice is moving all the time, the cracking and splitting is very noisy, its like sleeping near a military firing range, a constant din of muffled cracks, from a hundred meters deep within the ice, to super loud snaps where the ice has opened on the surface - these will wake you up (and keep you awake as you wonder if the next crack will open under your sleeping bag!)

The next morning there was a tension in the super chilled air, Charlie and I ate our severely depleted rations (another story all together!) in silence, we would have had to have shouted to hear each other above the cacophony of wind. I poked my head out of the tent and saw that the storm had not abated and had closed in again to near white out conditions, not very conducive to safe crevasse negotiations. Charlie broke the silence with his Aberdonian brogue and gave a portentous warning, on how I had to be really [deleted expletive] careful today. He (quite correctly) predicted that today would be the most dangerous of the whole trip and the weather conditions were making things even more dangerous. We were so low on food we couldn't wait for better weather so we had to march and face the crevasses in the storm. I was so nervous about what lay ahead - I wrote a letter to my family, in case I shouldn't make it through the day - when I re-read the entry in my journal, a shiver runs down my spine. Just as we were getting out of the tent, the wind got even stronger, making it difficult to break camp - loosing the tent in the wind would have spelt disaster for the trip!

Were we ever going to get some relief from the relentless weather, in the 31 days it took to cross the icecap, we had 21 days of white out or bad visibility. The day turned out to be as bad as we had expected but somehow we made it through some of the worst terrain of the whole journey unscathed, that night we camped in another blizzard.

The photo with this entry, is just after a near miss that Charlie had towards the end of the day.

Anyway after the whole diatribe above on crevasses, these are not the thing I fear the most about what lays ahead (even though we will come across them on the way to the Pole) - it is without doubt, the cold, I am most concerned about!

With only a few days until we leave, the temperature at the Pole this morning is -36 Celsius (-52 with the windchill) if you don't believe me take a look here. This is 3 times colder than a freezer and is really the thing I fear the most.

The coldest it got in Greenland was about -20 and in January, in New York I experienced -26 with windchill. Cold of this type makes simple everyday tasks, extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous to perform - the risk of frostbite is always present and with it the inevitable repercussions if it gets too bad.

The relentless cold is also debilitating, yes you can dress for it, but even with all the layers we have with us, you cannot sit still in it for more than a few minutes, so unless we are hauling our sleds (and thereby creating body warmth) we need to be in our tents and in our sleeping bags. So operating in this environment calls for immense discipline. I do not have too much experience functioning in this level of cold and so I will just have to learn quickly as I go along.

I have however, learnt that this type of apprehension is good for me, I can now, in a perverse kind of way, enjoy the feeling. It heightens my senses, that rumbling and tightness in the gut and chest are what makes me feel alive and will get me through the inevitable difficulties that lie ahead.

Weight Loss Camp

The Greenland Icecap crossing should be re-marketed to those people wanting to loose a guaranteed stone in weight but eat as much as they like for a month. Obviously the risk of death by Polar Bear mauling or falling to your death into a bottomless crevasse could be described in the small print, but I think it may have legs.

It really is quite easy to loose a stone, it took me 31 days exactly, in fact when I got off the ice I had practically no body fat and during the last 2 days (when Charlie and I ran out of food) I believe my body was using its own tissue to fuel itself. We literally had one porridge, a few handfuls of peanuts and some chewing gum over 48 hours. The reason for this lack of food was not a gross miscalculation of rations but more to the fact that we lost 2 days to helicopter rescues and 2 days holed up in the tent in storms - and we only had spare food for 2 days. It could be said that I overate a small portion of my snack food over the 29 days and therefore ran out of vital calories, but I had lost so much weight in the first 2 weeks - my body was demanding more calories as time went on.

I think my daily calorie deficit was about 2000 calories - which was a bit too much.

I have however done a splendid job of putting all the weight back on - more or less a stone in a month, and do feel better for it - for one my skin now fits my body, I wont go into details but I think the phrase "a size 10 body in a size 14 skin" springs to mind.

Food planning and calorie intake for the Pole has been planned in precise detail - I have to carry enough food for 55 days + 5 days of spares, I will have to eat approx 6000 calories a day, which means over half the weight of the sled will be food, the great thing about this is, once I am half way, the load will be much lighter!

Schools galore

Last week I had my first go at the lecture circuit, albeit in front of a 100 or so children from Clifton High and Bristol Grammar school. I was talking about my recent Greenland and Iceland trips as well as my preparation for the Pole.

Crowd control, especially where young kids are concerned has always been difficult for me. I suppose when I was a kid and played up I was always shouted at and therefore suffer from "if all you have is a hammer, there is a tendency to see everything as if it is a nail" syndrome. However, both sets of kids were exceptional, bright, interested and asked questions non stop for half an hour. I think they were most interested in all the equipment I brought with me like solar power chargers, ice axes, 10kg of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and of course my sled.

Speaking to these kids was definitely a good warm up for the Best Man speech I had to give in front of 150 guests of a good friend on the Saturday - that was nerve wracking.

Greenland Expedition Photos

I have managed to find some time to sort through the best of the photos from the exped. I am most of the way through the write up, so will post soon.

The big news is that I have accepted a place on an expedition to the South Pole in November this year. I can't quite believe it, as soon as I decided to go the plans for the next 6 months have taken a dramatic turn and every hour of the day is now busy planning a 55 day plus expedition. Once I am allowed to give the full details of the team I am joining then I will post more details.

Photos for Greenland are here.

Returned safely

After an incredible 31 day crossing of the Greenland icecap, I have returned home safely. Lost a bit too much weight and my nose has some frost nip, but overall I survived and I am fit and well. The shock of being home in a warm climate and sleeping in a comfy bed is tremendous, so it will take a few days to adjust to not eating, sleeping and spending 24x7 on the ice but I will write up the adventure.....soon.

and so to Greenland....!

If anyone asks why I am skiing across an icecap for 30 days - I tell them because I couldn't bike across. This is what I have to keep reminding myself when spirits are low and I can't deal with the never ending whiteness and the potential cold.

This mental joke will help me across - in the "what else could I be doing right now" my alternative is NOT sat at home watching Hollyoaks, it is being on my bike and I know I will not want to be on my bike across the ice!

Anyway this is the last blog entry for maybe a month as I have not invested the £1500 in satellite mobile technology to be able to send updates from the ice - so I am now going, what is referred to in the industry as "Dark".

Also you can imagine how boring my updates would be; "Days 5 through 20: ice and snow underfoot, flat for 300 miles, wind was cold and some frost on my moustache. Did you know the Inuit have 310 words for snow. For example, type 12: The yellow snow that the dogs make, or type 23: The type of snow your neighbour brings in on his boots onto you newly swept igloo floor. Did you know the Inuit also have 321 words for boredom!

Anyway - take care, see you all soon(ish)!

Endurance Training.....my 1st 100 miler

Concerned that I would struggle with hauling a sled across the ice for 30 days for upto 10 hours a day, I set out on a local endurance mountain bike ride on Wednesday of last week. This was to both, test my endurance and act as a training day for the next trip.

The South Downs Way is a path/track that runs from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex on the South Coast. It is 100 miles long and passes through some of the most beautiful scenery in Southern England. Most of the time is spent up on the South Downs ridge with sweeping views to the coast and up towards London. There are steep and fast descents and obviously some arduous climbs but in the main it is a rolling track, the perfect playground for endurance training.

This ride is normally done over 2 or 3 days, but I thought as I had maintained much of my fitness from the Iceland trip I would attempt the ride of a 100 miles in a single day - obviously weather permitting.

After 3 train changes I arrived at Winchester at 8:55am and a few last minute adjustments to my gear, I set off at 9:00am not really knowing what to expect or how far I could complete the ride. My record on the way upto Iceland was about 70 miles in a day and I figured I should at least be able to do 80 miles, so I had train times and my Dad as back up should I need to bail out for technical reasons, exhaustion or severe bad weather.

The first 45 miles shot by and before I knew it I was having lunch with my parents at a roadside cafe just north of Arundel. 10 miles later my legs were telling me they were getting really tired and gave me my 15 mile warning. Then as predicted the fuel tank ran dry and my average speed on the flat dropped from 13mph to 8 mph - I had hit the wall and every pedal turn was a huge effort. I made an effort to eat and drink as much as I could to try and give me some more energy so I could least make it too a local train station. That would be just under 80 miles and I thought I needed to at least make it to 80, that would be a personal best and I would feel satisfied that I had done my best.

All the food I had eaten suddenly kicked in and although I didn't have the power that I had in the morning, at least the weakness and fatigue had gone, I then knew I would make it all the way. The last 20 miles to Eastbourne were the best of the whole day, the sky was cloudless, I had the breeze on my back and the sun was setting - the most stunning evening of the summer so far, I'm sure.

I arrived at Eastbourne Station at 9:30pm after 12.5 hours on my bike and felt fantastic - my 1st ever 100 miler off-road and I felt fine! I had only stopped twice for rests, once for 10 minutes to stretch and then for 30 minutes for lunch - I did all my eating and drinking whilst riding.

I tested not only my fitness but also learnt that mentally I can push through certain types of pain/exhaustion when I believe the goal is worthy - all I need to do now is learn when it is safe to push on and when it is best to stop.

Training...a whole new experience!

Being back has been very strange, I don't sleep well in a bed and don't do crowds of people very well. I eat every meal as if it is the only one I'm likely to get all day. When it rains and the wind blows hard I feel I should be out on my bike, not inside watching Beyonce, shake her booty on MTV.

I am however very busy (when not watching the golf or Tour De France) preparing for the next stage of the trip, Tour #5 Greenland Icecap crossing.

A classic crossing of the vast Greenland Icecap- one of the 3 big Polar Expeditions. Following the line of the Arctic Circle between Isortoq and Kangerlussuaq, I will attempt a 'full crossing'; that is, from coast to coast. Instead of being flown onto the Icecap, I plan to start the expedition at sea level on the East Coast, and finish on the shores of the fjord in Kangerlussuaq. Travelling by ski, hauling all my equipment in a sled (pulk), the crossing is likely to take around 27 days.

Starting with a heavy load, I will make my way up the initial steep slopes onto the icecap, from where the slopes gradually ascend to the summit, before gradually losing height until I reach the terminus of the ice on the West Coast. I will continue on foot to the sea's edge- the final stage in making a complete crossing of Greenland.

A total distance of about 550km, total ascent of 2500m and a total timeframe of about 30 days.

Temperatures should range between 10 and -30 degrees centigrade.

My days are spent training for the crossing - 8 to 10 hours a day towing a sled on skis is quite hard to simulate on the south coast of the UK in July. So I am mixing up, running, cycling, kayaking, hiking with fully laden rucksack, swimming and gym work as well as the infamous Polar Explorer training exercise of tyre pulling. I spent the first 2 weeks after Iceland pulling a lorry tyre up and down the beach for 3 to 4 hours, 3 times a week, this was very hard to start with and caused my knees a lot of pain so I took a week off for them to recover, I have now upgraded to 2 tyres and have dropped the number of hours, to see if this relieves the pain.

On Thursday however I was out with a friend in Dorchester and whilst explaining to his parents what I was about to do over a cup of tea, they admitted to having a real pulk and harness in the loft, albeit one especially for towing children through the snow in Lapland, but a pulk all the same. They were keen to bring it down and for me to have a go in the garden. After rummaging through the loft we found it caked in a layer of dust. Out on the lawn we put Molly (Jan's daughter) into the pulk (ironically his parents pulled him to nursery in Sweden 36 years ago in the same pulk), she was a willing guinea pig, but I think I enjoyed the experience more than she did.

The rest of my day is spent, tweaking my equipment, tying to reduce the weight of each item, making zips more accessible and generally reading up on travel in extreme temperatures, of which I have no real experience.

Next week I have a climbing lesson to simulate crevasse rescue, one of the main dangers I will have to face at the start and end of the expedition. I have to be conversant with hauling people from the bottom of one and also comfortable with climbing out of one myself. Crevasses aren't the only risk to this journey, Polar Bear encounters, these I have been told only really appear on the West coast - but I have retrieved my old gun from the loft and have been taking target practice on the local pigeons (also a great source of protein for my diet!) I will also be carrying a gun on the expedition albeit a bit more powerful than a .177 Webley Omega.