Smooth Ice for an Easy Glide

Fresh Polar Bear Tracks…

It’s a Beautiful Day

Max all Dressed Up

This is the first day our sleds have truly felt light. The sleds are in fact getting lighter as we eat food and consume fuel, but another reason our sleds felt light was because we were gliding so well on the snow, which brings us to another “first”, a temperature of -10 F. That’s a 40 degree temperature difference from just over a week ago. The warm temps and easy glide allowed us to travel longer (8.5 hours) during which we made 9.25 miles.

It was so pleasant and easy to set up the tent in such warm conditions. I must emphasize, the sleds felt a lot lighter with the little extra glide. Everyone is very happy with our progress.

Our current position in degrees, minutes and seconds is N84.27.40, W78.22.xx

Maxime Chaya Pulling through a Pressure Ridge

Lonnie and Maxime

In the Tent at the End of the Day

We had a good day today, with mostly pans of ice separated by pressure ridges and dense pack.

As we close in on 84 degrees we are happy to report that all is well. Stuart has left a wonderful podcast so make sure to check it out! (below)

Our position in degrees, minutes and seconds is N83.57.07, W77.54.42

We made good progress today covering 6.4 nautical miles in 7 hours & 15 minutes. We were lucky to find a frozen lead trending North by Northwest, which we were able to follow for almost 2 miles. Finding a lead to travel on is akin to getting out of bumper-to-bumper traffic and getting on a super highway, with no obstacles to block your progress. A lead running due north is rare, but if it is trending in the right direction it is often a blessing!

We also encountered some more polar bear tracks, which always adds some excitement.

Stuart answers the question: “How do they go to the bathroom?”

Everything is organized in the tent, and then they run outside every morning, do their business, and then run back to the tent thinking “I’m glad that’s over!”
All three of us have our routines down to less than 3 minutes – including the dash to and from the tent!

The expedition is as hard if not harder than I anticipated, but I am thankful for our progress and good spirits so far.

Our current location in degrees, minutes and seconds is N83.49.52 W77.53.16

The highlight of the day was when we saw some fox tracks – what was it thinking! Seeing this small delicate print in the snow can seem like a true gift when you’ve been staring at the snow for hours on end, and perhaps feeling like you are the only thing around for miles.
But it also reminds you that where there is prey, there are predators, and the team is on the look-out for polar bears.

The temperature today was -32 F with calm winds and clearing skies.

As Ellesmere Island fades into the distance our progress becomes more and more noticeable. Today we traveled 5.1 nautical miles in 7 hours, and we plan to increase our hours of travel each day.

Our thoughts are with fellow expeditioners John Huston and Tyler Fish who are not too far away, facing the same conditions, but pulling double sleds…

Everyone on the team is in good spirits and we send our greetings!

We came across our first polar bear tracks…
We don’t anticipate an encounter, but are taking precautions and readying our bear deterrents.

The temperature was a temperate -25 F but there was a brisk wind out of the east which kept things feeling pretty cold.

Our position in degrees, minutes, seconds is N83.27.56, W77.33.15.

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