Veni Vidi Vici

Well...events overtook post CP2. It took forever for the last post to get back to Race HQ and, with logistics ever more complicated after then, i.e. no backloading from CP3, no opprtunity until now, blighty side, to say anything.

So...Check point 2 to CP3 showed some drama as we got off to our usual rubbish start, leaving equipment behind, for once, not Iain's exploding bungees, but something else...cost us 30 mins and we only covered 7 miles after poor rubble again. Still we forged on and made CP3 three hours ahead of the others. 3/3!
We were aware that time to the end of the race was pressing, so expected, and were rewarded with a quick turnaround. We were all off within 24 hours.

A long time was spent on the map for the final leg. We felt confident to take on the Noice Peninsular via the Eastern 'neck'. We double checked with the senior men on the ground and had the route approved. We thought sticking to the East of Thor Island, and closer to the coat we would gain advanage as the ice conditions would be better, and so it proved, delivering a fanatstic 21 nm stretch on day two. We were then surprised bearing in mind previous approval, to be told that we had to enter the peninsular via a westerly way point. It cost us half a day, and though confident that we had enough lead, made the difference between a night's stopover, or not and thus the record....and being first to the pole. Still, we won! And at that point..who cares!?

We did the nearest the pole contest...IW managed to duff his ball closer to the pole than John's slice and Dave's hook....and earned his own room in the Lord Elgin in Ottawa.

Huge, huge thanks to all the support which we know was out there. It made the difference.

Big thanks to Bottletop for the website - so many compliments.
Massive thanks, again, to Pacerpole for their poles and mitts.......they made a huge difference.

From all of us: Iain 'one pair of socks' Whiteley, David 'kitch bitch' Stanton, and John 'those feet' MacPherson, thank you.

Check Point Two

[Note from Chris: Apologies for the delay, I did not receive the message until today]

Sitting in Check point two suffering slightly from cabin fever. We were determined to make the CP the night we did in order to make god our advantage, and ensure an extra nights rest. We detected the weather deteriorating as we got closer, so all the more reason. It was exhausting, particularly the last two days, as conditions conspired against us.
Anyway, having achieved our aim, we suffer the penalty of waiting for everyone else. Much as we would like to be active, and moreover get on with repair and maintenance, the wind prohibits movement and confines us to the tent. It is bitter, one has to walk backwards to go forwards in order not to risk ones face. The senior member of the support staff says he has not experienced worse weather, ice conditions and temperatures in his thirteen years of coming here. At one point at the last checkpoint, some equipment measured -62 degrees! Put that in your pipe Al Gore!
The other thing that is harsh is the ice conditions. We have hit severe rubble several times, and our last nine miles in took seven and a half hours of extreme effort.
We had a good leg on the whole and in some patches up the coast, hit areas of flat ice, or ‘M6’ as we called it, where we could take our skis off and walk, hardly feeling the tug of our pulks behind. We saw some spectacular ice formations and scenery and plenty of wildlife evidence….foxes, some huge wolf pad marks and the ever present Polar Bears. We have managed to avoid contact so far with P Bear, so far, maybe they are nesting, or back in the zoo!
One moment of drama was when we encountered soft ice at the North side of the appropriately named Water Sound. John went in to his knee, giving us a real shock. The only way was forward through more slush, and IW didn’t mind admitting to ‘bricking it’ leading on to safer ice. The going was arduous. Rubble is compacted loose ice, lumps from the size of a shoe, to the size of a car….or sometimes a house. It is a nightmare negotiating ones way through it, over it, round it. You can take your skis off but you go in to your thigh, leave them on and it is like going over an assault course…..well..in skis, dragging a 100lb plus pulk! We have taken to climbing high bits to get a view forward but it is exhausting. It varies in intensity, but even the light stuff requires concentration and a good eye, to make the best headway without losing ones bearing. DS has proved to have such an eye, which is good news as IW, who was doing most of the navigation and leading through the ice, sunburnt his retinas - snow blindness - from looking at the snow too much. Another reason to make good the dash to CP2.
Bad news…we want to get on with it! We also have quite a bit of kit to repair…. We broke a tent pole, our pulks are like cheese graters, pulling in pounds of snow on top of what we have to carry, our ski bindings are all smashed to bits and we are improvising with bungees! Thomas Edison, Watt, Brunel….where is Mr Bungee in the archive? Bungees are our answer to everything!
So, the good news…We arrived first again, building on our lead. We are all in good physical shape, bar some numb fingers and toes and Iain’s eyes, and the odd minor blister. We have had some rest and are eager to pick up from where we left off. Conditions ahead do not look great, and we are waiting for the ‘good weather’ to arrive, but we are confident as we have broken the back of the race now. The conditions are holding some teams up quite a bit, so we are slightly concerned that the race timetable may slip, or there may be some rerouting, but you will see news of that on the race website.
So, all in good shape, missing everyone and looking forward to tea and toast in blighty!

The Boys on Arrival at CP1

Here's a picture that went up on the Polar Race website, but might look good here too. Please click on it for the full size version.

News from Checkpoint One

[Passed to Chris from the Checkpoint Crew]

A hard haul put us into CP1 in pole position by some 18 hours. The first three days were fine, but cold, temperatures into the minus thirties, however Thursday 9th was a different ball park. We were 15 nautical miles short of check point one, so, to give us some advantage, we decided to reveille at 4am and skip breakfast. The most beautiful red sunrise should have been recognised as the harbinger of bad news, for the weather deteriorated in minutes to white out, and harsh 30 mph plus winds. Half way, we decided that stops for drink and food were doing us more harm than good, such were the bitter conditions, and we battered through the storm to arrive at the checkpoint at 1414 hrs local. We were tired and cold to our core.

We were very chuffed to have arrived first, especially as we had been through seven ski bindings and had one left between all of us. We had had to adapt and overcome.

The best thing about being first in, is that we have the most time to dry our gear, repair kit, reorganise and repack(!) and rest before the next stage.

We are in good spirits, and heartily chuffed that the ’grey beards’ of Pole-in-One are in pole!!

On Behalf on the Boys

Hi, I'm Chris the Polar Race web guy. I also run the daily scheduled check-in calls the teams make once a night. Well, the boys asked me to put something up on their blog so you guys would know what's going on.

Well, currently they are in the lead, but it's early days yet, and they might not know it. They are making good progress but have been having trouble with the ski bindings and managed to break 4 bindings on their first day out! So they have been making repairs with the materials they have - mostly duct tape and cable ties - in order to be able to continue skiing.

They commented last night that they had seen a number of old polar bear tracks, but nothing more recent than a few days.

They look to be the first into checkpoint and should arrive there sometime during this afternoon (it's only 8:30am local time here at the moment...)

Not trying to plug too much, but their latest positions updated nightly (here, so will have changed first thing in the AM in the UK) and are all plotted on a map over at polarrace.com, so check it out.

Morning of the Race - April 6th

All slept well on the floor of the room we are using to organise kit at the South Camp Inn at Resolute on our final night before the off. It seemed luxurious compared to last weeks camping out on the Ice every night and allowed us to continue working on kit long into the evening . A good bottle of champagne was opened and despatched by a number of us to celebrate my Birthday. Not feeling satisfied we moved swiftly on and through the 21 Year Old bottle of Highland Park. Feeling good today and really optimistic for the weeks ahead. Even met at Breakfast this Morning Pen Hadow's re-supply man in Resolute (Dominic) part of the Catlin Team attempting to survey ice thickness by dragging a huge radar type contraption to the pole. I told him to mention to Pen there is more then one OH on his way to the Pole now.
Tough bit of the next few weeks will be not speaking to family and friends , but we have each other for company and we are all commited ,so rest easy we plan to .We are 6 hours behind UK time here so when we finish at end of every day (say for example 8PM at night) it would be 2 AM the following day with you , so expect race updates around breakfast time on official race website .They use google earth to track progress of teams so you should be able to see how we are getting on. We have to make a radio call to Base camp at 8 PM each night with our exact location.
All Our Love
Touch Not the Cat Bot a Glove, or as I prefer to translate my family moto , 'Walk Softly but carry a Big Stick' . JM

From David

Hi to one and all !
We are now 24 hours away from the start and after our 2 day training hike now very aware as to what lies ahead over the next 3 and a bit weeks. I think deep down we have all been taken somewhat by surprise at just how harsh this place can be. The last 2 nights of -40 degree plus (or should that be minus) temperatures have been brutal.

Saturday was our 11th wedding anniversary and to say that I miss Kate and the kids is an understatement, I can only imagine what a great time you are having back at Point Lonsdale. I hope PT is not missing his old wetsuit too much, but be rest assured that it has been put to good use as a goggle mask and a sunglasses protector.


Today is Big John's birthday and Iain and my self managed to smuggle in a bottle of bubbles to celebbrate, which we will do tonight. Hopefully they will also have the effect of lowering the sonic boom like snoring that we are all suffering from and of at the moment.

I can also only reiterate John's comments around family support and say that without the love and understanding of our families we would not be able to undertake this most amazing adventure.

Dave