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

Thank You

A big thank you to all our friends and family that have allowed us to get to this point ! It is truly incredible being up here in Resolute Bay and feeling some idea of what true Polar Explorers experience in their endeavours. As Iain mentioned in the last blog earlier today one silly mistake creates a tidal wave of problems which all end up in one being Cold or dehydrated or both and the week we have been here preparing has allowed us time to try and overcome those difficulties and work on solutions.
On a personal note I wanted to thank Lara ,Alec, My Parents and my Sisters for there good wishes on my Birthday (today) which I was handed earlier today ! Thanks all your messages brought a tear to my eye , luckily I was inside otherwise they might have frozen to my face. Thanks all I love you and miss you .
We have calculated we can make approx 2.2 nautical miles across good ice and snow without becoming sweaty messes at the end of the day .(There are aprox 1.1 normal miles in a nautical mile).However broken ice/ rubble fields or hillsides etc do slow us down .First leg (65 nautical miles) should prove a good testing ground to see where we stand against other teams etc. On the move we are among the faster teams we still need to get faster at creating camp and breaking camp if we are to save valuable time ,but as everyone noted in our de-brief following 2 day mini expedition, speed in packing up can lead to errors . Safety remains the watch word and above everything else we will remain safe.
A huge thanks personally from me to Lara, Jane and Kate and all our collective families for letting us try to do this . You support and encouragement really are the difference . Having two great friends to do this with could make all the difference in the weeks ahead. Wish us luck and keep the mesages of support coming so we can catch up on them in checkpoints .
Race starts at approx 2PM from Resolute tomorrow . Wish us luck !!
The birthday boy.

one day to go

We have returned to the South Camp Inn after two nights out in weather 'as cold as we have it'. We know it was below -40 as that was all the readings would go down to, though one chap did hear -45 was the figure. Just about everyone had 'moments'. By this I mean experiences, short or long which rammed home what a lethal environemnt we are in. On the morning of the 3rd, it was so cold only IW could move his hands to get the tent back down. Things one takes for granted in the real world (!!) like doing up a zip, putting gloves on, changing clothes all have their issues and need to be thought through. Even equipment is fallible despite being built for the conditions. We have had issues with our MSR stoves, and simultaneously last night, our goggles fell apart as the temperature went below what the glue could bear. Vitals these, it makes one aware of how thin the line can be.
Food is the saviour. We have dehydrated rations which in the morning and at night we can rehydrate with boiled water. During the day, 'day bags'. these are ziplock bags full of nuts, cheese, chocolate, salami...why has no-one claimed that recipe?....anyway, we graze on this as we stop skiing every 75 mins or so. It is a shock though as the food must defrost in the mouth and it feels a little like sticking a hand full of cold pebbles in! Thank gawd I've still got me own teeth!
Anyway, a bitter night, Ice on hats, sleeping bags, it even snows in the tents as our breath turns to ice! Gloves go hard with icelock.
Depite this morale is high. We knit as a team and mutual understanding and the timesaving teamwork and procedures are coming through. We are feeling strong, but realistic. This is no environment to make the least mistake.

One thing that is becoming apparent is that it is sometimes simply too cold for cameras to work. Video in particular. Having come 'tooled up' with video, Flip, and conventional cameras, it is difficult to warm them and keep them warm, as well as the batteries. We will try to get photos on here via the USB stick and Chris the IT man, but there are updates via:
http://polarrace.com/2009/news

Special mention has to be made of the Pacerpoles we are using. They are great, but the overmit that was almost chucked in as an after thought is invaluable. It means that we do not have to resort to the huge pillow case gloves when skiing. The do seem to allow us less effort, though the bright orange wee we are producing at the end of te day, shows we are exerting ourselves to dehydration. water intake will be key.
This all sounds alarming, but we are more than coping and spirits are good. No one should worry, we are careful and the only Polar Bear sightings have been after they saw the taxidermist.

The race starts tomorrow.
Wish us all Luck!! It's John's Birthday today, his second 21st!! Something tells me we won't be knocking a few back though!

Home from Home

Home from home. This is how we are living at the moment. Yes, it is as cold as it looks, but we are, sort of, getting used to it.

Furious Activity!

The last few days have seen more preparation and training. Tent work, skiiing, skiing with pulks, cooking, cooker maintenance. Packing, re- packing, re-repacking, and then more. Food has been issued, so a huge exercise in terms of breaking it down into food per race leg, then per day and guess what packing and repacking into drop off bags. The problem with repacking so many times is that one forgets what one packed where, when….so starts repacking again!

The bitter weather last night, -36 degrees inside the tent, gave way to the most amazing blue skies and the longest visibility we have yet had. Resolute Bay is framed by a rocky ridge which looms over the village. To the South we can see out to the ridges where the sea ice meets the bay. Despite all the snow and ice, the atmosphere is incredibly dry and sucks the moisture from ones breath. Snow creaks underfoot, but loudly, accentuated by the general silence.

We are all very tired. Activity is pretty well non stop, but any slower moments are spent with mind spinning, wondering whether all is in order, attempting to finesse gear, packing (!) etc., to the extent that we are more worried about over engineering.

Arrived!

Two long days saw us head in and out of Ottawa. Frenetic activity doing last minute repacking, organising, furious shopping at the supermarket....vaseline, wipes (!) extra grub, hot pads...actually very stressful as we don't know what we don't know!
Anyway some quick three to a room kip. IW won the spoof so had a double bed to himself, and rubbed it in further by a full repetoire of farmyard animal noises through the night.
An early start saw us on a 737 to Iqaluit, then transfer to a smaller plane to Hall Beach, which was unscheduled as the weather was too poor in Nansevik. (?) Then finally to Resolute. The planes and buildings get smaller as we get further North and the temperature drops. Resolute is extremely desolate, temperature about -28 degs including windchill.
A late night was spent with supper in the South Camp Inn, again, organising and reorganising kit. This time David won the Animal impersonations. From now we are out in the tents.
About to get bindings sorted for the skis. All quite intense,the chat very focussed on matters in hand!!

Follow the race - sign up for daily updates

With less than a week before the team leave for Ottawa and then Resolute (march 29th) there is now the opportunity through the organizers website to sign up for daily race updates so you can track progress / send messages of support etc . The webpage where you only need to fill in your e-mail address is http://polarrace.com/2009/contact/subscribe
Wish us luck

Kit's coming on....

Hey ho, the kit is taking shape! Nipped down to Brocket on a chilly morn to get some photos for the golf mag....This is the result! No not David Bailey, some poor victim who was dragged from the clubhouse for five minutes..must have wondered what was going on...maybe he thought he was being kidnapped by a Super Hero. Yeh right!!

PR!!

http://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/Golf/News/searchresults/March-09/Going-for-a-pole-in-one/Post.aspx

Today's Golfer have put us on their website....all we could scramble together at short notice, however they want to run a piece in their magazine in May. Magic. Anyone who logs on to the above link, please scroll down and rate it 5* in order to keep it live. GT is the largest circulation golf magazine in the UK.
Callaway are supporting us too.
Gave an excuse to get down to the course. Hope my golf is better at the pole!

Packing day

Saturday 6th, down to Bristol to pack the pulks with the team equipment, check the medical gear etc. quite a shock to realise that we won't be seeing the gear until we are on the 'other side'. The next time we'll see the organisers and the other team members is on departure day at Heathrow!
As we were leaving, John realised that he had forgotten the all important golf club! Fortunately, having played the day before, a lazy Mr W had left his clubs in John's car, so his 7 iron saved the day!
Not long to go. Lot of gear teaking, sewing loops onto zips, pouches into jackets and some wolf fur into the windsuit hood. OOOOh my fingers!

Getting closer

Sunday saw a 'training day' at Teddington. It was useful to see the IT man Chris for some helpful advice on keeping in touch with the website>>>>

NOTE=>top left of home page now has a link which will have a live update of race positions daily. We will be able to get short postings on to this blog daily, and hopefully fuller commentry and even images onto this blog at the first and third checkpoints.

We had a useful update on photo/video techniques. In the afternoon we went over it all again as a certain someone from another team was late, and insisted on asking questions about everything we'd done in the morning. Ah well, 'twas ever thus!

We only have a 'packing day' left before we go, so it really is all becoming a reality. We were given wolf fur to sew into our hoods, animal fibres being so much more thermally efficient, so we are told. Makes me wonder why we don't all wear tweed suits and woolly jumpers, like Scott and Shackleton...oh yeah....

Anyway, frantic activity as all the customising of kit is going on, sewing patches, wolf fur etc.

Great news is that big Dave, on a trip to Australia, seems to have secured sponsorship, if only in kind with a Vinyard!!

He asked us what we thought...

'Entirely appropriate', I said.

Camera & GPS training -Feb 22

Iain and John spent a large portion of sunday at the Royal canoe club on the sunny banks of the Thames in Teddington listening to experienced cameraman Kees T'hooft talking about experiences filming in hazardous conditions ,especially the cold. This will prove more useful to some teams than others (especially those with a camera crew following their every step). However it was good to check that we already have adequate equipment. The race organizers appear keen to capture film of teams at their lowest ebb and have suggested filming arguements and close encounters rather than latrine humour. Are they in for a surprise ! Also we focussed on more GPS entries and now have the exact co-ordinates of all check points along the actual race route. A less scrupulous and better funded team might take advantage of such info (Top Gear where are you when we really need you). We also got our first look at EPIRBS which is the emergency beacon we all carry. Apparently they are registered with Falmouth coastguard here and also the Canadian authorities. All in Jock's name. He better be at those checkpoints ahead of schedule. After paying close attention to what was said and with certain late arrivals starting to repeat details we made a tactical withtreat. Back on the Internet as always jealous of other teams kit and sponsorship deals . It does appear David's absence in Australia may have yielded a corporate sponsor , I am sure he will update us all in due course. Suffice to say wine is a worthy substitute for hard cash !

More kit evaluation...

Having been up and down the country in various snowy conditions, I thought I had found the perfect creature comfort to take to the pole. Having driven through the worst of the blizzards, North, South and in the midlands, in the fast lane of the A1 between Edinburgh and London, I thought nothing could conquer the mighty Volvo V70. Then I got it stuck in the drive in Northumberland. Alas, it won't be accompaying us to the pole. It might have been a big ask to disguise it as a polk, and 1.8 tonnes of excess baggage an even bigger one.

Still much debate about all the little nick nacks (no, not you Dave!)

Anyway, sunset on the Tyne....ahhhh.

deep snow

Having had 18'' of snow I thought it worth heading north to find some challenging weather. 20 miles North of Luton, blue skies and no snow.
Stopped at Bottletop (http://www.bottletop.co.uk/) to say hello, and to whom, a huge thank you for the donation of this site.
Came up for a trustee meeting of Gardening Leave and am staying in North Berwick with my old boss Col. Clive Fairweather ex commander SAS. He's a useful man to know..................
Advice heeded...'take a good knife, don't get caught, and if you do, don't say anything'.
I maintain that is my motto anyway, so nothing gained there, apart from a bloody good chilli con carne, and a chin wag about old times. IPA, Grolsch and some Shiraz. He stuck to the Rose. IW

Kit Check

Very much chat post the weekend 'training' about the practicalities of what surplus, or rather extra kit to take. John has found a Norwegian Kettle that can boil a whole whale, and Dave seems to have sourced a solar panel that we could possibly double as a spare tent. John has immediately ordered both, but then he does work for Goldbags! Maybe if we all did, we could do it Clarkson style, complete with 4x4 (no, not you Ulrika) and G&Ts.

The real debate has centred on how we carry immediate kit, water, snacks, etc., and stuff that needs to be kept on us, i.e. warm...batteries, i-pods, cameras, lighters, cigarettes, Cotes-du-Rhone etc., under our windsuits. I suggested chest rigs, a la our boys in green, but they are very heavy duty, and err..heavy and would turn into pressure cookers. I reckon we could cobble together something out of the odd ammo pouch and a belt, or braces etc.

As soon as I said 'ammo', JM went all misty eyed and via interweb search found some AK47 chest magazine storage rig from the Tet offensive! Worrying, I think he was serious!

Anyway, after much thinking, I think I have it cracked! We need something light, ventilated, shoulder hung and capable of reasonable storage......unsure where we can source the larger chest models, but maybe an excuse to get in touch with Jordan, she must be throwing a few out!

Back to work...

After the weekends exertions, it seemed right to get a dose of reality once more....so back to work.

A bit of snow was no problem for an Arctic explorer. Spent most of the in the snow as we can see!

Training Saturday

John and David came to Iain's on Saturday for some rigorous pre match training. The idea was to tackle a bit of tent work and work through some Navigation exercises and focus on some safety aspects of the cookset, as John has somehow managed to find himself 'very busy' for the last couple of training sessions. Anticiption was high.

There was a couple of hours detailed and rigorous debate, and, having invested in some new equipment on a recent training recce down to the West Country Iain filled his new 'cider mug' with a pint of Weston's Best. John started with a Cobra and was joined shortly (no pun intended) after by Dave. The trio moved swiftly onto some '04 Chablis, a magnum of 1998 La Croix-Canon, Canon Fronsac, a bottle of South African Shiraz and some '04 Haut Brion. IW showed his skill on the cookset by producing fried Haloumi with Salsa Verde, Stuffed loin and confit of lamb. Tarte Tatin and Cardomom icecream was washed down with some Italian Vin Santo and a bottle of Tokaji. Having drunk ourselves round most of Europe, we retired at 0130 for some rest and reflection.

Lessons learned from the weekend:

The cookset showed itself to be very versatile and practical. David will have a job to keep up with Iain's culinery efforts, especially as it may be a big ask for him to drag an AGA. We may have to scale down our gastronomic expectation with two MSR burners and a metal pot.

Having thought that we would be booze free, it was decided that we may need to take a 'little something'. Just for special events....Of course, for practical reasons, we decided it will have to be quite strong in order that it doesn't freeze....;-)

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