All
The Way - North Geographic Pole: The Polar Travel
Company 2002 Expedition
| The
definitive Arctic challenge - 416 nautical miles
(770 kilometers) across the frozen Arctic Ocean,
from the most northerly point of Canada to the
North Geographic Pole. |
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This
project offers the toughest expedition challenge made
available by any organization. Significantly, it is a
test more of attitude than technical skills. It is
therefore for people looking for the most serious of
physical and mental challenges. Characterized by cold
temperatures, as low as -45°C, high winds which often
produce low visibility and very high wind-chill, and
the major obstacles created by the shifting sea ice -
pressure ridges, open water and counter drift - the
challenge is one which continues to test even the most
seasoned explorers.
The
successful McVitie's Penguin Polar Relay (1997), organized
by The Polar
Travel Co, demonstrated that with effective
selection, physical training, polar instruction, and a
strategic re-supply schedule, people from all walks of
life, without prior polar experience, may be able to
meet such a challenge. The 'All The Way' planned for
Spring 2002 takes the concept one step further.
Whereas the all-women relay of '97 was split into five
relay legs, with a new team for each of the legs, 'All
The Way' is to be undertaken by the same team in three
consecutive legs with the support of two re-supplies
by aircraft after the third and sixth weeks of the
expedition.
Arriving
at Ward Hunt Island, and fully fit for the endeavour
ahead, the first task is to acclimatize to the weather
conditions and become familiar with the equipment in
field conditions. It is a critical ten days of
training under the constant eye of the two guides, who
will provide the team with basic skills and procedures
to start the sledge-hauling life on the Arctic Ocean -
the rest will be down to the team on the ice. Once traveling
on the Arctic Ocean life soon settles into a daily
routine that becomes almost monastic in its simplicity
and rigour.
The
highlights are often unexpected: the subtle and
changing colours of the snow-clad ice; the spectacle
of pressure ridges rising up and leads opening out;
spotting seals or the paw prints of a polar bear.
Regardless of the day's progress, which might be
anything from 1-30 kilometers, the reward of a hot
drink in a warm and protective tent is always there -
along with frequent discussions reviewing progress to
date, tactics to improve daily mileages etc.
The
ice team will comprise 1-2 polar guides and 4-8
participants, traveling on foot and ski, with all
equipment and supplies hauled in sledges. At the start
of each leg, the sledges will weigh approximately 80
kg (160 lbs), so fitness is extremely important.
The
team will set off from Ward Hunt Island off
northernmost Ellesmere Island (83° 05' North),
located in north-easternmost Canada. There will be two
re-supplies, the first by Twin Otter from Canada
around 85º 30' North, the second by MI-8 helicopter
from Russia around 87º 30' North. This keeps the
sledge weights down to a realistic minimum.
With
the weather conditions continually improving as early
Spring quickly gives way to early Summer, the main
factor dictating rate of progress across the ice will
be the degree of compression off-shore and thus the
extent and frequency of the pressure ridging.
Sledge-hauling over these features is extremely hard
work and can be demoralizing. Each year their extent
is different. As the ridging gradually gives way to
more consistently larger ice pans, so a new hazard can
increase in frequency - 'leads' (open water). Some can
be stepped over or jumped; others need to be
circumnavigated via a crossing place to the east or
west which can only be discovered by trial and error,
which can take many hours before northward progress
can be resumed.
With
the Pole almost in sight, the last 100 kilometers may
prove the longest if the frozen, but ever mobile,
surface sea ice develops a counter drift (southwards).
Only with the Pole reached can the team begin to
relax. More
later on this Expedition and the North Pole
Expeditions.
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