April 19, 2006, Map of route to the North Pole
Had a good flight back from Barneo, arriving back at Spitsbergen around 5pm.
Reunited with David. Had a celebration dinner and drank into the early hours of the morning whilst reading the various comments that friends and family had left for us. It was great to get so much feedback.
Our flight from Spitsbergen took off on time, we transited via Tromso to Oslo where after a short delay we picked up our final flight to London.
Thanks to everybody for your support, and thanks to Helen for organising the champagne & upgrade for our return journey - a great touch.
It's amazing what can happen in two weeks of your life.
We will be adding a library of photographs to the website shortly so please keep checking back.
Thanks again.
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Spent 5 hours at the pole waiting for helicopter. When it arrived it had two gentlemen from Kazakhstan on board enjoying a champagne flight. They planted their national flag on an ice house that Alan Ingles had built, believing it to be the North Pole. We made instant friends and spent the evening back at Barneo camp site celebrating our success by drinking copious amounts of Russian vodka into the early hours of the morning.
All had a good nights sleep and now waiting for return flight to Spitsbergen due in one hour. Staying in Spitsbergen overnight and returning to the UK late Wednesday.
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April 17, 2006, The Top of the World
After briefly claiming control of the pole for the Brits it was soon to be be taken back by the Russians.
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April 17, 2006, The Top of The World
The lead that we camped next to last night did not freeze enough to be crossed safely so we started out this morning by walking East to see if we could find a crossing point. Finding none we had to track back to the camp site and continue west but eventually found a way across via to or three ice flows.
We came across the tracks of the husky dogs that had pulled Prince Albert of Monaco to the pole a few hours earlier (alright for some). These gave us a clue as to a safe crossing point.
After that however they got onto good ice and for the last 2 hours the going was excellent.
We eventually made it to the Pole at 2pm and everyone was justifiably elated.
We then enjoyed a bacon sandwich prepared by Pete in a place few others ever get to see.
The Russians were contacted and we were told that the helicopter will be picking us up in around 2 hours. It actually turned up in five hours.
Alan says that we have had to work very hard this year with unusual amounts of heavy snow and high currents and that we have really earned ourr bacon sandwich.
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April 17, 2006, 89 56.84'N 164 38.70'E
Our luck was in and we managed to get straight across the lead which had partially closed up over night. We walked for eleven hours until we hit another huge lead. We were all exhausted and decided to rest up and see if the lead would freeze up sufficiently for us to cross it in the morning. At that time we were 3.2 miles away from the pole. So near yet so far.
With it being Easter Sunday we enjoyed some mini cognac filled eggs courtesy of Alan & Pete.
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April 15, 2006, 89 46.56'N:168 04.55'E
We have had our best day so far and have managed 9.5 miles in 9 hours of hauling.
We are now 13.5 miles from the North Pole and we are also the moist advanced team on the ice.
Mind you it has been hard work, we have had temperatures of -20 with freezing fog for most of the day meaning quite bad visibility. There has also been quite a lot of open water to cross, and we have had to build 2 bridges today.
3 bindings failed during the day.
We have camped next to a massive lead and are hoping that during the night it may close up enough for us to get across in the morning.
A seal gave Michael the surprise of his life today. He had received the call of nature and went off to dig a small hole near the edge of the ice. He dropped his trousers and settled down to business, so to speak, when a large seal suddenly popped it's head out of the water right next to him. The team aren't sure which of them was the most surprised.
We camped at 89 47 N and 168 05 E.
In the morning we heard that the Russians were jumping all the other groups forward. They were significantly behind us. We learnt that they would be jumped 30 miles to just 10 miles away from the pole.
We had an option to be jumped forward too. None of us wanted to take the jump but we had an impassable lead in front of us.
Whilst debating what to do, our decision was really made for us as the air lifts would not start until the end of the day and we were certainly in no mood to sit around - so we decided to see if we could get past this huge lead.
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April 14, 2006, Disappointing development
There has been a disappointing development - Dave's condition continued to worsen. It has developed into a chest infection, which normally would not be the cause of too much concern, easily cleared up with a course of antibiotics. In the harsh conditions of the arctic however it needs to be treated with more care and the decision has been taken to air lift Dave back to Camp Barneo by helicopter.
This is cruel disappointment for Dave who has spent the past fifteen months organising the entire trip. We all feel for him. He is happy that it is the correct decision however and is planning to try and get back to Spitzbergen and wait there for the rest of the team to come off the ice.
We have not broken camp this morning as we are in a good area for the helicopter to land.
We are currently at 89 24 N which means that we are now 2 miles further back from the Pole than we were 2 days ago.
It has become obvious that they are we going to find it extremely tough to make it to the Pole under these conditions.
Following a team talk we decided to make use of the helicopter by getting a lift nearer to our goal.
The plan is to all get in the helicopter with Dave and then get dropped off at 89 48N. This will still leave us a significant challenge but should allow us to make it on foot to the North Pole.
The helicopter arrived and Dave has flown back to Camp Barneo where he will be well looked after.
We got a ride a little nearer to the Pole but nowhere near as far as we had hoped. The helicopter captain had not received the instruction from Barneo to take us forward and only agreed to take us part way. Our hearts sank.
Once dropped we set-off for 8 hours of hauling in heavy snow and poor visibility.
We had a lot of leads to contend with including 5 really big ones and we had to build 2 bridges.
Building a bridge consisted of throwing enough of a pile of snow and ice into the gap you are trying to cross. Imagine a 3 ft gap of water, it is just too far to jump or bridge with your ski so you throw loads of ice in and nip across.
We have also had 3 breakages - 2 bindings and 1 skin coming off.
We managed to get 4 miles nearer to the Pole from where the helicopter dropped them but we are still fighting the current.
We have 21 miles still to cover and only 3 full days left so it is going to be a real challenge.
The weather has improved now and we have made camp, the clouds have cleared away and sun has come out.
The camp is now at 89 39 37 N and 170 31 35 E.
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April 14, 2006, Close to the North Pole
Chris in an attempt to secure fresh meat for the team.
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April 14, 2006, 89 29.00'N:167 10.00'E
An exhausting 9 nine and a half hours on the ice today.
We started at 89 24 21 N and 170 02 E which meant that as predicted yesterday, most of yesterday's gain was lost over night. The morning was very hard work as we got into an area with lots of leads and mushy ice and had to work very hard getting round the leads and making our way from ice flow to ice flow.
By lunch time however we had managed to get out of this bad area and onto some better ice and progress improved.
In the afternoon for the last 2 or 3 hours we found excellent conditions and were able to make really good time getting in around 4 miles.
We made camp 31 miles from the Pole but again the drift is strong and we have lost around half a mile since making camp.
Everyone is an good spirits however, and prepared to really fight hard over the next few days to achieve that goal.
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April 14, 2006, 89 29.0'N : 167 10.0'E
We walked for ages to round this lead which meant that we were off track for some time. We tried building a bridge but failed.
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