08 06 99

Position: 66° 21' 53" N 43° 25' 33° W

Diane's note: We lost contact before Laurie could finish. To learn more about the visual disorientation Laurie refers to when describing whiteouts visit Now You See It, Now You Don't, http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nstw/teach/nstw98/english/actb/seeit1.htm. Be sure to check the UV maps as well.

We achieved 10.3 kms. today which was quite outstanding. That 72 hours of steady snowfall really created havoc with the surface conditions. While yesterday was probably the hardest day of the whole trip, today was a close second. Conditions were similar but we had very slightly shallower drifts.

We feel that we are beginning to move downhill; it would appear that we are probably 100 or so feet lower than yesterday. We think we may have passed the high point contrary to what our maps indicate.

It was very cold last night. It went down to -36 °. That's probably what made for slightly better conditions. We hope that it's cold again tonight and we have some wind to scour the surface to improve conditions even more tomorrow.

When you're in whiteout conditions like we were during those 72 hours of snowstorm, you can't see where you're going and you get disoriented. Also the light is scattered and comes from 360 °. All three of us have sunburned tongues. It's quite unusual. Sunniva has experienced sunburn on the roof of her mouth on a previous occasion because the light is coming from every direction. So we can't help it; we're gasping all the time. We'll just have to tuck our tongues away...

End of transmission

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