19 06 99

Position: 67° 10' 03" N 49° 57' 42° W

Diane's note: In spite of the difficulties they're facing, the tone of Laurie's message is still upbeat. He doesn't sound at all discouraged.

It's just after 11:00 o'clock our time. We've just made camp and we're starting to get supper. From this call you can gather we're not at the end point. We did 12 solid hours today with hardly any stops, struggling at times for all we were worth, and in those 12 hours we managed 10.5 kms. It was absolutely horrendous! We were faced with huge gaping holes, crevasses, walls, hollows, icefalls, everything you could possibly imagine. We had to back track many times. We sometimes had to leave our sleds and do a reconnaissance just on skis. It's just been absolutely awful and at 10:00 o'clock tonight, we realized we just had to stop.

We still have 4 1/2 kms to go. We've done a reconnaissance all around the camp site and still don't really have a route down. We've got tomorrow to figure it out.

Our camp site is on a little bit of snow with a big wall of ice on one side and a huge, blue gaping crevasse on the other. We're right in the middle on a sloping ledge. It's a spectacular camp site.

Because of the temperature everything is very wet, the snow itself is very heavy and wet. We're facing a lot of glacial streams rivers lakes and ponds.We lucked out and managed to cross the biggest of the rivers safely over a snowbridge area. We're skirting these little ponds and our skins and skis are soaking wet. Our boots are sodden and even our equipment is all wet. The tent is wet. It's very uncomfortable travelling in these conditions. So even though we've only got 4 1/2 kms. to go, it's going to be a major struggle. We know we have to do it though.

It's pretty exciting, spectacular icefalls and exciting itinerary, but potentially dangerous for anyone who didn't know what they were doing.

End of transmission

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