21 05 99

Position: 65° 41' 49" N 38° 50' 33" W

(Diane's note: very clear transmission today)

From our coordinates it doesn't look like we made much progress today. We had to take a long dog leg to the east to avoid an area of heavy crevasses. Then for the last couple of hours we've been able to head more directly inland. From now on we'll be making progress towards our destination. We took a long time this morning to dig out from the storm that inundated us with snow. Our tents were covered and everything had walls of snow around it. That was ok though; we needed the time to repack and re-organize.

Then we found in contrast to the storm we had the very opposite extreme. It was very hot. We were just going in one layer of clothing and sweating like pigs all the way for most of the day. It was uncomfortably hot, especially as there were some very steep sections. It took just about all our strength, one step at a time, just to keep the sleds moving up those steeper parts. By the end of the day it started to cool down and the snow got a bit harder, so we finally began to make better progress.

We're all just going through the initial breaking-in period. There are potential problems with blisters and chafing with the harness. We stop fairly often just to make adjustments. Over the next few days our bodies should start to break into it and then we'll be all set for the long haul.

Today was flat calm which was pleasant in some ways but we really want the wind and in the right direction to be able to start using our sails.

(Laurie and team are trying to avoid areas of crevasses. To get an idea of the immensity of these crevasses see the photos at Greenland Guide, Ice Cap Divers)

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