22 05 99
Position: 65° 48' 24" N 38° 54' 18" W
(Diane's note: excellent transmission today. The team seems in high spirits.)
Our total distance travelled today was just over 12 1/2 kms. which doesn't sound like a tremendous amount, but in actual fact it's a great distance because we gained 1500 feet in altitude. In other words it was a long uphill day. We made incredibly good time and that's in spite of the loads we're hauling behind us in our sleds.
Our loads are going down but they're still around 240 lbs. There are times on the steeper parts when the sled stops and it takes absolutely every ounce of energy to get it moving again. You jerk and pull and jerk and pull and it doesn't move. It's just with a superhuman jerk that you finally get it moving again. Once it finally starts moving, you try and keep it going because you know once it stops you have to go through that all over again.
In any event, we are doing well. We all have minor aches and pains, nothing that's going to slow us down significantly. It was a fairly warm day and we were just skiing in one layer of clothing until late in the afternoon. The wind picked up and it got chilly and as we made camp the wind rose. Actually we were lucky we made camp just at the right time and the wind started to pick up. We're in the tent now and have just finished supper. The winds are blowing around; the tents are rattling. We can see snow blowing around the edges of the tent but we're very comfortable.
We haven't had a chance to use our sails yet. We've had solid head winds absolutely every step of the way so far. But once we pass the height of the land we hope to get some winds in our favour. All of us are very inexperienced with the sails. It's new technology for us; it's a learning process. The main idea is to gain some experience so we'll be really good when we embark on the Antarctic trip. We're actually very excited about using them. We're looking forward to not just using the sails but the change of direction in wind so it's not in our faces all the time.
We've pretty much passed most of the crevassed area, although there is still a chance of encountering more all the way through. It might look confusing because we haven't travelled in a straight line, but that's again because we've been avoiding crevasses. After tomorrow we'll be changing direction significantly and going from there in a straight line to our end point.
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