Day 28

Friday got off to a predictable start, reveille at 0600, morning routine; approx. 60 mins to wake up, get dressed, ablutions, melting snow for water, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and embarking on getting the frozen ski boots on. Another hour is then spent packing pulks, applying suncream, tent collapse, more pulk packing, and getting set to step off just after 0800 daily check in to JACO has occurred.

Now on the icecap, the route was predicable: 134km on a 325 degree compass bearing to Dye-III lay ahead of us. A few terrain features remained visible, notably a large rock to the west, difficult to judge the size and distance, but it at least worked as a marker to keep us on course between intermittent compass checks. The plan for the day was for 8 pulls, each consisting of 50 mins, with 10 mins rest, up to the 4-hour point, when we’d stop for an extended 30-minute lunch break.

Progress was good, with a very gentle uphill gradient, interspersed with short ramps of around 1km which caused us to drop the pace. With little to orientate yourself by, you tend to feel the gradient change before you can see it properly, as the weight of the pulk pulls you back.

The morning passed quickly with some opting for quiet reflection during pulls, some with the headphones on listening to music, audiobooks, or podcasts, and others chatting on a variety of topics.

Post lunch the temperature was getting up, and with the hills and softening snow underfoot the pace slowed down slightly. During the final pull of the day a long and steep hill lay ahead as the final sting in the tail. All team members dug deep to make it up, to find us met with a large but frozen over meltwater channel at our intended camp location. We pressed on by 500m to find the flat ground and set up camp for the night. In the distance to the East there were two rocks on the horizon. Charley and Tom convinced themselves that they could see a radar dish or flag flapping on the top of one of the rocks, only to be corrected by the Danish wisdom, that this was indeed the mirage effect of the heat rising, and a visual trick! The binoculars settled the argument that the Danes were indeed correct.

Evening camp routine set in; erecting the tents, digging the toilet pit (an iterative process with most team members voicing an opinion), getting kit off and hung up to dry, before dinner and other admin tasks.
We launched the drone to capture the scale of the landscape around us, providing some amazing footage of the terrain, and how tiny we appear amongst this.

After dinner, the camp was visited by a friendly 8ft tall polar bear (Tom in an inflatable suit) which provided an injection of morale. Kris got a bit too close and was swiped by the right paw, denting his pride but no other major damage was done.

With a rest day ahead spirits were high, but there were clearly some tired bodies in the team.