Day 16

Day 16
Lat S82deg 56.523’
Long W80deg 28.501’
Altitude 1098m
Daily distance 14.25nm

Opened the tent this morning to this glorious view. The clouds seemed to be rising from one point on the horizon and fanned out from there but only in one place as the rest of the sky was cloudless.
Weather not changed and at times it even felt a bit too warm. Pit zips on my jacket came in handy and so far both the jacket and salopettes from Mountain Equipment have been perfect so thank you Rhodri Lewis from Nordic Life for sourcing.
My last two breaks had occasional periods of no wind and total silence. Quite special moments in this landscape and something I’ve only experienced a few times before in the Scottish hills.
Midday brought a little bit of height gain along with some awkward sastrugi but once negotiated it levelled out where I flirted with the 1100 metre contour until I stopped. The altitude will continue to build, gradually I hope, as the short sharp increases are quite tough and they always seem to go hand in hand with the sastrugi getting worse.

I had a message from Tanel last night. Our Estonian road trip buddy had reached Thiel Mountains. Thiel is roughly my half way point in terms of distance and I’ve still got 129 nautical miles before I get there (8 or 9 days).
Tanel is on the Messner Route which is shorter but he’s off to climb Mt Vinson afterwards too. This is where his route joins mine before turning for the pole.
On our road trip, Tanel jumped at least two red lights, went through a Go/No Go sign at a roadworks causing panic and happened to be driving when we got a flat tyre. He also managed to get all four occupants of another car give us the bird simultaneously.
Anyhow, his message went like this……
‘I got to Thiel today, didn’t saw red light and turned to SPole’
Go Tanel!!

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