Day 24

Lat S84deg 45.929’
Long W80deg 43.406’
Altitude 1337m
Daily distance 13.80nm

A very light breeze made today so much more bearable and comfortable than yesterday. Definitely colder despite there being barely a cloud in the sky to hamper the sun. Tent is still very warm but again more bearable.
Had to sleep outside of my sleeping bag again last night but will see how that goes this evening.
Terrain improved to a degree but there were still large patches of the crusty surface that has been present for a few days now. Not long before my final session ended, the landscape seemed to really open up and the sastrugi almost disappeared. Only issue is that the crusty surface was now dominant again. I’ve gained some height too so a reasonable return for my efforts today.
All going well I should reach or be extremely close to the 85th degree by the end of tomorrow. This is the halfway point so will be quite a milestone to get to. Thiel waypoint is another five nautical miles further south so Saturday is likely for that. Still no sign of Thiel mountains but they’ll have to come into view tomorrow as I’ll be right on top of them before long. I keep scanning the horizon in the hope of something showing itself but nothing yet.
In terms of longitude I have edged closer to 81 degrees west in anticipation of the next waypoint but until this time I have been keeping to the middle of 80 & 81. This was mainly to keep as far away from the crevasse fields in this stretch as possible. I have now passed one to the west and the one to the east will get further away as I make progress tomorrow. The distance between lines of longitude here is down to less than ten miles as they all converge on the pole so by staying between 80 & 81 here avoids these and staying in the middle seems to have worked best as I haven’t seen a single crevasse yet.
The new liner gloves have been modified. Turns out that the holes on the thumbs were pretty useful for operating my phone so I’ve snipped the tops off. They were going to develop holes anyway so now I’ve done it on my terms!

#heartinternet #diabetesuk #curraNZ #expeditionfoods #primalpantry
#antarcticlogisticsandexpeditions #solo #southpole #antarctica
#seediabetesdifferently