Day 30 Ho-Ho-Ho
Day 30
Lat S85deg 55.699’
Long W81deg 15.965’
Altitude 1572m
Daily
distance 11.13nm
More like slow slow slow!
Wind has returned and it
was relatively strong to begin but waned as the day went on. Very sluggish start
and felt quite lethargic so had a word with myself but it was still a struggle
to get any decent rhythm. The wind has started to skim the snow away but there’s
enough left to stop any real glide. It’s all I can think of that’s slowing
progress as there was very little in the way of incline today and as far as you
can see there are very few sastrugi.
Feels like I’m on a huge plateau as I
feel I can see further ahead than normal. With a few clouds passing by the sun,
their shadows give a depth to the landscape all around and it gives a sense of
how huge this place is.
I started with the last of the Thiel range to the
west of me this morning but now they’re out of sight over the horizon. The next
thing I’ll see now will be the South Pole station!!
I decided not to take the
extra hour today. Mainly because I had a later start and by finishing later
would compress the time between pitching and my scheduled check in and that
would mean having to eat later and the knock on effect would be less sleep or
another late start. So I opted to just do ten hours and use Christmas as an
excuse to justify it!
Nothing special was brought for Christmas dinner so it
was a lucky dip and I had spaghetti carbonara. I also had a chocolate festive
wreath, a brandy fruit and nut cake (all 400g of it) and a miniature whisky that
were kindly given to me before I left. Im glad to have eaten the cake as it’s
quite a lump so maybe I’ll fly tomorrow without it in my pulk.
Another cold
day and a wind chill down to minus 30. Really felt cold on breaks and when
pitching the tent my hands got very cold again. I change mitts for working
gloves to put the tent up but it makes a difference in insulation by separating
the fingers. Once the tent was up and I was inside they warmed very quickly
though. The temperature will naturally get colder as I near the pole anyway as
the altitude increases all the way. With that in mind it’s all change again but
this time my top layer will get a refresh too. This one has been on since I
arrived on 23rd Nov so it’s served me well. Don’t think it smells too bad either
but I’m swapping for a thinner layer combined with a woolnet top. Essentially
this is a string vest but the two together are excellent. May even don my
woolnet long johns too. They aren’t attractive as it looks like I’m wearing
fishnets but out here who cares!
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#antarcticligisticsandexpeditions #solo #southpole #antarctica
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