Day 40 – Prayers answered

Day 40
Lat S87deg 45.989’
Long W83deg 06.217’
Altitude 2495m
Daily distance 9.70nm

Another cold night but couldn’t be happier when setting off this morning. There was a chink of sunlight and visibility was pretty good so getting through the sastrugi was a lot less arduous. Still hard work but it was such a relief after the past two days.
Around midday the cloud started to thicken and I was resigning myself to another tough afternoon when the sastrugi suddenly thinned out. I thought it might be just a temporary pause but I was able to ski unhindered for a few miles, still in a whiteout, but without any form of sastrugi. During this time I got a bit carried away and my right wheel took me back west a little. The lines of longitude here are so close together it doesn’t make much difference so I’ll easily get back over to where I want to be.
My good fortune continued and the clouds gave way to blue sky and sunshine for the rest of the day and the surface was a joy to ski on. It isn’t perfect as there are still ripples of sastrugi lurking but as far as I can see the worst might well be over. Another day and perhaps a bit more and I’ll be at 88 deg and soon after that it flattens out completely.
The wind did build through the day and made it extremely cold so again breaks were quite uncomfortable. The mileage wasn’t great but working through the sastrugi still takes time even when you can see and I was tempted to add time onto the day to boost this. Only problem was that I was pretty tired during the last session so called it at 11 hours and will get more rest ready for tomorrow when, providing this is the worst over with, the miles should start to creep up.
Tonight’s tent is a happy tent!

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