Oh dear!! Not only are we not flying to day because there is too much cloud, but the forecast has that cloud remaining in situ for the next few days so unless there is change we could be here for a while longer! Luckily, the weather tends to change quite a bit out here so we remain hopeful. This is likely to kibosh our plan of being at or getting to the SP for XMas though which is a shame.
After that I head down to the stores to get the additional tent. We find one quickly but a quick look indicates issues. The smaller tent should only have two poles and not the three in the bag and there seem to be two tent bodies there as well. It turns out that rather than being the Nalo (the smaller tent I am looking for) as the label states, we have the inner and outer for the Nalo and the inner and poles for the Kierin (the larger version that the others are using). We can't find any Nalo poles anywhere so use some Kierin poles that we can shorten to make poles for the Nalo and then tape them up so that they are ready for use. Tent poles are made up of a number of small tubes connected by elastic so that they are easy to carry in a backpack. When you are pulling a sled you don't mind long thin items so you just fold the poles at one of the joints and it helps to mark that with bright tape. The main weakness of the poles is at these connecting points and they can come loose and semi-out while being carried and then break when pressure is applied when putting up then tent. To avoid this we tape all the connecting points to reduce the risk of the poles sliding out of the sockets and so breaking when under pressure.
After lunch we head out for a little trip to some nearby rocks where we can trek / scramble / climb up a valley as a nice change from being on snow.
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| The elephant head valley |
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| End of the glacier with oddly eroded holes and air bubbles |
There are a couple of partially modified for snow / ice bikes out here so I go for a bit of a ride. That is fine when the surface is hard but as soon as the snow is soft and deep you come to a very rapid stop!
There are currently a couple of chaps who are trying to cycle to the pole. Or to be more accurate, one pushing his bike whilst the other is skiing with a bike strapped to his sled. They are both having a very tough time and it looks at though the first won't make it whilst the second can't really claim to be cycling there. If this continues, that will mean that no one will have managed to cycle to the SP as yet. This is a record that I would be very suited to and something it am now considering for next year. The problem is that bikes are very unsuitable for travelling on the snow and I will need to spend quite a bit of time after Everest trying to come up with a bike that can work there but that is not too modified to no longer count as a bicycle. As much as you don't want to wish a fellow adventurer bad luck, that would be a fantastic opportunity and one that I would have a high level of confidence of achieving. It will be interesting to see what conditions are like up on the polar plateau to start thinking about how to plan such an attempt.
We hear at supper that a flight tomorrow is a maybe - but a reasonable enough maybe for the pilot to start planning his day around it which is very encouraging. Still, we will have to wait for confirmation from tomorrow morning's weather update before we can go. That is at 07:45, then breakfast is at 8 and they will need an hour to sort out the plane so the earliest that we could leave is 10am. This gives us a bit of time for final showers etc in the am which is a nice way to start the trip.
Food:
Bacon, eggs and fruit
Salad and various cold meatsBeef stroganoff (very good) and orange cake with a superb chocolate orange sauce. The food at camp has been really good but this meal has been really outstanding - there are not many restaurants where this would not be an acceptable or even good standard of cooking!
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