Day 19 - Off to the Pole

We wake up again to high winds but head to breakfast full of hopes that we will fly today. The morning drags on with no news so I have a shower and shave to be at my best for departure but even after that we are waiting for news. 

Just as I am writing this, Tom (our guide) comes in with the great news that we are off in a bit over an hour so we head back to the tents for final packing and then out to the airfield and off at 11. The flight should be about 3 hours as we are using the Basla and not a Twin Otter. The other benefits of the Basla are that being quite a large plane there is much leg room and heating!

Whilst waiting for the plane we chat so one of the ANI staff who will be heading up to the SP soon to set up their camp site there which is used for the big groups flying all the way there in Jan. Her plan is to head up soon so with any luck it will be in place for when we get there. I am not sure at the moment whether it would be better (if either actually proves possible) to have XMas in our tents in a more expedition style or the fixed camp with greater luxury....

Apparently, the weather is still pretty bad near in the South - there is a lot of low cloud so we are likely to be near whiteout conditions for much of the time. As a result, we are losing control of our plan to arrive for XMas. The pilots will land via the hole in the clouds nearest to our starting point but there is no saying, or ability to influence, whether this will be nearer to or further away from the pole - we are just lucky that there are some holes so we can actually get started. The flight is about 3 hours long and we get a decent sandwich on the plane so we a ready to set off once we hit the deck.
 

The team getting off the plane

Unloading our equipment

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Organising for departure

Off we go

Once off the plane we start on our journey South. We have moved up to about 2,700 mtrs so we go pretty slowly today to allow the new two time to acclimatise before we pick up the pace. I find I am getting pretty chilly at this pace so develop a routine of skiing with the group for 5 or so mins or less if I get cold soon, then stopping for a few minutes of exercises, mainly to warm my hands up again, then a quick ski to catch up with the group again. My feet get really quite cold by the time we stop which isn't good. I just hope that we will go quite a bit quicker from now on as that is a ridiculous way to travel to the pole. 

We walk for three hours before stopping for the evening - the original plan was for just one hour today so it is good to have pushed that along a bit. Everyone seems pretty competent so we get tents up and stoves on quickly and are soon settling down to some hot noodles and then onto supper properly.

Our kitchen

Oddly there seems to be quite a bit of snow about - both falling in the evening and on the ground. This is a little but surprising and grey damp clouds is not really what we were expecting out here!

We get to bed for about 21:30 which allows a bit of time for reading / diaries etc and then a decent night's sleep before the planned 7am rise tomorrow. Quite bizarrely I wake up shortly after falling asleep because whilst the rest of my body it too hot, my toes have become very painfully cold. The tent I am in slopes down towards the end and so my sleeping bag is in full contact with the body of the tent and so is transmitting the cold through to my feet.

Shortly after, the sun comes up and it gets ridiculously hot in the tent given that I am so close to the SP. I end up lying half in and half out of my sleeping bag! The heat and the bright light conspire to prevent me from getting back to sleep for a good few hours - further reason to hope for more tiring days ahead as not being able to sleep is pretty annoying on these expeditions!

Food:

Breakfast pancakes (crepes with egg, bacon and sausage) with a superb salsa

Ham and cheese sandwich on the plane
Kung Po Rice with Chicken - we have dehydrated as opposed to freeze dried food on this trip and so far they seem to be really quite good.