Torn tents, painful blisters and all sorts of things…
Published on 20.11.2008 - Base to the South Pole
Things aren't easy when you're a group of tourists and you have to grit your teeth and put up with absolutely dreadful weather conditions out there on the ice. But for all that, the group led by Sarah McNair is managing pretty well.
We are fortunate to have two sources of information for this expedition: the blog written by the Briton Thomas Davenport and the one penned by another member of the team, Australian Steven Gates. They make for interesting reading!
As you'd expect, the information in the two blogs still match one another more or less at these early stages of the expedition. In broad terms, the members of this trip led by the young Sarah McNair-Landry have had to get properly organised and find their feet. What they hadn't bargained for is that in addition to the usual acclimatisation process, they have also had to cope with blizzards that have cut a swathe of storm damage through the expedition's equipment. Broken ski sticks, parts of tents ripped to shreds, bindings showing signs of weakness Ãâ and so on. Plus several members of the expedition are suffering from blisters, so of course these minor ailments have all had to be tended to. Which put the trek well behind schedule on its planned progress chart.
Then on 18th November, the group went into overdrive, covering 20 km in the day. Which was just what was needed to boost morale and provide soothing balm to the hearts of those tourists who have been lagging behind a little on account of their blisters.
