Ultimate Arctic Crossing - part 3

When a fault of this type appears on the path of the two men which they cannot cross by spanning it with a simple stride, they lay out their sledges sideways (when they are long enough), secure them in one way or another and cross the obstacle by walking on them. Sometimes they hold firm, sometimes the sledges turn turtle in the little ravine, throwing off the man who is above the water...

When a fault of this type appears on the path of the two men which they cannot cross by spanning it with a simple stride, they lay out their sledges sideways (when they are long enough), secure them in one way or another and cross the obstacle by walking on them. Sometimes they hold firm, sometimes the sledges turn turtle in the little ravine, throwing off the man who is above the water...

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  • March 26 - DAY 30 / The last straw! While Dixie and Alain were experiencing the worst possible conditions for making progress (since the departure, that is to say just 30 days ago, they put on their skis only once, for 4 hours!), here they were now confronted with a new and completely unexpected obstacle: a north wind and a negative drift, that is to say a drift that was
  • Wednesday March 27 - DAY 30 / The ice finally opens... The slabs of ice on which the pair are travelling are becoming larger and larger and thicker and thicker. The ridges that characterise the compression areas are becoming fewer and the ice-free water areas are fortunately becoming less frequent.
  • Saturday March 30 - DAY 34 / A big new fright today; while the pair, squatting on the catamaran, were being pushed back by a headwind when crossing a channel of about fifteen metres wide, they came nose to nose with a bear...
  • Sunday March 31 - DAY 36 / As they got up, there was a complete a whiteout (a day of white fog) and leads all around the tent. Furthermore, it was Easter Sunday: the men decided to allow themselves their first day of rest.
  • Wednesday April 03 - DAY 38 / The harbingers announcing an improvement of the ice were not proved right on the terrain. The chaos of the pack ice was more hellish than ever, the leads incessantly slowed down the walk, thick snow covered the ice, the wind changed to the North again and the clear horizon was overcast again offering nothing any more but an infinite succession of giant blocks of ice overlapping as far as the eye can see.
  • To see from this photograph the type of terrain across which the men frequently had to slide, one can better understand why their progress has been so slow since their departure from the New Siberia Islands on February 25. On April 3, the 38th day of their adventure, Alain and Dixie had covered only 315km and were still 1,255km from the pole. At HQ, without saying anything to the men, we were beginning to worry about their chances of success...
  • Thanks to the resumption of the Iridium communication system, the satellite telephone has become, like traction sails, the ideal tool of any major polar adventure. More or less every evening, Hubert rang HQ to communicate the information that was to appear on the website the following day. Dixie could also make use of Iridium and thus almost be present live while his wife was giving birth.
  • Friday April 5 - DAY 40 / A sudden change of scenery: first, it was the first time since the beginning of the expedition that they did not encounter any ice-free water. Then the horizon cleared, revealing less chaotic pack ice and flatter, more stable expanses of ice. Lastly, Alain and Dixie had once more the pleasure of getting out the large sail and of sliding with the strength of the wind. The session certainly didn't last very long, hardly an hour, but that was enough to inspire them with new moral stre
  • In this photograph one clearly sees the difference between the youngest ice (just a few weeks) and the older ice (one year at least). The younger ice is clearer in colour and is marked by black arrows; the older, just beneath, is marked by red arrows (see 2nd lesson in the following photograph).
  • One can well see in this shot the thickness of the ice on the Arctic Ocean. It is the case that that below the level of water (the black part), there is again at least 4 times the thickness of the layer of immersed ice, that is to say, here, approximately 3.5m. According to the two men, this crack was probably produced just about an hour before they arrived.
  • When a fault of this type appears on the path of the two men which they cannot cross by spanning it with a simple stride, they lay out their sledges sideways (when they are long enough), secure them in one way or another and cross the obstacle by walking on them. Sometimes they hold firm, sometimes the sledges turn turtle in the little ravine, throwing off the man who is above the water...
  • Sunday April 07 - DAY 42 / In view of their slow progress (352km, daily average = 9.7km), little by little the time for the first serious questions was arriving. Will they succeed with the crossing? Or should they stop at the North Pole? That said, the fact of being able to ski for more than ninety minutes did wonders for their morale...
  • Johan Deschuyffeleer, the boss of Compaq, the expedition's sponsor, accompanied by Sophie Housiaux, PR, was lucky enough to be able to converse with the team live, on March 28, from his office in Brussels. He showed great interest not only in the latest news coming from the pack ice but was also clearly very impressed by the performance of the two men.
  • Progressively as the adventure unfolded, many Belgian TV channels came to the Brussels HQ for the purpose of interviewing Michel Brent. Here, the journalist Hakima Darhmouch comes with her team to do a small piece for the 7 o'clock news on RTL TVI.
  • Monday 8 April: DAY 42 / As HQ has realised that the pair will not succeed with the crossing, it takes the initiative and gets in touch with Cerpolex people in Paris who are looking after the logistics of the expedition. For 5 weeks per annum, between the end of March and the beginning of May, this Tour Operator opens a base - together with its Russian counterparts - which they usually set up 150km from the North Pole. It is called the Barneo Base.
  • Tuesday April 9 - DAY 44 / In Belgium, a Flemish newspaper announces that the team is on the point of giving up. On the ground, without the men knowing about this publication, they on the contrary continue their forced march towards the North. When getting up, Alain is very ill: they decide to go on nevertheless... The hope of seeing in the next few days the arrival of better ice and, especially, less chaos is always in their minds.
  • Thursday April 11 - DAY 46 / This time, they had to rest. Alain Hubert was indeed seriously ill. Vomiting, fever, sore throat and liver pains (from the fat that they ingurgitate every day...). What they complained about the most to HQ in the evening was not the illness but the fact that when they didn't walk they moved 3km backwards that day: the drift, the perpetual drift.
  • Friday April 12 - DAY 47 / Things are getting complicated: Alain is suffering from a stomach ulcer while Dixie, for his part, having fallen heavily on to a block of ice a few days ago, has a terrible pain in the knee. No matter: They still get up at the same time and continue to make progress... The website's heading that day:
  • Saturday April 13 - DAY 48 / HQ has been in touch for a few weeks with an institute in St Petersburg which provides it with precise satellite maps concerning the state of the ice. It would seem to be getting better. But this change was not happening to the terrain and the two men's hearts were in their boots...
  • Sunday April 14 - DAY 49 / Alain and Dixie were still ill: Alain had an ulcer and Dixie, for his part, did not sleep and vomited for almost the entire night - serious indigestion.
  • Dixie writes:
  • Tuesday April 16 - DAY 51 / For the first time, they have been able use their traction sails for three long hours. But, as this adventure definitely has some kind of curse on it, they again had to cross two leads, spend one and a half hours untangling the lines of one of the power kites and negotiate a strong drift that was taking them eastwards. The day's assessment: 7 kilometres towards the North.
  • Wednesday, 17 April (DAY 52) / Two pieces of bad news. One: the men are confined to the tent by a whiteout and drift several kilometres backwards. Two: the First Air company, which generally goes to look for adventurers at the pole, announces that this year, in view of the very mild winter and therefore some very fragile pack ice, they will not be going to the pole after the 3rd week of May... (Continued, following photograph)
  • Thursday April 18 - DAY 53 / This announcement (see the caption of the previous photograph) was something of a bombshell. Indeed, because of the slowness of their pace, they would never be able to reach the pole before the fateful date given by the Canadians of First Air (the 3rd week of May). They were just starting to mourn their initial project, when they had to accept some more terrible evidence: yhey would probably not even be able to reach the North Pole at all!
  • Friday April 19 - DAY 54: The order is given to the two men by HQ to abandon their northerly direction. They must from now on head due West and to get as close as possible to Cape Artichewski, from where the recovery operation will be coming. They are disappointed but seem to be keeping their chins up...
  • Sunday April 21 - DAY 56 / Naturally, following this incredible news (normally First Air will look for people at the pole until the beginning of June), the head of the expedition is in a bad mood. Failure, abandonment, retreat... these are words that polar adventures don't like to hear. The men must now, as indicated on the map in the medallion, not only change direction but also to seek a landing strip for the plane that will be coming to find them. And that's no easy matter in the midst of such glacial ch
  • Monday April 22 - DAY 57 / The disappointment is all the greater since, in addition to having to change course, the men must try to achieve the greatest possible number of kilometres in order to get as close as possible to Cape Arktichewski. Indeed, the autonomy of flight of the aircraft that are able to carry out such an operation hardly exceeds 1000km; and the men are still 800km from Cape Arktichewski...
  • Monday April 22 - DAY 57 / Much equivocation about the way in which the team will be picked up from the ice. According to the latest information received, it seems that the operation out of Stredny-Arktichewski is too risky - too many leads both for parachuting fuel and for landing the (twin-engine) Antonov 2. So another solution has to be found. Which is why the people in charge at Cerpolex are discussing with the Russian pilots in Khatanga the possibility of a flight between Tiksi and the place where expe
  • Tuesday April 23 - DAY 58 / Since no scenario had yet been seriously contemplated by the Cerpolex people, the men didn't know what to do and Hubert was stamping his feet with impatience. So they decided not to stay rooted to the spot but to continue to progress towards Cape Artichewski. Despite everything...
  • Monday April 22 - DAY 57 / While the pair was still struggling with the ice, at HQ, we were tossed about between the various scenarios that arose twice a day, always very different from one another. On one occasion, it was the Antonov II that couldn't fly for so many hours over ice-free water, and on another it was the MI8's that didn't have enough autonomy.
  • Tuesday April 23 - DAY 58 / While HQ discusses with Paris and Khatanga and, deep down, doesn't know what to say to the men in the evening, Alain and Dixie are still searching for a landing strip. They need a runway that is 350 metres long for the Antonov II and a thickness of at least 85 cm for the MI8 to be able to land. At the end of the day, this 23 April, an enormous expanse of ice appeared before their eyes. They stopped...
  • Wednesday April 24 - DAY 59 / It is being said in Paris and in Khatanga that the decision to go to find the men is imminent but nobody in the Compaq Pole II clan is taking this information seriously. In satellite contact with the Cerpolex people, Hubert gets angry on several occasions. He finds the scenarios that are presented to him fantastical...

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The Coldest Journey (Sir Ranulph Fiennes & Team)

Antarctic 2012-2013 - ongoing

25.10.2012

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is back in the Antarctic for a world first. He will lead a team of explorers to conquer…

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