Tomorrow we will sort out group food and gears, and pack our sleds to be sent to the airport. We are hoping to fly out early morning on the 16th to start our last degree ski trip.

For the previous few expeditions, almost every team suffered severe backward drift. The night before we headed out for the training trip, I ran into a familiar face at the bar — Steve Jones, the ALE manager at Patriot Hill when I visited Antarctica a couple months ago. He just came back from leading a last-degree expedition. They started at 89.30 degree, and got picked up at 89.28 degree six days later. But since then, the news was that ice drift has slowed down. There was even a positive drift (towards north) last night.

Pray for the good weather, and prey for the positive ice drift.

Just got back in town from our shakedown training trip. For the past three days, we skied around valleys on the island while pulling our sleds. The picture looks familiar? But notice my new expedition anorak!

The first day was a total white out. We couldn’t see any scenery. The place we were dropped off was by the house for doggies. It was a weird feeling when the three seals (food for dogs) hanging in the whiteout was the only thing we saw that day.

We practiced pulling sleds up and down rough pressure ridges, which are very common on north pole trip, and broke two ski poles within the first 10 minutes. At camp, we took turns cooking and doing chores for the group. Testing out gears and learning to handle the unique dampness of North Pole trip are a big part of the training. The camp site looks familiar, but look carefully the thin lines surrounding the camp site:

Aha, the thin line is to protect the campsite from polar bears. At each corner, there is a little bell attached to the pole. If the bear crosses the line, a little bullet inside the bell would explode and scare the bear away.

I was curious enough to pull the line myself, however triggered nothing. It turned out that we had the wrong type of bullet inside it! Luckily, no bear came, though I’m really curious to meet one.

April 11, 2008 by Lei.

Longyearbyen, or Svalbard, or Spitsbergen, all refer to the same northernmost island of Norway, located at 78 degree (Arctic circle starts at 66 degree). More accurately, Svalbard is the archipelago, Spitsbergen is the largest island of the archipelago, and Longyearbyen, named after American John Longyear, is the governing center and the only “town” on Spitsbergen and Savalbard.

When the plane was on its landing approach, the magnificent glacier island came into view, impressed me with its beauty and serenity. A few little houses perched here and there on the glacier slope, reminded me that we are arriving into Arctic Circle. Until then, I realized that I under dressed for the destination. It’s -15C outside and windy.When we flew into Antarctica on Ilyushin 76, we were told to dress “properly” with full winter gear; but here, the idea of flying into a “city” on a commercial flight fooled me, plus everyone else around me were all dressed just like normal passengers on any other commercial flights (of course, everyone magically produced a big coat once the plane landed)

Luckily, I left Boston with my warm jacket, which was too warm for Boston already, but would save my life tonight and for the next one or two days, since one of my luggage that had my beautiful new expedition anorak was missing (because of flight delay, I missed my connection in Newark, and was routed to Oslo with a different airline. One piece of luggage missing upon arrival in Oslo). I also smartly threw in my carry-on pack a long cotton shirt, my city hat, and gloves at last minute. Those little things definitely came as essential at this moment, though wind chill still took no time to blow right through my city pants during those few steps between the plane and the building.

Though it was almost mid night, the sky was still fairly bright. I’m very happy to be back to my 24-hour daylight life again, and it’s brighter than I expected. To make it even better, we also have moon here! I still remember the first night after I came out of Antarctica, when I was surprised to realize that there is a moon in the world!

Despite the long travel and midnight arrival, we, two guides Keith and Dirk, and three team members for the shakedown training trip, still went out for a drink in town. Surprisingly, there is a “town” here! There are about a handful hotels, about 3-4 bars and some restaurants in “downtown”, and many open late like in any other cities. There are one university and a small permanent resident (school, tourism, coal mining) here all year long, even during dark winter.

For the next few days, we will do a so-called shakedown training, simulating our ski trip in a more friendly condition on this island. Then we will fly out to the ice on Apr 16th. We will be the last group out on the ice, and hope we will have better luck with nature. We heard some horror stories of some expeditions just came back. In one extreme case, one team was dropped off at 89.25 degree, and six days later, after working hard for 12 miles every day, they got picked up at 89.35 degree. Because the ice was drifting so fast, they actually only moved 10 miles towards pole in 6 days! So here, hard work does not guarantee success. We have to have nature on our side.

I’m leaving Boston on April 9th for my North Pole trip. It would be a long flight through Copenhagen, Oslo, then the last stop in civilization — Longyearbyen of Norway. There, our team of 8 strangers from around the world will go through a 3-4 days’ training before we fly on to ice around April 16th to officially start our ski trip. We expect to arrive at the North Pole around April 26th. The distance between 89 degrees and the North Pole is about 60 nautical miles (1 nautical mile = 1.8 kilometer). But because of ice drift (hey, we are on an ocean!), the actual mileage we ski through will be much longer.

I enjoyed quite a different life style during the past couple months:) Instead of being my normal mountain girl, I was hanging out on beach every other day:

The two tires weigh about 80 pounds together, and came as a special gift from John Huston, a polar adventurer and guide, who helped me to kick start this training last fall.