It’s a snowy day in Longyearbyen today, but fairly warm. We sorted through food and gears, and sent packed sleds to airport. We are packing 12 days’ worth of food, about 30 pounds per person. We are departing tomorrow morning to Borneo, the Russian ice station between 88 and 89 degree where most expeditions launches from. From there, we will fly in helicopter to near 89 degrees to start the ski trip.

Tonight, we had our last group dinner. Everything here is very very expensive, but there’re some interesting games that are unique to this place. For the past couple days, we have tasted whale steak, seal meat stew, and venison heart soup.

April 16 report:
Current position 88 59.965° North, 006 01.985° East.

The team was scheduled to fly from Longyearbyen to Borneo this morning at 10:00. They were delayed about 8 hours due to weather. They arrived at Borneo at 9:30 PM and left by charter helicopter at 11:00 PM. They met the two degree dogsled team at 11:30 PM, set up camp and are ready for a good night’s rest. They are looking forward to their first full day on the ice tomorrow.

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.