Follow along as team Test Your Limits skis to the North Pole to support life-saving heart disease research.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

April 8, 2010 - That darn drift!





N 89.14.405
E 136.28.736

They are back in business! Weather has cleared enough to press on, and despite a strong south drift and 15-20k winds they were able to make 7.2 northward miles. The sky was overcast and temperatures were WARM at -5C. Some team members were skiing only in long underwear. They are hoping for improved conditions tomorrow, but currently they continue to drift south at a pace of .3 miles and hour. It's all a part of the adventure!

Heather writes..."We have skiied 44.8 nautical miles over the ground to date.
Today was a day of water and wind. We came across many many breaks, small ones, slushy ones, lake like ones. Keith was amazing at finding paths around, over, through which made for some interesting moments!

"We crossed 89.1 again today - it is 'groundhog day' (remember the old movie.....) - we go to sleep, we drift, we wake up still behind 89.1 and we ski all day - losing 0.2 to the treadmill each hour - so we have skied 39 miles, 29 hours and lost 0.2 about for every hour - hence our total ski is 44.8 nautical miles. Yet we were closer to the pole 48 hours ago......and are still 46 miles away.

"We continue to drift as we sit in the tent so tomorrow we get to wake up and do 89.1 all over again!!! In fact it got me thinking - we have drifted 25 miles - so when you think about it.....25 plus 39 means that we have essentially skied on the land that was at the North Pole 5 days ago! Didn't see any corks go by...

"Keith had a great kite which we flew in camp. Winds gusting to 20 mph again which made for amazing kite flying.

"Spirits remain high despite the challenging conditions."


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.