Antarctic Record Breaker!

As of 7:00AM (GMT) Bryony Balen became the youngest Britain to ski to the Geographic South Pole from the Hercules Inlet! Overall Bryony and the team have skied 1134.9km (705miles) over a period of 56 days. The journey took her across the planets coldest continent, where temperatures reached as low as -45°C (-49°F) and facing the daily struggle of high winds, white-outs, sastrugi, and an almost permanent uphill climb!

In the last two days of the expedition the team trekked 67km, a huge push to get there just a little sooner! Bryony told me she would promptly sleep after the long days (and nights) skiing, followed by a visit to the centre and the pole marker before heading back to the Union Glacier Base (via aeroplane) at 4PM (GMT). Naturally, she is ecstatic! 

Congratulations Bryony!

Antarctic Update - The Final Push

Upon her arrival, Bryony will become the youngest Britain to Ski from the Hercules Inlet to the Geographic South Pole, skiing a total of 1135km (705miles) and ascending 2076m (8878ft); and taking a meagre 57 days to complete it! Of course, Bryony and the team haven’t made it yet, we all need to show our greatest support and wish the team all the best for this final push to the Pole!

Passing 89° yesterday was a big milestone for the team, as Bryony mentions in her audio update (at the Polar Explorers blog). When discussing the proximity to the Pole, Bob made the remark, “the thinnest veneer of civilisation awaits us”! Conditions are fair and the team see little obstruction on the final push (bar the usual troublesome sastrugi). As normal with an update you can find new maps on the tracking page!

Antarctic Update - then there were 3!

The team reached the resupply on the 7th, when it became clear that something was wrong. Dennis, the other British member of the team, had been suffering from chest problems, preventing him from sleeping, or carrying the entire pulks weight (which until this point had been decanted around to the others to help). The plan was to meet a doctor due to fly from the South Pole to help Dennis and see if there was treatment beyond the course of antibiotics he was already taking.  
After reaching the resupply, the team contacted ALE and were told that due to bad weather, the plane was unable to take off. This meant the team had to wait for a doctor at the resupply before continuing.  Unfortunately, Dennis was evacuated the next afternoon, and is currently awaiting diagnosis. With respect to Dennis and his family, this was not made public until the situation was fully known. Skiing over 700km even in the face of illness is a fantastic feat, and the humour and banter won’t be the same without him. A big thank you to Dennis from Bryony and the team for being a great team member, and we wish him all the best and a speedy recovery.

The team, now down to 4 members, no longer required both Lisa and Oskar as guides. Oskar was flown out by ALE to lead a shorter expedition for Polar Explorers, leaving the team down to a streamlined three! Bryony talked of a interesting meeting with the crew of the plane heading to the pole with Oskar.

“It was surreal, a few of German tourists! They took out cameras and had pictures with us. Rather strange after seeing so few faces out in the Antarctic!”

Everything was back on track by the 9th though; with the team’s eyes set on the pole. No more resupplies; just a straight run for the pole. This gave the team a few surprises.

During they’re route; the team has taken a southerly curve from the direct route to the pole from the Hercules Inlet. Now the team were back on the ‘straight and narrow’, they found that they were not alone out in the blue and white…

If you’ve never heard of the Antarctic Super Highway, you have now (not to be confused with the Penguin Super Highway)! The team found tracks for the first time! They’re southerly detour had landed them on the exact bearing to the pole as a number of other expeditions. As well as sled tracks however, there was also the tracks of a car! Bryony and the other speculate that this could be the World record attempt for the fastest overland journey to the pole (which they smashed managing the journey in under 2 days)!

The team now just had to follow the tracks to make it to the pole (though the tracks were faded in places and would soon be covered with snow). This was no comfort however, with yesterday being one of the longest, most difficult days yet; with heavy pulks, and Bryony carrying some of the extra weight of the 4 man tent. The difficultly came from the large ridges. After climbing to the top, it is demoralizing to ski down the other side. “Going downhill feels like a step in the wrong direction”.  Sharp Sistrugi didn’t help either!

Despite this, the weather was reasonable (though colder with the altitude), and the team managed a fantastic 25km. Bryony has now skied a whopping 945km!

Antarctic Update

A big Happy Birthday to Bryony who celebrated her 21st yesterday. The team plans on having a rest today to fix a few items (bindings/tents/jackets) and to try and recover from the cold completely, which is refusing to budge! Also gives Bryony a chance to enjoy a rest on her Birthday!

The team sighted the Thiel Hills a couple of days ago. "It was novel having something to look at; it's been just white and blue the past 6 days!" This is the location of the teams second re-supply, just past 85' South - Halfway! Another rest day is planned at the re-supply, and then it's a straight run to the pole, trying to make up time (the guides have worked out that, even with the delays with losing a team member and other issues, they are only 24 hours behind schedule).

Bryony mentioned how difficult it was to tell the passage of time while skiing, thanks to the 24 hour daylight, saying "it's quite bewildering, you don't know when to stop or how far you've been going; you get physically tired, but your head just keeps going since it doesn't get dark". This isn't however her biggest complaint when it came to the environment. This came in the form of a phenomenon known as flat light or a sector white-out. During a these conditions of low light and overcast conditions it becomes impossible to discern the distance away from a snowy surface. The horizon is non-existent and the only gauge of surfaces is your ski tracks or other team members in front! Bryony likened it to "being in a 2D world".

Antarctic Update 1st to 4th December 2012

For the past four days the team has made excellent progress, and I’m happy to announce that Bryony has now passed 81° South, with her current position at http://map.iridium.com/m?lat=-81.135266&lon=-081223350 at an altitude of around 1000m. But the past few days have been taxing…

2^nd December

Bryony faces her first full day of whiteout conditions! Being able to see only a few meters on front of you is problem in the Antarctic with Sastrugi (wind-blown ridges in the snow) proving a real problem. Every member of the team fell at least a few times, with their skis hitting these snow drifts and tumbling forward! This was made more difficult for Bryony when her goggles fogged up. This condensation then froze, leaving a 5 pence piece sized whole through which to navigate! After the final rest stop this was rectified, just in time for conditions to clear!

So, would these conditions slow the team down? Travelling 19.5km Bryony managed her longest days skiing yet!

3^rd December

The bad news came from Ronnie on the evening of the 2^nd. He tells the team of the continued muscle problems he’s faced over the past few days, causing lack of sleep and exhaustion. After a lengthy discussion, it was decided that it would be safest for Ronnie to be medevac’d back to America to recover rather than risk further injury with more than three quarters of the expedition remaining.
Unfortunately, that caused problems firstly for the planned distance to be covered on the 3^rd. Of course, once the medevac was signalled for, the team would need to remain in the same position, awaiting transport in the form of ski-equipped light aircraft. From the initial call at 09:00 (local-time) it took 11 hours for the plane to arrive, cutting short any chance of skiing that day; though Ronnie was able to be safely flown out without incident.

Bryony would like to send a massive thanks to Chris of Icke Fitness, who has provided excellent training, nutritional plans, and support; without whom it could have been her on the plane heading home.

With conditions such as whiteouts (which can be more extreme than Bryony faced on Friday) and other complications, the team has allowed themselves three full rest days. Because of this, the team is not necessarily behind. So; what does the team do on a rest day? Well I can only speak for Bryony (and for those of you that know her this will not come as a surprise), you sleep! Catching up on some well needed napping, helping refuel for the next few days. Of course, there was still time for some shenanigans, including a snowball fight, which apparently becomes serious when shovels are involved! I’ve been informed that the snow varies vastly over different areas, not always good for snowballs!

4^th December

Fantastic progress from the team yesterday, with a total distance of 21km behind them, helped by the previous days rest and superb conditions with very little wind and temperatures around -12°C. The team has also elected to take rest breaks every 5km instead of every 1.5 hours to provide more challenging goals. I’m told “it’s nice to stop and know another quarter of the days skiing is behind you”. Speaking to Bryony in the early hours of this morning she explains that the weather is so nice they have started eating OUTSIDE in the evenings, nothing like a little Antarctic al fresco dining! Hoping to get pictures of this phenomenon soon!