Camp: Aaran (Shaun’s nephew)
Date: 25/11/07
Position: S82.1476 W082.6045
Temperature: -16c
Weather: Whiteout
Distance today: 22.88km
Distance to Pole: 876km
Woke up to another day of total whiteout, miserable conditions and I knew we would have a day stumbling blind through sastrugi, making little headway for lots of effort.
With no visual marks for taking bearings, we had to resort to ‘2nd man navigation.’ This is where the front or leading man/woman takes an initial bearing into the ‘nothing’ then sets off, as they deviate right or left off course the second person shouts left or right, denoting the adjustment needed to get back on course, not an accurate science but its better than skiing whilst looking at a GPS and falling into crevasses or sastrugi troughs. There was lots of cursing and shouting during the day and considering the conditions we covered a respectable 22.8km in 7.5hrs.
