Day 36 17/12/07
Position: S86.0481, W086.4475
Camp Gerry Walsh.
Oh no….we’ll go Crazy..
We have really had a miserable 10 days of white out, no contrast, soft snow and pushing our resolve to the limits of our endurance. We know it just can’t continue or it will burn us. An end of this bad weather must be in sight.
After getting up this morning and going outside, I could see that we were in for another day of no contrast or visibility. Quickly, I made a change of plans – realising, there would be no use in wasting energy in blind man leads or pulling in soft snow if we could avoid it.
Our forecast from Hans Christian at base camp was that visibility and snow conditions should improve over the next few days. So taking a chance of the weather improving, I changed our program.
Our scheduled rest day was to be 2 days further down the line and it looked as if that would be in good weather. So, after discussion with Clare, Shaun and Jon we decided to move our rest day to today. This would also give us a chance to get our lost strength back and give ongoing minor injuries a chance to heal – Shauns shoulder, Jon’s Achilles tendon and Clare’s exhaustion from pulling in soft snow time to recover.
The day passed slowly, but it was a good decision. For the entire day, there has been no contrast or visibility though the snow conditions seem to be improving, forming a crispy crust on top of the soft snow. We will know better tomorrow and hope Hans Christian’s forecast is right.
We have calculated that on total no contrast days and soft snow we are losing anything up to 6km per day as well as the extra energy we use. If Hans is right, our decision will have been correct.
So for now, we are resting, doing some necessary repairs, filing expedition reports, altering logistics. If our decision is wrong, I’ll be disgusted,- knowing that we could be a day closer to the pole.
Lets hope tomorrow is good, that our waiting has given the snow time to consolidate and that we were right in moving our rest day forward.
Picture 1;
While eating today a piece of my filling sheered off! We have used a glue to protect the nerve from pain.
Picture 2;
Dr. Clare O’ Leary on call out.
