Dispatch #19 - South Pole via Kansas Glacier

South Pole via Kansas Glacier

Dispatches

Dec 20

#19:
tinkerer

Published at 06:40

A relatively uneventful day of blue sky, moderate sastrugi and temp down to -24c. Paul had a sleepless night, he thinks a reaction to one of the freeze-dried dinners, and was pretty sluggish on the trail. Despite this we covered 19.7km in 7.5 hours of skiing.

Jade and I are on Icetrek Flexi Paramark ski bindings. She used them successfully across Greenland this year and it was time to test this model in severe cold. So far, after 15 days of skiing, they are holding up perfectly and are easier to get on and off than the Flexi Oversize models that Ming and Paul are on. Heath is on BC bindings with Alfa boots but having some problems releasing one of his bindings.

A hallmark of a successful polar expeditioner is his or her ability to keep things serviceable, to modify, adapt, mend, tinker. Heath and Ming are both tinkerers - mending a solar panel, patching rents in clothing, stitching a nose piece to goggles... Tinkerers are key to the upkeep of a polar expedition.

Pics:
1. Jade at the beginning of the day
2. Ming and Heath
3. Team photo
4. Paul at the end of the day
5. Flexi Paramark bindings

Eric

Name: Camp 15
Elevation: 2495 m
Latitude: 86° 53’ 51” South
Longitude: 136° 41’ 21” West

image4

image2

image5

image1

image3

Comments

2024-12-18 05:48:00 SMM Panel says: This post is another reminder of why your blog is one of my go-to sources for thoughtful content.smm provider
2017-12-20 23:55:12 cornelisphilips says: Nice to see you as a team make huge ski-days keeping warm and fit By now you have gone past muscle stiffness Thoughts of sympathy go to Paul and Ming who can call themselves polar travellers by chance