Heavy Going (Log #11)
L O U ' S D I A R Y
Day 11 in Antarctica. Lou spends ten hours in frozen fisticuffs with some brutal sastrugi. He also describes another chance encounter with some Stars and Stripes and finally ends his stop-start day back in his sleeping bag, having managed 12.3 nautical miles.
Nov 13 2018 -
Good evening everyone…
Reporting in now from day 11 of the expedition. Another really heavy day of sastrugi – I stopped and took a picture today of me trying to get the pulk over a particularly large piece of it. I’ve sent that through as an image, so hopefully you’ll be able to see that and get a feel of the kind conditions I’m battling out here.
A long, hard day, battling through sastrugi. But for my ten hours of effort, I’ve managed to achieve 12.3 nautical miles; I was surprised how far I’d come – it felt a lot slower than that, it was stop-start all day. So really heavy going but really pleased about the amount of progress I did manage to make.
Back to yesterday with spotting something moving, which is obviously really unusual out here. I saw this small thing ahead of me, come out from behind a bit of sastrugi and disappear behind another piece. It really caught my eye and it had a bit of colour to it as well. It was really unusual. So I diverted slightly and skied over to where I last spotted this thing, and it had disappeared behind a large block of ice. As I got over there, I cautiously peered around the corner, not sure what I was going to find, and it transpires it was a small sticker of the American flag that had been caught in the wind and was blowing across the landscape. So I guess that’s probably come off the side of Colin’s pulk, who’s up ahead of me. So, not wanting the area to be strewn with litter, I picked it up and shoved it in my pocket as a little memento.
To finish off this evening’s blog, another thank you. I’d like to thank Level Peaks Associates a great company in my home town of Hereford, who have been brilliant supporters of the expedition. So to all the guys there – to Kev Mann, to Pete, Abbie, Karl and all the rest of the team, a huge thanks from me for your amazing support towards this expedition. I hope you’re enjoying following the blogs and I look forward to coming round and telling you all about it in person when I get back.
Onwards...