It was amazing to have some Christmas pudding and whiskey last night, both were delicious and it was so nice to eat and drink something different to our usual routine food!
Today the sastrugi continued much as before, though we did have a good smooth surface for about an hour in the middle of the day. It didn’t last long though and we were back into fiercely rough sastrugi soon enough as a ground fog descended onto the ice for the last few hours of the day.
We knew this route had a reputation for bad sastrugi and it seems, from talking to other expeditions around Antarctica, that this is a particularly bad sastrugi year after some big winter storms, so no wonder they’re so bad here. It does mean we’re working incredibly hard each day to do a fairly modest distance, finishing our days knackered and frustrated. It’s likely we’ll be in sastrugi territory for at least another six days so there is nothing for it but to get our heads down and get through it.
Another repair job this evening, Gareth had to pull so hard to get his sled over a ridge today he snapped the bungee elastic in his traces, a testament to the roughness of the terrain (and Gareth’s horse-like strength of course!).
Suunto Stats
Skiing Time 9h 26mins
Distance 22.29kms
Gareth
Average HR 113
Max HR 169
Calories burned 6280
Richard
Average HR 111
Max HR 160
Calories burned 6020
