Five days of heavy sastrugi and today white out conditions. Only 20kms today.
Navigating sastrugi in white out conditions is extremely challenging. You can’t see anything in front of you apart from a wall of white. The snow blends with the horizon and it is impossible to distinguish any features at all. Ordinarily on a sunny day you would see waves, trenches and ridges running away to the horizon in every direction. Today these obstacles were hidden behind a dense white curtain. We would only see them when we were standing directly on top of them. We spent the day carefully negotiating ridges, holes, trenches and often drops of up to one metre, our skis dangling precariously over the edge while we shuffled to find a safer place to advance. Although not dangerous navigating this terrain (essentially in the dark) it would be easy to break a ski, a binding or, even worse, a leg. So it was slow going as we made our way through the maze of sastrugi. We have passed the 900km mark and have less than 500km to go until the South Pole. Hoping for better conditions tomorrow.
Suunto Stats
Skiing Time 9h 25mins
Distance 20kms
Gareth
Average HR 97
Max HR 168
Calories burned 5863
Richard
Average HR 102
Max HR 154
Calories burned 5596
