Børge Ousland

Camp 2, Friday: The first full day is behind them, and they are very pleased. All have done well, and tackled quite varied and exiting ice. lots of pressure ridges, but only very little open ice.

The wind has been bitterly cold and from East-North-East. That had given them a mostly westerly drift with a touch towards the north. That means they camped at 89°12,30N / 146°50E – about 18km nearer to the Pole.

That must be considered very good! But they need good progress to have a chance to get there. Only one team has managed to reach the North Pole so far this year as there are lots of drift and tough conditions, so everybody is fighting up there now (one man was even evacuated this morning after a bad fall through the ice). The next days will give us a clearer picture of their chance to get there.

Now they are in the tent and getting ready for a good sleep before getting up tomorrow morning.

Breaking camp this morning, and Chris fighting the pack ice.

Thursday: Børge called inn this morning and told they were on their way to the airport. And 09:20 they sat on the plane!

That was about time. Because the volcano cloud from Island is homing in on the Svalbard region. So another delay could have been long!

The wind has died down up there, and conditions seem good. The plan is to land up on the ice runway at the icesheet were the Barneo base is. Hopefully they can get the helicopter to fly them straight out to their starting point this evening.

We’ll find out!

All set. Here are the guys loading the sledges into a taxi to head off to the airport.