Børge Ousland

Now we are here, the trip is over and everyone can call themselves Polar Travelers!

It has been a long, tough day with headwinds and ice drifting towards the south.

The surrounding landscape on the last day was bewitching with lots of old ice and grand ice sculptures rising from the surface.

A 10 cm crack opened up in the ice under our tent overnight. Nobody heard anything due to the loud snoring noises coming from Petter Spiten! Cracks like this usually make quite a loud noise when they open up.

Now we are celebrating with cake and warm drinks.

Today Jo Gambi can celebrate being the first woman who has climbed all seven summits and has also been to both the South and North poles! Congratulations.

Congratulations also to the rest of the group, we have all worked hard as a strong team and, therefore, we are standing here today.

We will be here on the North Pole for two days waiting for transport. Most of us have light frost injuries and sore fingertips needing some rest.

Tomorrow we expect the arrival of the diving team who will be attempting to set a new record diving under the ice.

Minus 20 degrees C and wind soon translates into a minus 40 wind-chill factor and so today we have felt the cold on our bodies for yet another day. With a strong headwind and ice drifting southward we really have had to struggle to make 16 km today.

Most of us were completely wrapped up today and had problems keeping warm.

After each short stop it was necessary to wear our down jackets for quite some time.

Many of the group are looking forward to reaching the goal!

The North Pole is now 20 km away, and we should be able to get there tomorrow.

Almost Easter weather. It is still cold, but in such weather we forget about the freezing temperatures.

Lots of pressure ridges, thin impassable ice and leads of open water characterized the day.

Several times we had to cross over leads on thin ice where the whole group had to work as a team to get us quickly and safely over.

Torleif has tried Captain Nemo today and is now a new member of the exclusive North Pole Swim Club. He described it as being nice and warm. And his feet didn’t even get wet! Take that, Mr. Spite!

The group is now 35 km from the North Pole and, at the current pace, we should be there in two days.

The participants have experienced almost everything on this trip, except for Polar bears. However, bears have been observed at Boerneo, so perhaps they will drop in!

The divers on Boerneo made a dive down to 50 meters today and are planning on making an attempt at the record in two days.

We awoke this morning to drifting snow and winds from the northwest, but we had to get up and get going. The first few hours were hard in that we had to struggle through deep new snow and poor ice. In some places we experienced a total whiteout. In other words; very poor visibility!

Later in the day the weather cleared and we had sunshine and good visibility. We then had to cross some snow-filled leads and those crossings can give you an eerie feeling. We therefore took it very easy while inching across.

After another few hours on skis we were ready to set up camp after having covered about 15 km. We are satisfied with this distance since we had poor weather and the ice had drifted against us; we felt it was a good achievement.

Today we passed the midway point so we only have another half to go.

After boiling water, eating and taking down the tents, we were ready for new challenges and more kilometres.

The first hours were used to raise the body temperatures, but as the day progressed we were all warm and in good spirits. Even if the day was characterized by a cold wind and numerous pressure ridges, we managed to cover 20 km. We were helped by the fact that the ice drifted in the same direction as our travel. This is somewhat unusual in that the drift is usually easterly or south-easterly.

Peter Spiten is using this opportunity to send greetings home and to say that everything is o.k. and his feet are warm even after his little swim yesterday!

After some waiting at the Borneo base, we then flew southwards (!) by helicopter to 89 degrees North. The base is moving all the time due to the drift of the ice. Since our expedition is to cover the last degree (from 89 to 90 degrees), there will be no cheating here! Today we covered 10 km and we all had a good day.