Børge Ousland

Camp 18 etc: The day started with a huge egg, meat and fresh milk breakfast. That came good at we had to carry down to the Laguna. Luckily the horse took some of the weight.

At 1pm the boat came. With our somewhat useless spanish it was a relief. The voyage over to Tortel took 4 hours. In a way, this is the end of our journey. Here is the first shower. Here is the first bed, and here is the first ordered dinner! Tortel do not have any Cell phone coverage, BUT more important,  they got connected to the world by road some years back.

So tomorrow, someone will come down with a minibus from Coihaique and take us back there and close to the nearest airfield. The journey takes 10-12 hours. We will spend one day there before flying to Santiago.  There awaits another night before we board for Norway where we expect to touch down Wednesday the 2^nd.

It has been an extraordinary trip. The landscape unbelievable, the challenge great, the teamwork perfect and we are all in owe. We plan to repeat the trip next year, so if you are keen on a multi-adventure just sign up!

Greeting from Bengt, Thorleif and Børge.

Camp 17: Another extraordinary day. As we are of the (infamous) ‘never go twice generation’ we chose to pack it all in one load. So with some 40 kilos on our backs started the trip down. We must have looked like drunken (or dying) sailors, as we soon had a Condor floating above. That this carrion bird at times came as close as 10 metres says volumes about the sight of us struggling under our backpacks…

After some 7-8 km came we upon a very small farm. Here a settler couple lived with a handful of cows, no electricity and only that the earth could chip in. It was overwealming to be treated in the way we were.

Later we worked for the food, logging, fetching the cows and getting water. In the evening we were treated to a real brotherhood gathering. Though we were deeply embarrassed and sad our Spanish was as bad as it is. But the Satellite phone helped out a bit.

Through their only means of communication, a VHF radio, we now believe the husband will take us down the river in his boat tomorrow, and that another boat from Tortel will pick us up in a day – or two.

Camp 16, Bent reports: This was a big, big day. It started pretty wildly with us trying to jump off the Stephan Glacier. It was all a very rough ice, ups and downs and sledges that was not keen to cooperate at all. But at 1130am we stepped onto the moraine.

Then we repacked from sledges to backpacks and the carrying could start. The rest of the day we followed the moraine and late in the afternoon we set foot on ‘real’ land. By that the Northern Glacier was crossed, and this part of our adventure behind us. Now awaits the next. Walking down and towards the laguna, and on.

But first, we just enjoyed the day. It was wonderful to light a bonfire and smell all the earthy smells. This is called the horse Camp, and was the very first sign of human activity since we left. A truly great day.

Camp 15, Thorleif reports: Another fabulous day. But luckily not as sweltering hot as yesterday, as we have been working hard.

We ended up doing 4,5 kilometres. But that was in a straight line. We had to take two long scouting trips to find possible routes through what is a totally broken up icescape. It is far fro easy, pulling a sledge, being roped up and negotiating steep ups and downs on skis. Bothe abilities and minds have had overloads today. But we have had great fun and really enjoyed this wild ride.

Now we are close to one of the moraines, and this is possibly our last night on ice. Out aim is to reach the Horse Camp tomorrow, possibly by the moraine ridge. If we do that we will be very pleased.

Camp 14: We have had the most perfect day. Not a single cloud, excellent snow and a landscape out of another world. The mountains here are not only dramatic, but the weather down here plasters them with snow and ice. It is like they are dressed up in a fairytale world. How the ice can cling onto those ultra steep mountain sides are beyond belief. It is like walking in a japanees comic strip, your fantasy cant quite cope with it all.

Vi put 23 kilometres and a 1000 metre vertically behind us today. That was excellent and due only to the superb conditions. The first part was easy, but then we entered the upper part of the Stephan Glacier and crevasses started to appear. We soon had to rope up as it became pretty wild as we zigzaged onwards.

In this reflection bowl the sun was unbelievably strong. The radiation here is really high. Our faces will stay tanned forever, and we used just undershirts most of the day. That was very comfortable, apart form for Bengt. His Brynje Mesh shirt was not the thing to have. It is brilliant most always, but not against the sun. See photo…

We have now camped in an enormous crevasse field as we see down the glacier. But we can se both some moraines and some good step-off points. But we are in no doubt the next days will be adventuroues.

Camp 13, Bengt reports: After 3 days waiting, we desperately wanted this to THE day. We peaked out at 5am and were met with gale winds, snow and zero visibility.

At 6 it was no better

But at 7am we saw the mountain! That got us going. We hurried through the routine morning stuff and scrambled out. – Only to be med by total whiteout.

We continued as if nothing. Packed the sledges, pottered around a bit and waited, refusing to give in to this blindfolded chess game with Mother Nature.

AND, at Noon it broke up! We hurried away. It was very steep, high and hard. The conditions were heavy but ok. As we neared the summit (the Paso Colonia), it all closed in again, but up we got!

We were extremely happy and it felt like a major victory. On the way down we got a huge bonus. The wind died down, the whiteout dissolved and the clouds departed. And for the thousands time we were completely flabbergasted to see these fantastic mountains appear around us. It can’t we described by words, and again our memory card in our cameras took a sever beating. It is just plain impossible to stop taking photos.

As we camped, it was a stunning sunset, nice and cold, and downright the 3 happiest campers in the world.

We have gotten a few extra shots from their ordeal in the snow. If anybody had doubts of how hard it can be to break free of the ‘white powder’ – this should be proof of the pudding.

Camp 10/12, Thorleif reports: Well, we are still here. The wind has died down considerably, but still with total white-out and some snow. There are no chance to even contemplate trying the pass.
But, today we at least got some exercise. We have gotten a frightening 2 metres of snow and the tent was as good as buried. So at noon we all got out and started digging. It took us some 4 hours to clear the tent, and move it ten metres.
Now we are back on our backs. Here on the inside our living space has doubled, outside it is still light snow, and we just relax, have a good time and are eagerly awaiting tomorrow. Will we get the break?

So farit is the weather that hasheld all the aces

Camp 10/11: Da ble vi virkelig truffet hardt. Dette utviklet seg til en vanvittig storm. Vi måtte ut og sikre teltet med klatretau. Tjoret det ned som best vi kunne.
Det hjelp. Som en sikkerhet har vi dobbelt sett med telt stenger i alle kanalene. Det var vi glade for, for vi har ingen tro på at teltet hadde klart seg uten.
Heldig vir løyet vinden noe, så nå kan vi slappe av med musikk, lydbøker og kort mens det laver ned ute. Det er ting som tyder på at vi kan få et værvindu søndag, men helt sikre kan vi jo ikke være, så vi er over på halve rasjoner. Det er helt greit nå når vi ligger i ro.

We had to tie the rent down with climbing rope

Camp 10, Bengt reporting: The day has had it’s ups and downs. First of all were we met with loose snow reaching over our knees. Then we got whiteout for the entire day. But the temperature has fallen and we now have lovely cold weather. That makes, among other things, life inside the tent much better.
We did some 8 kilometres, and are now in position under the pass we must get over. We got a glimpse of it as we camped. There is no doubt that we need both a clear view and much better weather to challenge it.
The forecasts is not good. The best estimate in Sunday, so now we are confined to the comfort of the tent. It seems only Thorleif is not that enthused…
We have just gone over food, route, kilometres, fuel etc etc and found we have 10 days full rations left. And we believe we can scale the pass and get off the glacier in 5 good days, so so far everything is no sweat and just three happy campers.

The blue is not a clear sky