The team phone in today to report a long day with challenging ice conditions, but good progress. It helped that they made 2 nautical miles overnight with a north drift! They are currently at N89.50.01, E142.
They awoke to discover that the rubbly zone just to the north of them had opened up into a giant mass of water. Guide Keith Heger named it "Lake Heger" and was trying to sell "lakefront property" to Niall and Alexey all day. The open water ran in a NW direction and though it took them half the day to find a way across it, they were at least able to make some northward progress while they searched for a crossing. In addition to Lake Heger, the team also had some very large pressure ridges that they had to navigate. One of them was approximately 20 feet wide and took at least 20 minutes to get across.
The team was delighted to learn that the bird they saw yesterday was a Black-Legged Kittiwake. Thanks to Andrei Pyatibratov and Tyler Keenan for sending in the same identification. We relayed all the information about the bird's characteristics to the team.
To add to the bird sighting the team saw polar bear tracks today! And right next to the polar bear tracks were fox tracks! It's rare to see a fox this far north (almost 450 miles from land!). It makes sense that the fox tracks would be next to the polar bear tracks because the arctic fox is a scavenger and it is likely following the polar bear looking for a seal carcass. The team estimates that the track is about a week old. With all the open water the team will be more on the look out for seals as well as polar bear (and fox!).
Given any luck the team could reach the North Pole tomorrow! Of course any number of obstacles could prevent this from happening, but certainly as the team gets closer to the Pole their enthusiasm and energy will increase. Sometimes when you are close to the Pole it's hard to stop skiing!
Make sure to listen to the audio report below, and check back again tomorrow for another update from the team!
They awoke to discover that the rubbly zone just to the north of them had opened up into a giant mass of water. Guide Keith Heger named it "Lake Heger" and was trying to sell "lakefront property" to Niall and Alexey all day. The open water ran in a NW direction and though it took them half the day to find a way across it, they were at least able to make some northward progress while they searched for a crossing. In addition to Lake Heger, the team also had some very large pressure ridges that they had to navigate. One of them was approximately 20 feet wide and took at least 20 minutes to get across.
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| Open water like "Lake Heger" can be very hard to cross. Sometimes a team will ski many miles out their way, just to find a decent crossing. |
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| Even if a lead is frozen it may not be strong enough to bear the weight of a skier. Here the team finds a good spot to cross a frozen lead. |
The team was delighted to learn that the bird they saw yesterday was a Black-Legged Kittiwake. Thanks to Andrei Pyatibratov and Tyler Keenan for sending in the same identification. We relayed all the information about the bird's characteristics to the team.
To add to the bird sighting the team saw polar bear tracks today! And right next to the polar bear tracks were fox tracks! It's rare to see a fox this far north (almost 450 miles from land!). It makes sense that the fox tracks would be next to the polar bear tracks because the arctic fox is a scavenger and it is likely following the polar bear looking for a seal carcass. The team estimates that the track is about a week old. With all the open water the team will be more on the look out for seals as well as polar bear (and fox!).
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| Polar Bear footprint! |
Make sure to listen to the audio report below, and check back again tomorrow for another update from the team!
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