We had a great 10 days training in Chamonix at the end of last month. We were really lucky with the weather and had perfect blue sky’s for the whole duration of our stay. We were able to get in some great runs as altitude, seriously hard work, but the mountain paths are worlds away from our road running back at home and well worth a little bit of pain! But our main goal over the 10 days was just to spend time going through rope work, crevasse extraction, avalanche safety procedures and just general mountaineering training. As we were there we thought it was worth having ago at standing on the summit of Mt Blanc, Tark’s has summited many times from various routes, but it was to be my first shot at standing on the summit of any large mountain! Well it didn’t go quite as we would have hoped, we had two attempts, the first of which was pathetic. At little over a third of the way up, my Chonophobia (irrational fear of snow) completely got the better of me and i had a huge panic attack and emotionally collapsed, doubting my abilities on the mountain as well as my career choice as an ‘adventurer’! I was in such a state we decided to turn back resound to the fact that despite spending 5 years trying to overcome them, these panic attacks were never going to go and mountaineering and i just weren’t meant to be and that i should stick to ultra endurance expeditions on flatter terrain. Within 24 hours i had given myself a good talking to and was back up the mountain for a second attempt. We were staying in tents as opposed to the mountain refuges like most other climbers, and decided to camp much further down the mountain and do a much longer summit day so that we could do it in the dark. This was  Tarka’s great plan…darkness…if I couldn’t see it, then i couldn’t be frightened of it was the theory! Instead of setting off at 2am from 3817m we set off at 10pm from 3167m, it turned out to be a genius idea of Tarka’s, and i flew up the mountain. Unfortunately at around 4400m Tarks was suffering form altitude sickness and was really struggling to keep his balance…never ideal on mountain ridges! So we had to turn back and make a very slow and careful descent, but by then it was light and i could see exactly what i had come up!! In a way it was quite good that I had to look after Tarks and make sure he got down safely, as it meant I couldn’t have a wobbly walking across (what in my mind are) horrific knife edge passes. Tarks was absolutely fine again once we were back at low altitude , other than feeling rather guilty that he prevented my summit, especially after i had talked myself back into giving it another try. Next year.

Other than that we have just been really busy preparing our new business ‘itzon TV‘ which will be launching in the next couple of months. I cant give you all the details just yet but i can tell you that one morning Tarka sat bolt upright in bed and announced that we should launch a TV channel and further more a TV channel that will be the first of its kind in the world!!! One week later itzon was born…. We will be drip feeding information on the holding page each week www.itzon.tv

The bad news is we are still in Resolute Bay! It’s been 6 weeks since we left the UK and the FSB team have only spent 6 days out on the sea ice…how depressing is that!!

The only good news to come of our continual delays, is that we were able to wave off our new friend, the Italian adventurer Michele Pontrandolfo, on the start of his latest adventure. He is on his way to attempt another solo expedition, this time to the 1996 Magnetic North Pole.

We have spent the past 2 weeks enjoying Michele’s company and helping him with his preparations. He has been here at South Camp Inn completely on his own, no support crew and no project manager, so I think he was grateful for a few friends to mull over kit problems as they arose.

He will now man-haul his 2 sleds 600km from Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island to the Pole on his own and unsupported. He is due to finish near Isachsen in approximately 40 days. If you can read Italian and want to follow his journey visit his site Artiko.

For my part I am heading out to do some training now, I think Tarka has some abseiling planned for me and possibly various techniques of creating snow anchors for belays. Best get walking as I have to get to the top of the cliff before i can learn how to go off it!

Friday has the next plane with our name on!

Well there is only 1 twin otter in service currently at Resolute and so we are in a queue behind the re-supply for the ice team and the Polar Continental Ice Shelf. Due to bad weather the ice teams re-supply has been put back two days already which mean we are not going to get on the ice until Wednesday or possibly Thursday at the earliest! let me out, let me out!!!

Freight has now finally arrived, well some of it, so we are at last back up to full steam ahead in the art of list making, sorting, re-packing, sewing on sponsor badges, dividing daily food rations…etc etc. In saying that, i was actually in bed with flu the day all the kit arrived and missed out on the process of lugging a couple of tonnes of kit back from the airport late at night in miserably cold conditions. Now I am sure some of you cynics out there would probably think i had planned it that way! I however, am just incredibly grateful that i was able to feel like death whilst in the warmth of a hotel bed next to an on-suite bathroom and NOT on the ice at -50ºC.

With only a few days to go before we get flown out onto the ice I should probably be telling you about all things Arctic. However I’m sure you’ll be hearing about enough Arctic and cold weather related stories over the next few months to fill a lifetime so instead I will tell you about South Camp! South Camp Inn is the name of the place we are staying at right now. Not only does it consist of the most eclectic amalgamation of décor and styles but it also happens to be run by a fantastically colourful team. The whole place is run and owned by Ozzie, an entrepreneurial business man from Tanzania of all places. Quite how a Tanzanian business man ended up right up here in the high Arctic is anybodies guess, but he has done, and very successfully at that. Over the years passing expeditions to the North pole have left kit here and Ozzie has accumulated a veritable Aladdin’s cave of goodies. No matter what you might need you can guaranty that it will be hidden in the back of one of the rooms. The other long standing member of South Camp is Randy… an accomplished chef from Bermuda!!! I wont even begin to try and explain how he ended up here but the long and the short is that I am very grateful he has as i have now found his muffins are equally exquisite as his chocolate brownies . There is also a fantastic amount of space, so we have been able to spread all our kit out and organise it into the various drop-offs and categories that we will need on the ice. For all its diversity and good points I heed a word of caution to all who will venture up here in years to come… BEWARE OF THE STATIC! It is quite unbelievable but a combination of aggravating factors has made this building a living Van de Graaff generator! On average you can take about 10 to 15 steps before you have generated enough static to give yourself a shock. We are not 100% sure on whether the building is earthed and to add a little spice and variety to your day all the metallic objects are covered in a tiny coating of paint, enough to disguise it so that you unsuspectingly brush past it, but an insufficient amount to insulate it. A few days ago I managed to walk almost the whole length of South Camp without coming into contact with any metal and when I reached for Ian’s door handle the shock was so intense it felt like the spark from my finger momentarily lit up the dark corridor. I have now taken to running my hand down the walls and deliberately touching as many door handles as possible as I travel around camp to avoid any significant build up.

Charlie Paton and I arrived last night to a pleasant -47, whilst the Ice Team, Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels have stayed on in Ottowa, along with Ian Wesley (kit boy) and Tarka. They are staying down a few extra days for some scheduled press conferences and have collared Tarks as their french speaking translator.

We will spend the next week here in Resolute sorting and preparing kit,  going through weather reading and prediction, working with the pilots to understand exactly what they require from the runways we must build and maintain and finally repeat training exercises such as falling through the sea ice and polar bear safety.

The Inuit town of Resolute is little more than the size of a hamlet back home in the UK, maybe a small village at a push, with a population of approximately 230 people, the facilities of a school, small supermarket, hotel and its lifeline - the airport!

We are still waiting for the freight to arrive, so for now I am furiously working away at eating all Randy (the cook) can throw at me…his chocolate brownies are amazing!!

To all those who have emailed in the last year asking where and when they can purchase a copy of the DVD, it is now available HERE. The successful completion on the film has been in no small part thanks to Pangaea TV, with whom we have been working on the production with and so a big thank you needs to go to them. The other big thank you goes to all of you. Without the constant emails and phone calls asking when it would be ready it probably would never have been finished

When I watch the DVD back, now it is complete, I’m just amazed at how far I have come in the past 3 years. I look at my self in the beginning of the film, and just wince at how completely out of my comfort zone I was, crying and complaining about everything and anything. Then by the end of the film I can see a change, despite the near vertical cliff faces and Siberian blizzards, I was able to look at each day with a positive attitude even if I was feeling less than ‘comfortable’! But now, as I am currently organising and gathering kit for my departure to the Arctic Ocean, my tent away from home for the next 3 months in temperature of -50°C, I am able to see how one, 6 month journey transformed my outlook on life. More than anything I have realised, what we are ALL physically and mentally capable of, and how stretching yourself beyond your usually capability makes the achievement or reward seem so much greater.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

We have had a flat out start to 2009, working every hour we could find. With the only exception being 4 days off around Christmas, in which I became Tarka’s ‘feeder’, trying to replenish the 2.5 stone in weight he lost whilst cycling across Africa!

Well, our exciting news is that in 2 weeks time we are off to the Arctic Ocean for approximately 12 weeks! We are extremely fortunate to have been invited into the team of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The Catlin Arctic Survey is an international collaboration between polar explorers and some of the world’s foremost scientific bodies. It seeks to resolve one of the most important environmental questions of our time: How long will the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover remain a permanent feature of our planet? The expedition is being led by highly experienced polar explorer Pen Hadow. Accompanying him will be Ann Daniels, one of the world’s foremost female polar explorers and Martin Hartley, leading expedition photographer. Team (PAM) will be traveling on foot, hauling sledges from 80°N 140°W, across 1200km of disintegrating and shifting sea ice, for around 100 days, in temperatures as low as -50°C.

Tarka and I are 2 of the 3 members that constitute the Ice Base Team. The range of a Twin Otter (fully loaded) is about 1,125km. The distance from Resolute to the Team PAM (who will be travelling along 140° Longitude) is 1,100km. There is therefore the need for a re-fuelling point, at some point along the plane’s return journey, hence the need for two Ice Bases (see below). Our job is to inform pilots of weather conditions, on the ground, and to mark out and maintain a suitable runway. We will need to keep an eye on the state of the ice runway, which needs to be 305m in length and at least 60cm thick in order for the Twin Otters to land. Fog also starts to become an issue in the later stages of the expedition, as the slightly warmer temperatures meet the cold open water exposed by the ice break-up. Flying in such conditions is particularly dangerous, making re-supply runs that much more difficult to complete and our role as Ice Base staff that much more critical. In addition we must take care of the fuel cache used for re-supply and provide a little psychological support for them knowing there are others out on the ice.

For those who know little about the Arctic Ocean, in short Tark’s and I are going to live in a tent induring ridiculously cold temperatures for a little under 3 months (2 days ago we were given current weather reports of -80°C excluding wind chill)! Our tent will be on a thinning layer of ice that is constantly on the move, we may wake each morning kilometers away from where we went to sleep! Our main role is to aid the landing of the plane onto the ice to re-fuel, however for this to happen we have to make sure the fuel drums have not floated away on a fresh stretch of open water or sunk to the bottom of the ocean! On a daily basis we will be drilling holes and taking ice samples whilst watching our backs for the large white furry friends that will be our neighbours for the duration of the expedition.

To learn more about the Catlin Arctic Survey please click on the video link.

So in four weeks time we are off once again. No financial sponsorship involved, no world first to attempt, no intense logistical planning needed, just a pure adventure for the fun of it!

We are heading off to cycle 8000km, from the tiny African country of Djibouti, down the east cost of Africa to South Africa, in a little over 3 months. Why Djibouti? Well the fact that we had never heard of it was as good a reason as any.

In order to make the journey more of a challenge we have decided to leave our fancy bikes at home, wait until we arrive in Djibouti and buy a couple of old heavy steel bikes from the locals, which will more than likely have no gears AND no brakes!!!

We will be traveling through a total of 8 countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa) and do our best to capture some of the incredible landscapes and cultures we’ll pass.

We will need to cycle 110km a day in order to cover the distance in the time we have, which on a good bike and on a good road is no distance at all. However the quality of roads and the quality of the bikes will play a healthy part in the daily mileage we actually achieve. We will be giving our saddle soars a 7 day rest from cycling when we cross into Tanzania in order to climb Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro (5895m).

Although this is more of a holiday than a ‘Primal Journey’, it does have its place in our training schedule. Its important to be accustomed to repetitive workloads, One World will be a colossal psychological battle above everything else.

We would like to thank our long-term sponsor Mountain Equipment for stepping in and providing much of our technical equipment for the journey.

Don’t panic… we will regularly updating the site, right here with stories, photos and videos of our adventure as it unfolds.

Katie-Jane

In our last post we talked about some of the training trips we have been on this year in preparation for One World. If you read that post you would be forgiven for thinking that all our training is carried out in exotic locations around the world. So I thought we would also mention the innumerable days of training that fill most of our schedule here in the Devonshire hills.

Training consists predominantly of tyre pulling in preparation for dragging our pulks across the Arctic and Antarctic. This is normally done with 3 large car tyres in tow. To better simulate the broken jumble of ice in the Arctic we drag the tyres through the forests with a 20kg pack attached to each tyre. Normally you only get about 5 feet before the tyres get jammed on a root or between two trees and you have to carry and manoeuvre the packs and tyres through the undergrowth. It’s exhausting work and not very conducive to covering any great distance. In contrast, to simulate the Antarctic we tend to go out onto the moors and just keep on going! Occasionally we also bring out the tractor tyre!!!

Circuits and weight training are also a regular part of our training days to help strengthen our backs and arms. Much to Katie’s hatred there is inevitably a healthy amount of running for general fitness. Now that One World has been delayed and we are still on the eternal uphill struggle of sponsorship and logistics, not to mention making a living! We are currently only able to dedicate approximately 2 hours a day to training; however this will gradually increase again in the build up to our departure to between 6 and 8 hours a day.

Tarka