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

I had originally hoped to spend 5 days on the Glacier D’Argentiere but found that it was closed and so we opted to climb from Chamonix back up to the Aiguille du Midi via the Mer de Glace. At 20km it’s not exactly ground breaking distances but it was an incredibly useful excises. The main purpose of the trip was to test out every last piece of equipment that we will be using on the expedition to make sure it could hold up to the job. There are a few little pieces that need tweaking and there will be a full breakdown on the website when it goes live, but on the whole I was very impressed with everything and I am now extremely confident that we have the best kit we could possibly hope for. Sadly this means that it pretty much comes down to use now and whether we can hold up to the challenge!

That said we have learnt some valuable lessons this week such as how to abseil and manoeuvred in and out of crevasses with 32kg packs. I expect some of you have tried this before and have found that it’s quite easy to end up upside-down on the rope with such a heavy pack and that really makes life difficult. As a general rule crossing large fields of crevasses isn’t exactly a humorous affair but Katie did manage to make me laugh when after having crossed a precarious snow bridge she triumphantly (and slightly cockily) returned to its edge to take a photo of her exploit when the wafer thin 3 meters bridge of snow promptly collapsed into the depths of the crevasse and she came running past me exclaiming that it was time to leave.

The total ascent was a little over 2 vertical kilometres and as we neared the 4000m mark Katie started to feel the effects of the altitude and progress became incredibly laborious. We are taking 2 days off to recover before heading back out to finish off all the training we didn’t get round to last time and I’ll post again on the long drive back to England on Thursday.

In a very respectable third place comes the weather. I don’t know about you but there is something spectacular about the weather in the Mountains at this time of year (spring that is). Not only is it the perfect temperature but the snow is just great for touring and the air is half filled with the smell of summer coming up from the valleys below.

In second place is Katie’s face as she learnt to abseil without a harness. Slightly harsh I know, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen for a while. It’s an incredibly important skill to know in climbing and mountaineering expeditions in case something should happen to your harness and you need to get down a vertical cliff. As a general rule I use a technique called ‘South African abseiling’, quite why it has that name I don’t know. What I do know is how painful it is! Katie managed to get to a point where it hurt so much that you start laughing at the ridiculous amount of pain and you are torn between been afraid of going any further and knowing that down is the only way for the agony to end. Sadly I didn’t have a camera to hand and so you will simply have to imagine it.

And in first place was the acquisition of the most ridiculously large printer ever. My Dad owns a print house in the Alps and he very kindly donated an old printer to us so we could print out proposals and promotional material for our expeditions. It is a truly fantastic toy! And with typical disregard for the cost of the inks I set about printing the largest pictures I could to test out our new gadget. I have since discovered that it will print 36 inches wide and a fairly respectable 300ft long. We now have hundreds of huge maps and prints all around the flat and not enough wall space to put them up. The only down side of it is that Katie isn’t overly impressed about the fact that it occupies a huge portion of the house now!

We were fully aware that we had some excess luggage when we started the journey however when we came to check it in to Air Canada in Ottawa we came very close to just leaving it in the airport. At first I laughed at the man because his accent was so strong that I thought he had simply made a mistake and the translation was lost in his deep French pronunciation. After some clarification we all stood in total silence as they wanted more for each bag than the original cost of the flights. Once again Charlie launched into a full frontal verbal assault at the man, this time however the conflict of the strong French and Scottish accents nullified each other and they both just displayed a look saying ‘I’m sorry, are you speaking to me? I’m afraid I didn’t understand’. At that point the credit cards came out and we swiftly moved on.

Home hasn’t exactly been relaxing yet and we took Easter Sunday off before getting back to work on Monday. We are off to France tomorrow to see my family and enjoy a few days training in the warm and the sun.

After a few more long days working away we managed to get camp looking fantastic. The shower was… I want to say brilliant because out in the middle of the Arctic the concept of a shower is a little on the ludicrous side. The truth of the matter is that it brings back floods of memories of being in Africa when you have to contort yourself into unusual positions just to get your whole body wet. Once that is achieved, under the incredibly slow (and short lived) trickle, you have to try and get all the soap of before the water ‘tank’ runs dry. Regardless of all that we can wash ourselves and we have grown quite fond of our little shower.

The kitchen sink has performed fantastically and we can wash up all the dishes after every meal now. It has all become so efficient that we even empty out our meal bags out onto plates and sit around the table to eat them. I have no idea why but they seam to taste much better of a plate rather than in a bag. Speaking of efficiency we have established a routine with the heater now and are able to keep the temperature in our home at a perfect level. We do have a hose to connect the heater directly to a 45 Gallon drum and run the heater continuously but despite the additional hassle we found that we can monitor the fuel far more efficiently if we run the heater from the 5 gallon jerry can on the back. When the Jerry can is full we can run the heater on its lowest setting for between 9.5 and 10 hours. The lowest setting is ample to keep our home warm and when the fuel runs out we can leave it about 2 hours before having to relight it. We have had long debates about the toilet and have agreed and settled that it will stay outdoors in the ice. Cold as it may be dealing with the pluming of an indoor one is just not going to be realistic at this stage.

We have taken to a regular fitness regime and every day we walk, ski, run or hike up at least one of the hills. I was so excited when we reached the top of one of the big ones to see that there was a clear run of snow down one side. Although the bindings and boots are not exactly designed for skiing and I didn’t execute it in the most graceful of manners I couldn’t resist telemarking down.

Excuse the change in tense here but the story was written in staggered instalments.

After all the work we put into getting our home up and running we then got a devastating call from the London head office… we are coming off the ice!!! For a whole host of reasons it has been deemed that our job is done and we are on our way home. Our extraction was synchronised with the main resupply for PAM and we then had to completely disassemble our home. We all felt a little shocked and sat in silence for a while, I suppose each of us was thinking the same thing one way or another and then starting to get on with job. The flight was delayed by a day giving us enough time to return the whole place as we had found it ( Well not exactly as we found it, we didn’t fill the cabins back up with snow. We actually took great care to board up the doors and windows to protect them) and then Charlie hopped on the plane as it came through on its outbound leg to go on up to see Pen, Ann Daniels (mother of 4) and Martin (sweat cheeks) while Katie and I made final preparations for departure. Once everything was packed and out by the runway Katie managed to get her very first glimpse of an animal, a wolf. The wolf was actually rummaging around the bag with the cameras in so we couldn’t get a picture but Katie was very excited to see her first wild polar animal none the less. The plane was late on its return leg and Katie and I had taken to trying to guess the song that we were singing songs through our emergency whistles to try and stay warm. The flight home was quiet and sombre and we all sat staring out of the windows watching the polar ice below (and Katie wants me to mention the enormous pink moon).

The latest instalments have been; a new kitchen with sink built into the worktop, a shower cubical with changing area, coat rack and boot area, fuel bund with dispensary taps, and an external home for the generator (with chimney for the fumes). Last night we even put up a dining table, found a few old plates and I made us beans on toast … who could ask for more!

Even with all these luxurious home comforts we have surrounded ourselves with, life isn’t quite like being at home, there is always a longer process involved in receiving the end goods. The shower for example. If you decide you want to have a shower you must first collect a bucket of snow, leave it by the heater for several hours to melt, then fill the bag with nozzle attachment with the water and put it up on the top shelf over the shower, then leave for several more hours for the water to warm in plastic bag. We purposely built the shower right next to the heater hoping sufficient hot air would rise to the roof of the porta cabin and heat the water sufficiently to take the Arctic chill off it. Tarka is about to try the first shower this evening so we will see…! Another example, Charlie pointed out to me the other day as he came in laughing at the randomness of cold weather living, was when he could hear sawing and wondered in to see what I was creating next, only to find that was in fact sawing away with the large wood saw, but what I was desperately trying to cut through was the weeks rashen of cheese!

I even managed a short run this morning up and down the runway, my poor lungs were the only thing to suffer, with every freezing inhalation causing a deep burning pain. Couple more days and I am sure they will have got the gist.

We are working on the video of camp but having a few technical issues…will keep trying.

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!

The great news of the day is that Pen, Ann and Martin managed to get their resupply and they all seem in very high spirits as they continue along their journey Northwards. The not so good news is that our flight out onto the ice has been delayed again due to bad weather and the aircraft is not available over the weekend… so we are now all crossing our fingers for a Monday drop off. In a bid to try and overcome the irritation of having to patiently sit and wait for our flight back onto the ice we have started training for our next trip. Oh yes… of course it was never going to be long before we decided on our next trip and true to form here we go. Unfortunately I cant tell you what the project is just yet but I can tell you that it requires us to be exceptionally fit and strong and of course it is a world first!!! What possible better training ground could we ask for than the Arctic for such an endeavour?

We have been devising a training schedule that will fit in with our surroundings and daily work whilst out on the ice. Staying fit out here is considerably harder than it sounds because you have to be careful about sweating and the intense cold. We’ve spent most of the afternoon pulling our pulks over huge blocks of snow and ice and I caught this photo of Katie wrestling her 110kg sledge up and over the boulders.

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

We have been working hard on the Great Wall of China documentary, which is nearly finished!! But most predominantly we have been preparing for our next big adventure, One World powered by us. We plan to journey from one geographical pole to the other using exclusively human power, in the form of skiing, cycling and ocean rowing. We will cover a distance of 32,000km on a 3-year epic adventure.

Until a few weeks ago, we were planning to depart in February 2009, but unfortunately due to a difficult economic market we have had to delay departure until 2010. As well as the monumental task of organising the logistics and finance for a three year, never before attempted expedition, we have had a host of new skills to learn and develop, especially me. So in January I was out in the French Alps learning how to cross country ski, which I would like to add is brilliant, I now have no desire to Alpine ski ever again! Also, I had the unpleasant process of learning how to fall through the ice….with your skis on….and get out! In February we spent 2 weeks in the Arctic, on and around the Island of Svalbard. Tarka was teaching me the vital skills of learning how to live in a tent at -50°C for weeks on end, protect yourself from polar bears and avoid loosing parts of your body to frost bite. Last month we took to the sea and thought we would learn by trial and error how to ocean row, as neither of us had any previous experience, by rowing to the Isles of Scilly and back!

Read more about our training trips…

Although our training and preparations will continue with the One World expedition, we are currently putting our thinking caps on for another small adventure we can carry out this winter….so many ideas so little time! So any ideas or indeed projects that are already going ahead let us know.

Katie-Jane