March 8, 2014
Waiting
Delayed. We received a weather report from Trudy at Canadian Ice Service in the early afternoon and it didn't look good. She wrote, 'as expected, a storm has moved down from northern Greenland and the north coast of Ellesmere became overcast this morning'.
Later, Tom from Kenn Borek called and said we would have to abort our Sunday attempt and hope for good weather on Monday.
If I had a dollar for every time I was on an expedition and got delayed due to weather. In 2011, I was delayed at the South Pole for just a couple of days, but that meant missing another flight and delaying me further. In 2008, I was stuck in Antarctica at Patriot Hills for nearly 10 days. At that time, the blue ice runway was oriented perpendicular to the winds coming off the nearby mountains and the narrow perameters in which the Ilyushin could land were sporadic at best. In 2005, we waited for a pick up off the coast of Russia for, I can't even remember how long now - 9 or 11 days - stuck on a small piece no bigger than 3 or 4 football fields. Back then we had 512 megabyte mp3 players. As you might imagine, it didn't take long to become overwhelmingly bored. Just a week earlier, I had jettisoned my small book to save weight. Somewhere in the middle of all that I turned 34. In my journal that day I wrote, 'worst birthday ever'.
I guess that makes me three dollars richer now.
In reality, killing time due to bad weather or other situations outside of your control is nothing new to Ryan or I. Both of us have spent inordinate amounts of our lives simply 'waiting'. Waiting for delayed flights. Waiting for weather to clear. Waiting for permits to get signed or gear to arrive. You name the reason and we've probably waited for it. It's easy to get frustrated and want to try to take 'control' or 'will' the conditions to change.
But we only control the things that we directly touch and so we sit in Resolute for another day keeping busy and not thinking too much about our future. One moment passes. And then another.
For a brief moment today, I allowed myself to get excited about being on the ice. It was before receiving the bad weather report and I realized it was actually the very first time since we started training and preparing that I actually thought about the actual expedition. There has been so much to do before this moment - and so much that can go wrong - that I've learned to meter out my enthusiasm and focus on specific tasks and situations.
I am an optimist but expeditions have taught me to be realistic about my expectations.
Besides, after yesterday's roller coaster of emotions, the simple fact of being delayed by weather is hardly a blip on our radar. At least on the outside.
Image: My traditional expedition buzz cut - a tradition which actually started in 2001 and my first visit to Resolute.
Later, Tom from Kenn Borek called and said we would have to abort our Sunday attempt and hope for good weather on Monday.
If I had a dollar for every time I was on an expedition and got delayed due to weather. In 2011, I was delayed at the South Pole for just a couple of days, but that meant missing another flight and delaying me further. In 2008, I was stuck in Antarctica at Patriot Hills for nearly 10 days. At that time, the blue ice runway was oriented perpendicular to the winds coming off the nearby mountains and the narrow perameters in which the Ilyushin could land were sporadic at best. In 2005, we waited for a pick up off the coast of Russia for, I can't even remember how long now - 9 or 11 days - stuck on a small piece no bigger than 3 or 4 football fields. Back then we had 512 megabyte mp3 players. As you might imagine, it didn't take long to become overwhelmingly bored. Just a week earlier, I had jettisoned my small book to save weight. Somewhere in the middle of all that I turned 34. In my journal that day I wrote, 'worst birthday ever'.
I guess that makes me three dollars richer now.
In reality, killing time due to bad weather or other situations outside of your control is nothing new to Ryan or I. Both of us have spent inordinate amounts of our lives simply 'waiting'. Waiting for delayed flights. Waiting for weather to clear. Waiting for permits to get signed or gear to arrive. You name the reason and we've probably waited for it. It's easy to get frustrated and want to try to take 'control' or 'will' the conditions to change.
But we only control the things that we directly touch and so we sit in Resolute for another day keeping busy and not thinking too much about our future. One moment passes. And then another.
For a brief moment today, I allowed myself to get excited about being on the ice. It was before receiving the bad weather report and I realized it was actually the very first time since we started training and preparing that I actually thought about the actual expedition. There has been so much to do before this moment - and so much that can go wrong - that I've learned to meter out my enthusiasm and focus on specific tasks and situations.
I am an optimist but expeditions have taught me to be realistic about my expectations.
Besides, after yesterday's roller coaster of emotions, the simple fact of being delayed by weather is hardly a blip on our radar. At least on the outside.
Image: My traditional expedition buzz cut - a tradition which actually started in 2001 and my first visit to Resolute.