January 26, 2017
Polar Zen
Its not too often on a polar style expedition that I make an effort to get out of the tent before breakfast is finished and we are actually ready to start traveling, but this morning's sunrise was incredible so I made an exception. It had gotten fairly cold last night and a layer of frost covered our tents, sleds, skis and poles. Camping nearly out of sight of land, a huge yellow-orange ball slowly rose above the horizon as warm light filled each individual frost crystal with light as they glittered and glistened in synchopation. It was beautiful.
There is something magical about being in big open spaces like this. We feel it as we get out of the tents every morning. To the west, there is a seemingly infinite horizon of white. In contrast to our daily lives where we go from here to there and back again in a few minutes, we have been skiing south for the past two days. Hour after hour. Ironically, it is the farthest thing from boring that you could ever imagine and during each shift our minds drift far and wide as our feet shuffle back and forth.
Pierre can't seem to get enough. At every break today, he jokingly said he was turning around and skiing back north, into the wilderness. His enthusiasm is boundless and I smile when he says things like this because it reminds me so much of myself at that age. All I wanted to do was go on adventures (well maybe not that much has changed).
'There's no business business like snow business,' Tim said this morning as we were packing up. We had been discussing the finer points of making a business of selling melted snow (the only thing we cook on expeditions). It's a longer story than I want to get into here, but we enjoyed the distraction nonetheless.
Not that we need any distractions. After his first stretch navigating out front Tim commented, 'I love having that open expanse of snow and ice in front of me.'
I couldn't agree more.
We pushed hard throughout the day making the biggest mileage of our trip. It had been sunny and clear for most of the day until late afternoon when a bank of clouds rolled in. It was getting dark when we finally stopped to pitch camp.
We got one tent up in a matter minutes, but the sun dropped below the cloud layer just above the horizon and we were treated to a spectacular sunset. I watched Joseph, a professional landscape photographer, pause from his duties setting up the tent. He knew there was work to be done, but the sunset was gorgeous and pictures like this aren't easy to come by.
I was smiling at his hesitation, I should have been helping with the tent as well, but I was too busy taking pictures.
Darcy, ever the stalwart, had us all covered as was busily shoveling snow and building anchors. Image: Pierre soaking up all the ice and snow.
There is something magical about being in big open spaces like this. We feel it as we get out of the tents every morning. To the west, there is a seemingly infinite horizon of white. In contrast to our daily lives where we go from here to there and back again in a few minutes, we have been skiing south for the past two days. Hour after hour. Ironically, it is the farthest thing from boring that you could ever imagine and during each shift our minds drift far and wide as our feet shuffle back and forth.
Pierre can't seem to get enough. At every break today, he jokingly said he was turning around and skiing back north, into the wilderness. His enthusiasm is boundless and I smile when he says things like this because it reminds me so much of myself at that age. All I wanted to do was go on adventures (well maybe not that much has changed).
'There's no business business like snow business,' Tim said this morning as we were packing up. We had been discussing the finer points of making a business of selling melted snow (the only thing we cook on expeditions). It's a longer story than I want to get into here, but we enjoyed the distraction nonetheless.
Not that we need any distractions. After his first stretch navigating out front Tim commented, 'I love having that open expanse of snow and ice in front of me.'
I couldn't agree more.
We pushed hard throughout the day making the biggest mileage of our trip. It had been sunny and clear for most of the day until late afternoon when a bank of clouds rolled in. It was getting dark when we finally stopped to pitch camp.
We got one tent up in a matter minutes, but the sun dropped below the cloud layer just above the horizon and we were treated to a spectacular sunset. I watched Joseph, a professional landscape photographer, pause from his duties setting up the tent. He knew there was work to be done, but the sunset was gorgeous and pictures like this aren't easy to come by.
I was smiling at his hesitation, I should have been helping with the tent as well, but I was too busy taking pictures.
Darcy, ever the stalwart, had us all covered as was busily shoveling snow and building anchors. Image: Pierre soaking up all the ice and snow.