In places like the Greenland ice cap and Antarctica, I've often said that the best hour is one that drifts by effortlessly and your mind wanders in and out of thoughts with hardly a care in the world. With little scenery but an endless expanse of white (on a clear day at least) good hours are not always easy to come by.

In crossing the Greenland ice cap our route has taken us from roughly sea level to our current elevation of nearly 8,000 feet. Most of our journey has been into a headwind and a large portion of the aforementioned wind has been fairly robust (to put it mildly). There have been only a few rare moment where skiing and pulling our sleds has felt easy. Most times, the sled feels like an anchor tied to our waists and the effort required to pull it forward, great.

Needless to say, many of the hours skiing have been not-so-good-times where too often I look down at my Citizen Promaster thinking that an hour has passed only to find a fraction of that time has elapsed. As physical as this journey is, the mental aspect can be equally taxing.

I describe these expeditions as endeavors of the mind, body and heart. Each playing a vital role and each connected to the others inexorably. To achieve difficult endeavors (like skiing across Greenland) requires passion. One of my favorite quotes is 'thrown your heart over the fence and the rest will follow'. Of course, enthusiasm alone is not enough here and we need equal parts mental fortitude (and thoughtfulness) and physical stamina. I am always amazed at how each of these things ebb and flow over the course of an expedition, or more realistically, one hour. Yet all are connected. Fail in one area and you will fail altogether.

We are at the point of the journey where our systems are fairly dialed and we can handle nearly any obstacle in our path. Unfortunately, our motors (bodies) are slowly wearing down. Therefore, I have been encouraging the group to have a quick snack readily available while skiing. That way, when they feel their energy wavering (I thought it was spelled waivering, but my phone says otherwise) they can eat something and get their blood sugar back up. Almost instantly the body feels better and the mind clears.

Yesterday was easy time. Hard skiing but Dean, Kat and Diogo have been at this long enough now that they are all performing like a well-oiled machine. We are up at six, melting snow and eating breakfast. Then, out of the tents by 7:45 and packed up and skiing by 8:15 or so. (Today, there was a bit of a delay as I set up a bowling tournament using snow blocks for both pins and a ball.) We divide our day into skiing shifts of an hour or hour and a half and short 10 minute breaks. Half way through the day is soup break where we chug hot soup from insulated Stanley flasks.

Dean commented today, 'if I ate soup like this at a restaurant, I'd get kicked out.' Food is fuel, and in below zero wind chills, nothing that needs to be savored.

Yesterday was windy but a constant 16 mph. Today, once again, the Garmin inReach saved our lives. The weather forecasts, crazily accurate for such a remote location, predicted near gale winds by the late afternoon.

Around four pm, we realized our any forward progress was futile and we needed to fortify a camp as quickly as possible - just to be able to set up the tents.

If we hadn't already done this two times prior, we would have thought that our lives were on the line. Instead, we methodically and carefully built snow walls and erected our MSR tents in the extreme wind and nearly zero visibility. Then, we climbed inside for a relaxing dinner while the wind howled incessantly.

Good times.