April 13, 2024
North Pole Debrief - Part 1
OK. Im back in Istanbul waiting for a flight back to Colorado. As always, Im excited to be heading home to see Maria and the kids, but severely disappointed for the cancellation of the 2024 North Pole season. But Im not surprised, either. Its a crazy and unstable environment with a lot of uncertainty.
A bit of backstory first. Barneo is a temporary ice camp built annually (March-April) with a complex series of airdrops, helicopters and more. The result is a one thousand meter ice runway (floating on the ocean) stable enough to land a small jet on (Antonov 74). Founded in 2002, the organization, equipment, manpower and knowledge to build the temporary camp on the Arctic Ocean are all Russian traditionally. When founder Russian polar aviation navigator Alexander Orlov died, the organization was bought by Swedish billionaire Frederik Paulsen. The camp is focused mostly on adventure tourism and hosts Last Degree North Pole skies, marathon runners and flight see-ers.
For my part, I first visited Barneo in 2010, after a 51 day North Pole expedition from Canada. It was significantly less expensive to get picked up from the pole and flown back to Longyearbyen via Barneo than charting a twin otter flight back to Canada with Kenn Borek, a company specializing in extremely remote flying logistics. My next visit was in 2016, when I was asked to guide a Last Degree North Pole expedition - a 68 mile / 112 kilometer expedition covering the last degree of latitude - from 89 to 90 degrees north - the Geographic North Pole. That year, we were delayed 12 days due to a crack in the middle of the ice runway, but I still managed to complete the week-long journey while leading four clients. It was a fun trip and challenging as a guide to keep the group safe. Even though my focus was more personal and more difficult expeditions at the time, I made the decision to put a few more resources into guiding Last Degree North Pole expeditions and bought sleds, gear and a storage space in Longyearbyen. In 2017, I had another group and the season went flawlessly with almost no delays. I remember the temperature being -44 degrees at the start!?! In 2018, we were once again delayed by a week or so at the start but with six clients in tow, we once again reached the North Pole with little hassle once on the ice.
Around this time, the demand for these types of adventures was increasing dramatically. An adventure feat called Explorers Grand Slam was retooled from its original definition to the slightly tweaked version of climbing the seven summits (highest peaks on each continent) and skiing the Last Degree (68 miles / 110 kilometers) to both poles. By 2019, a significant number of people were racing to add their names to the list with many focused on noticing the feat faster or in front of the next person. This new race was good for business and demand to lead Last Degree North Pole expeditions kept increasing. But what wasn't so good for the bottom line was the burgeoning conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And while Barneo was an international organization at that time, it was still a mainly Russian outfit trying to rent an Ukrainian plane -an Antonov An74. In hindsight, we were mostly oblivious to the animonsity that many Ukrainians felt toward the Russians and the rest of us guides and adventure tourists were caught in the middle. For the first time since 2002, the North Pole season was cancelled.
Then Covid hit and not surprisingly (and like everything else) the 2020 season was cancelled. Another year of Covid in 2021 and another cancelled season. In 2022, we were hopeful for most of the summer and fall that everything would move forward but the Russian war with Ukraine grounded any flights that could potentially reach Longyearbyen, Svalbard, our jumping off point for the Barneo camp, and just like that there was no 2022 season. In 2023, I was packed and flying out the next day when permitting issues imposed by the Norwegian government cancelled another season.
During that time, I was also diagnosed with colorectal cancer - initially, stage 4 but downgraded after a month to stage 3b (I'm leaving out the gory details of chemo, radiation, surgery and more for the sake of brevity). Needless to say, before the season in 2021 was cancelled, I was scrambling to find someone to guide my trips as I was completely incapacitated by chemotherapy. By 2022, I was cancer free but still had an ileostomy bag, which would have been an inconvenience but a manageable one. In 2023, my ileostomy had been reversed but I was still dealing with severe digestive issues. Regardless, I had already guided a few polar courses and felt that I could manage. By the time 2024 rolled around, I had discovered how to give myself daily enemas (in the tent on expeditions) to help control my bowels during expeditions - which was life changing to say the least. For the first time in over four years, I felt mostly normal. Personally, after what I had been through with cancer and my treatment, leading a Last Degree North Pole Expedition felt like an affirmation of life more than anything. Professionally of course, this is my job and its how I feed my kids and pay the rent.
And then there were my clients who had paid for this trip - some as many as five years ago. They had invested inordinate sums of money into this adventure with several attending additional training courses with me as well. Which all sets the stage for 2024 and a postive mostly outlook on the North Pole season. Despite all the setbacks our polar hope springs eternal!
There was only one small potential glitch. The 2024 Bareno / North Pole season would not be run through Longyearbyen but Russia instead.
To Be Continued...
Image: 2017 Helicopter drop off at the 89th parallel.
A bit of backstory first. Barneo is a temporary ice camp built annually (March-April) with a complex series of airdrops, helicopters and more. The result is a one thousand meter ice runway (floating on the ocean) stable enough to land a small jet on (Antonov 74). Founded in 2002, the organization, equipment, manpower and knowledge to build the temporary camp on the Arctic Ocean are all Russian traditionally. When founder Russian polar aviation navigator Alexander Orlov died, the organization was bought by Swedish billionaire Frederik Paulsen. The camp is focused mostly on adventure tourism and hosts Last Degree North Pole skies, marathon runners and flight see-ers.
For my part, I first visited Barneo in 2010, after a 51 day North Pole expedition from Canada. It was significantly less expensive to get picked up from the pole and flown back to Longyearbyen via Barneo than charting a twin otter flight back to Canada with Kenn Borek, a company specializing in extremely remote flying logistics. My next visit was in 2016, when I was asked to guide a Last Degree North Pole expedition - a 68 mile / 112 kilometer expedition covering the last degree of latitude - from 89 to 90 degrees north - the Geographic North Pole. That year, we were delayed 12 days due to a crack in the middle of the ice runway, but I still managed to complete the week-long journey while leading four clients. It was a fun trip and challenging as a guide to keep the group safe. Even though my focus was more personal and more difficult expeditions at the time, I made the decision to put a few more resources into guiding Last Degree North Pole expeditions and bought sleds, gear and a storage space in Longyearbyen. In 2017, I had another group and the season went flawlessly with almost no delays. I remember the temperature being -44 degrees at the start!?! In 2018, we were once again delayed by a week or so at the start but with six clients in tow, we once again reached the North Pole with little hassle once on the ice.
Around this time, the demand for these types of adventures was increasing dramatically. An adventure feat called Explorers Grand Slam was retooled from its original definition to the slightly tweaked version of climbing the seven summits (highest peaks on each continent) and skiing the Last Degree (68 miles / 110 kilometers) to both poles. By 2019, a significant number of people were racing to add their names to the list with many focused on noticing the feat faster or in front of the next person. This new race was good for business and demand to lead Last Degree North Pole expeditions kept increasing. But what wasn't so good for the bottom line was the burgeoning conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And while Barneo was an international organization at that time, it was still a mainly Russian outfit trying to rent an Ukrainian plane -an Antonov An74. In hindsight, we were mostly oblivious to the animonsity that many Ukrainians felt toward the Russians and the rest of us guides and adventure tourists were caught in the middle. For the first time since 2002, the North Pole season was cancelled.
Then Covid hit and not surprisingly (and like everything else) the 2020 season was cancelled. Another year of Covid in 2021 and another cancelled season. In 2022, we were hopeful for most of the summer and fall that everything would move forward but the Russian war with Ukraine grounded any flights that could potentially reach Longyearbyen, Svalbard, our jumping off point for the Barneo camp, and just like that there was no 2022 season. In 2023, I was packed and flying out the next day when permitting issues imposed by the Norwegian government cancelled another season.
During that time, I was also diagnosed with colorectal cancer - initially, stage 4 but downgraded after a month to stage 3b (I'm leaving out the gory details of chemo, radiation, surgery and more for the sake of brevity). Needless to say, before the season in 2021 was cancelled, I was scrambling to find someone to guide my trips as I was completely incapacitated by chemotherapy. By 2022, I was cancer free but still had an ileostomy bag, which would have been an inconvenience but a manageable one. In 2023, my ileostomy had been reversed but I was still dealing with severe digestive issues. Regardless, I had already guided a few polar courses and felt that I could manage. By the time 2024 rolled around, I had discovered how to give myself daily enemas (in the tent on expeditions) to help control my bowels during expeditions - which was life changing to say the least. For the first time in over four years, I felt mostly normal. Personally, after what I had been through with cancer and my treatment, leading a Last Degree North Pole Expedition felt like an affirmation of life more than anything. Professionally of course, this is my job and its how I feed my kids and pay the rent.
And then there were my clients who had paid for this trip - some as many as five years ago. They had invested inordinate sums of money into this adventure with several attending additional training courses with me as well. Which all sets the stage for 2024 and a postive mostly outlook on the North Pole season. Despite all the setbacks our polar hope springs eternal!
There was only one small potential glitch. The 2024 Bareno / North Pole season would not be run through Longyearbyen but Russia instead.
To Be Continued...
Image: 2017 Helicopter drop off at the 89th parallel.