Day 10
S81 17' 23.64", W80 10' 34.32"
///waxy.albumin.peacock
Great progress and conditions again today, but Martin loses a critical bit of gear.
“Hi everyone it’s Martin on day 10.
We’re at campsite 10 now, the weather today has been fantastic; the first day that we’ve had really good weather. Little to no wind, and what a difference that makes. Started off well, decent pace. And then at the end of the first break, looked back at the kit and I’d made a massive schoolboy error. Positioned my skis on top of the pulk. On top of the pulk it’s got this material that’s got zips on it basically, and it keeps everything dry and stops the spindrift getting into the pulk itself. And on top of that is a bunch of four outer straps. So I normally put the ski on top of the material and then strap it down, I’ve been doing the same thing every day. And then today, the ski just wasn’t there. Absolutely gutted. Schoolboy error. So because the visibility was good, and the weather was ok, Lou decided to unhinge from his pulks and go back and look for it. And I then clipped his pulk to my pulk and carried on, albeit at a slower pace, carrying two pulks. And thankfully, after about a mile back-tracing, Lou got the ski. Then coming back up, I gratefully gave him his pulk back – I thought dragging one pulk was heavy, dragging two pulks is definitely heavy.
After that, we got into it and thankfully the weather enabled us to get our distance increased today, so 14.6 nautical miles, which is a PB today. 14.8 sorry. You can hear now there’s no wind, so we’re hoping for that to continue as it is and that will enable us to claw back some of this distance that we lost in the first week. The last 48 hours, fantastic weather. The first week; horrendous. So if we can keep this going, we’ll start clocking up the miles pretty quickly hopefully. Other than that, all good. We’ve lost sight of the mountains behind us now, so we’re just surrounded by snow and ice, and that’s the way it’s going to be for the next over 200 miles, till the next way checkpoint.
Also wanted to say thanks tonight to TSP Ventures, another one of our sponsors, they’ve helped finance this expedition, and they’ve also helped our activities back in the UK. So while we’re doing the big expeditions, and trying to push the boundaries of what can we achieved, the crux of our work with the Adaptive Grandslam is actually building the community and getting people with disabilities into the outdoors. Our main events are hillwalking events in the UK, and mountaineering challenge that we do in the Swiss Alps. The hillwalking weekends are also sponsored by TSP Ventures, and for quite a small business, it’s very generous of them to put what they do into this. Mike, Adam and Chris, I just wanted to say thank you very much, - and Graham - cheers for your support. Chris and I have known each other for a long time now, and he’s been more than just a friend, he’s been a mentor as business colleague as well. And his wife Susy has become a good friend as well. So thank you very much – Chris has also become a trustee of the AGS foundation, and continues to support our work. I’m hoping when we get back from this we’ve done some decent fundraising for the foundation which will enable us to take more people with disabilities on more challenge events, giving people a bit of a focus and building a bit of a formal network.”
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