Day 24
S84 37' 29.64", W81 4' 28.20"
///pitching.resection.stoic
Sastrugi continues to hamper speed. Martin talks more about the AGS, and some of his biggest inspirations.
“Good evening everybody, on day 24 of the expedition.
We woke up this morning and it was cloudy still, but we had decent visibility, which makes all the difference it really does. So we got cracking, and at first we were motoring along; we thought we were going to get a really good day in here. And then we got hit with sastrugi, and it simply didn’t stop. The sastrugi fields getting bigger as we progress, and we know that once we get past Thiels, at around 87 degrees, it gets bigger again. And if I’m honest, it’s the one thing I struggle with more than anything else; just trying to balance and get your weight distribution in the right place with sastrugi, with one pole, is really challenging. It’s doable, but I’m slipping and sliding a lot, I fall a lot, and as a result, we just lose a lot of time. So we decided early on today to switch the skis out; we’ve got a spare set of skis just in case any break, and we’ve kept a ¾ length skin on those skis, which gives a bit more traction and grip. We switched on to them quite early. It means you’ve got to work a bit harder, because obviously you’ve got more skin on the ground, so physically you’re getting a bit more drained. But I’m not slipping, I’m not falling over as much, and the falls take it out of you quite a lot. And of course, there’s a real risk there of breaking kit, or breaking yourself, and breaking bones. I only fell three times today, which is a PB, for the last ten days anyway. So that was good. So kept on cracking on.
I thought I’d say a bit more about Adaptive Grand Slam, and what we set it up for. Initially, we had a team of about, we initially had a team of four. A guy called Jaco Van Gass, a one-armed guy, who lost an arm to an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. He decided that, after doing Denali with me, he wanted to play around on bikes. He’s not bad at playing around on bikes; he’s just got two golds and a bronze in Tokyo. But it meant he couldn’t carry on doing the expeditions with us. So, I was then off with two other team lads; a guy called Terry Byrne, a leg amputee and Matt Nyman, another leg amputee. The idea was that we’d be the core team, with Harry Taylor as our guide throughout, and then we’d select and train and prepare additional members for each of the expeditions; the seven summits and the two poles.
Unfortunately, on Everest, Terry got injured and he was descending another mountain that we climbed on the Everest expedition to acclimatise. And unfortunately, earlier on this year, Matt died in an avalanche in Alaska on a trek. In a complete freak accident. Today, and many other days, especially when it’s hard, I think a lot about Matt. I think about Terry, but in particular Matt. Matt was a Ranger, a US Ranger, not a park ranger, not one of these guys who, you know, ‘you will respect my authority,’ in the National Parks in America, but 75th Ranger Regiment. He went on from that to work in Delta force as well.
In Baghdad in Iraq, he was landing a little helicopter, and it got stuck on a roof and he crashed. He fell out, landed on his head. The rotor blade came round and sliced one leg off, and went half way through his other leg. And every expedition we’ve done, Denali, Aconcagua with us twice, Kilimanjaro and Everest, just looking at Matt, and the amount of pain that he’s in. Unbelievable, and a hell of a motivation. He’s…. I’ve been privileged to meet a lot of hard men and women in my time; in the military, in sport. But every time, I think of Matt.
There’s an obituary to Matt on the website. Please take a look. He’s a hell of a guy. ”
// FOLLOW THE CHALLENGE //
Watch and listen to all the updates, live on the Shackleton map.