DAY 25 - S84 51' 39.96", W81 0' 41.40"

Day 25

S84 51' 39.96", W81 0' 41.40"

///reproachful.resurrects.obviated

The team is approaching the half way point and are upbeat.

“Hi good evening everyone. It’s Lou reporting in now from day 25 of the expedition.

We finished yesterday in amongst an area of really heavy sastrugi, these ridges that are carved by the wind, of ice, that really hamper our progress. So we knew we were going to be in for a tough day today. But basically we got up and visibility was good, thank goodness, because tackling sastrugi in poor visibility, in white-out, is seriously challenging, especially for Martin. Luckily we woke up and the visibility was good, and the wind was quite light.

So we got going about half eight, which was probably our earliest start by the time we’ve melted all the snow, made our breakfast, packed all the gear away; packed the tent, got the pulks sorted and clipped on our skis, we were rolling by half eight this morning. And we had about three hours of intense battle, getting through this sastrugi; skiing up over these big lumps of ice, and sliding down the other side and the pulks – these big sledges that we’re dragging behind us – getting caught, and sometimes pulling up backwards. Martin had a particularly spectacular fall today as well, probably his biggest yet. He’s smacked his shoulder, and the back of his head. But luckily just a bit battered and bruised, and no serious injuries.

After about three hours, it started to calm down, and the surface gradually got better and better as the afternoon wore on as well; a huge relief. And we’re definitely out of this area now, of heavy sastrugi. Then to boost morale, later in the afternoon, the Thiel mountains started to appear on the horizon, over to our right hand side, to signify that we’re closing in on the halfway point. And as the day wore on, the mountains grew in size. We got a real sense of progress for the first time. We could tell we were getting closer and closer to this mountain range. And by the end of the day, we’d covered 14.2 nautical miles, and the mountains are now looming big on the horizon, off to our right hand side.

And as were we’re stopped and started unpacking the gear ad pitching the tent, we spotted some dark objects on the horizon, just slightly left of our direction of travel. It appears to be buildings in the far distance. We’re now camped 13 nautical miles from the half-way point, which is Thiels runway; a small airfield, just where they’ve flattened the ice, and the can land the ski planes there, and there’s aviation fuel stored there. There’s no permanent presence. It’s just a small skiway that they use for resupplies, and it signifies the exact half-way point. And we’re pretty sure that’s what we’re looking at in the distance.

And the plan is, we should reach the halfway point tomorrow. We’re only eight nautical miles as well, from crossing South 85 degrees. Again, another huge milestone. So we’re excited for tomorrow, to reach South 85 and hopefully the Thiels waypoint, which is just over halfway, at South 85 and five nautical miles.

Great day today and hopefully the weather will hold for us tomorrow. And tomorrow will be a huge milestone when we reach halfway in this expedition.

That’s all for this evening.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 24 - S84 37' 29.64", W81 4' 28.20"

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. ”

— Martin Hewitt

Click here to read more about Matt on the AGS website.

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DAY 23 - S84 23' 24.72", W80 50' 19.32"

Day 23

S84 23' 24.72", W80 50' 19.32"

///bounty.noontime.pedagogies

Flat light continues but the team encounter evidence of human life

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in now on day 23 of the expedition.

We woke this morning to complete silence inside the tent, which was very encouraging. And we got outside, and there was literally no wind at all, it was completely still, for the whole day. Which was unusual, for the windiest continent on the planet. But the visibility wasn’t brilliant; there was a lot of cloud obscuring the sun. It wasn’t whiteout, but it was flat-light condition; it was quite hard to read the ground. We got packed up, and we set off. And because of the lack of wind, it was also really mild. And after about 15 minutes of heading off, we ended up stripping right down, taking our outer jackets off, and just skiing in our thermal tops for a while, it was that warm, with the strenuous work of hauling the pulks.

And in this flat light visibility, it was quite hard to make out the terrain we were going over; and for the first couple of hours, we were in amongst some pretty heavy sastrugi. It was really challenging going. Martin obviously finding it particularly difficult with only one ski stick to stabilise himself, so he took quite a few tumbles in that first two hours. And was feeling pretty demoralised at that point. But we made the right call to persevere, keep working our way through it, and then we got lucky. Later on, things really levelled out, the sastrugi calmed right down. We still couldn’t see anything, but we were pretty much onto a really nice smooth, flat surface, with very little sastrugi.

So we were able to make a bit of progress, which was good. We encountered a couple more patches of sastrugi later in the day, but they weren’t anywhere near as severe as the first section. And despite really not being able to see throughout the whole day, we managed to make 13 nautical miles. So for a poor visibility day, it wasn’t too bad. It was hard work, but as I say we got lucky as well. We heard an aircraft today, which was the first time we’ve heard or seen any kind of sign of mankind. Couldn’t actually see it because of the thick cloud cover, but there was definitely a plane, off to our right-hand side. Probably dropping into Thiels airstrip, which is where we’re heading towards. And it’s exactly half way to the Pole. We’re guessing it’s probably an ALE plane, dropping off some supplies, or some fuel up at Thiels. So that was a bit of entertainment to break up the day.

I just want to finish with a shout out, and a thank you. I want to thank our UK-based expedition manager, Wendy Searle, who is the person who is processing all these blogs. We’re calling her voicemail every night, and she gets these messages in the morning, then she’s transcribing it and putting it all on the Shackleton site. So massive thanks to her. She’s currently out in Chamonix on an avalanche safety course, and then she’s heading across to Switzerland, to hopefully go and bag some mountains out there, and get a bit of Alpine experience. Thank you very much to Wendy, from me and Martin for all the hard work that you’re doing, processing all this information that we’re sending back from the ice.

That’s all for this evening, and we look forward to checking in with you all tomorrow.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 22 - S84 10' 27.48", W80 50' 41.28"

Day 22

S84 10' 27.48", W80 50' 41.28"

///wildernesses.calculi.maven

Whiteout conditions prove to be a hinderance but the team have crossed 84 degrees south and are heading for the half-way point

“Day 22. Antarctica. The gift that keeps on giving.

Last night, we lost the sun at about 2100 hours. Which is no bad thing of an evening, because, when the sun’s out, it’s actually quite hot in the tent believe it or not. That results in one of us on one side of the tent being quite warm, that has the sun, and the other being quite cold, on the not-sunny side of the tent. So you end up waking up, part-way through the night, either to get into your sleeping bag, or to get out of it.

Last night it was cold inside the tent, which meant we got the best night’s sleep believe it or not. Probably five hours, five-and-a-half-hours straight last night, which is the first time I’ve had that much sleep since we’ve been here. So that was a good thing.

The bad thing about losing the sun, is that we woke up this morning to cloud everywhere, and what’s called flat-light conditions. Flat-light conditions means that you can’t really the topography in front of you. In this environment, it means you can’t see the dreaded sastrugi. And sastrugi fields so far from – you can get an area of sastrugi that’s maybe a foot long and a foot wide, and a foot in depth. Or three, four, five, six foot, even seven or eight foot some of them. We know we’ve got bigger sastrugi fields to come as well, when we get to about 87 degrees. That’ll be a right treat.

For now, flat-light conditions means you can’t see the sastrugi; and that means you fall. Or I fall. A lot. So within the first shift; we tend to do about four 90-minute shifts, and then bring them down to 60 minutes, unless conditions are good, in which case we try and keep them at 90. So the first four are 90-minute shifts, with a quick five- minute drink and food. And then we change over. And whoever is up front is leading, and navigating.

Within the first ten minutes of the first 90-minute shift. I fell over three times.

The first two were quite humorous, the third one, I gave myself a bit of a crack. I thought right, that’s it. These skis are coming off. Took the skis off and walked for the first 90 minutes. And that wasn’t a good sign for the rest of the day. Needless to say, today was a slog. The skis constantly coming on and off for me. Lou managed to keep his on. He has far better balance on this stuff than I do.

The visibility remained fairly poor for the rest of the day. We got one, merciful area, of about 70 minutes, mid-afternoon, when we could open up the pace a little. Not because the light improved, it didn’t, but the conditions underfoot improved, to deep soft snow, which meant we had to pull hard through the pulk, but at least I wasn’t falling over. That was quite a challenging day.

Despite that, we managed 13.6 nautical miles, which is more than I thought. I thought we’d only get about ten done today. So a challenging day. We’ve got more flat light tomorrow from our weather forecast, and potentially even fog. We’re going to go out there, give it another crack, and see what we can do. Luckily, there’s not much wind at the moment, a breeze, between five and 10 knots. Which comparatively to what we’ve been experiencing for the past few weeks has been nothing. So that’s good.

I want to do a shout out and a thank you tonight to someone who doesn’t like publicity at all. So I’ll call him Martin Scorsese. Martin, on multiple occasions, has stepped up to help us with Adaptive Grand Slam finances; whether that be taking some additional team members out, or helping me personally.

Thank you very much Martin Scorsese.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 21 - S83 57' 1.44", W80 32' 55.68"

Day 21

S83 57' 1.44", W80 32' 55.68"

///hypomania.blogged.intraoperative

The team approach 84 degrees South and have the halfway mark firmly in their sights.

“Hi good evening everyone. It’s Lou reporting in now from day 21 of the expedition.

So yes, three weeks we’ve been going for now, and it certainly feels like it. The good news is, that we’ve rolled up another 10-day food bag yesterday, so that’s two big blue sacks, with 10 days in each, that we’ve rolled up now. That means our pulks are at least – probably over 20kg lighter. And it is noticeable. Definitely seem to be losing a bit of their weight now, which is brilliant. This morning we were blessed with beautiful weather again. We’ve had a really good run of decent weather; great visibility this morning. Temperature’s pretty mild, around about -15, and a very light wind. So perfect conditions. We went out there and we went for it. Aiming to do our daily mileage of 15 nautical miles; and we managed 15.5 today. And we were
going strong for most of the day – sadly towards the end of the day, Martin’s Achilles are definitely giving him some grief. We kind of just cut the day slightly short, just so we didn’t push our luck; and we’ve been in the tent this evening, he’s been doing a lot of stretching, hopefully maintaining those so we can carry on making the great progress.

We’re now camped only three nautical miles from latitude South 84, which will be a great milestone for us. Hopefully fairly early tomorrow morning, when we get going, we’ll cross 84 degrees South; and that then puts us one degree from reaching the half way point, which is Theil Mountains. And hopefully in the next couple of days, we’ll start to see the mountains appear on the horizon, which will give us something to focus on. At the moment
there’s nothing on the horizon whatsoever, other than a flat white line, all the way around 360. It will be actually great to see something start to appear on the horizon. That will give us a real sense of progress as we watch those mountains grow in size, as we inch our way closer.

When we get to South 85 degrees, hopefully in around four or five days’ time; that’s bang on half way to the South Pole. That’ll be a real milestone. That’s our next target now, once we get across 84 tomorrow morning, is push on and get to 85 degrees South. We’re really looking forward to that.

A good day all round, and hopefully the weather holds the way it is for the next few days; till we get to 85 degrees South.

Just to finish off, I wanted to do another shout out. I’ve done a shout out for my two daughters, so far, and I also have a son – Luke. Just want to shout out to Luke, and his girlfriend Abby, who are back in Hereford. I know you guys are following these blogs, and hopefully you’re enjoying following our progress and all the battles and dilemmas that we’re dealing with out here. My son Luke is serving in the Royal Marines, and has been for around four years now as a Mountain Leader. He’s also taking on quite a significant military challenge, quite a challenging military course; early next year. So I just want to wish you the best of luck with that as well Luke. I look forward to catching you for a beer when I get back from this crazy escapade.

That’s all for tonight guys.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 20 - S83 41' 32.64", W80 26' 47.40"

Day 20

S83 41' 32.64", W80 26' 47.40"

///despoiled.seaward.apparatus

Thank you for the music: Martin's happy that he can hear his tunes once more. 15.4nm covered and progressing towards 84 degrees south.

“Good evening everybody. It’s day 20 of the Adaptive Grand Slam, Adaptive Antarctica expedition. Martin here.

Today was a slog, if I’m honest. And a day of... a mixed day. We set off in great visibility with a bit of a headwind and not too bad. But we kept on hitting pockets of snow. The pulk [sled] really sinks down into it, and you’ve got to work hard. And that was making us quite tired. And after about the second shift, so the first two 90-minute shifts we’d done, I then needed to attend to a call of nature.

Going for a poo in Antarctica is one of the more challenging and least favourable activities. Poor Lou, didn’t sign up for helping with that process, but he ended up having to try and unzip my salopettes cause it’s a struggle to get them zipped down with one hand, so that I could then go and do my business. Which I did, with the wind on my backside, constantly worried about getting frostbite, and luckily it didn’t. I managed to get up and crack on. Got back to the pulk, clipped myself back in and then thought ‘oh flipping heck what else is going to happen today this is just horrendous. This could potentially be the worst day.’

Then, something magical happened.

The wind stopped. For the first time – I think we’ve had no wind on one day so far. And as a result, my day changed. My headphones haven’t been working for seven days now, so I’ve been putting my phone in my jacket pocket, and trying to play music through that; and I couldn’t hear very well with the headwind. But today I could hear music. And the impact, and the morale impact, was enormous. Of listening to Eric Prydz – I immediately went back to the Holosphere, watching him in Tomorrowland in 2019. And that escapism, listening to Eric Prydz, really just enabled me to crack on.

My pace increased and things got better. As a result, tonight, I want to say thank you to all of the people in the world involved in music; it really is powerful. It really is a heck of a motivator, in any form, whatever genre. Thank you very much, because it made my day a heck of a lot easier today. And in particular, the fantastic work of Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Morten, Cosmic Gate, Above and Beyond, Franky Wah, Cristoph, Camelphat, Paul Oakenfold, Armin Van Buren, and the godfather; Tiesto [apologies to all in the dance music industry if the transcriber has any of these wrong]. And that lot was what was playing today, and it made my day a heck of a lot easier.

So the pace increased, and as a result we managed to bang out 15.4 nautical miles today. Which was great. And also the memories that come with the music as well. So privileged and blessed to have had so many good nights over the years; in Ibiza, Creamfields, Tomorrowland, just to name but a few. Some amazing mates from the rave family. So thank you to all those people involved with all those journeys, for giving me that morale and those memories today.

And finally, to Ben… we did about 64,000 steps on the final day at Tomorrowland in 2019, and I’m having, well, I’m doing between 54,000 and 60,000 steps each day here in Antarctica, with a pulk that weighed over 108kg at the start, so standby, because Tomorrowland this summer, we need to be aiming for 100,000 steps a day, and as you know, day 3 is Dog’s day.

Goodnight.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 19 - S83 26' 11.04", W80 33' 46.44"

Day 19

S83 26' 11.04", W80 33' 46.44"

///gallon.burritos.pocketed

Martin switches to half skins and is faster at first. Lou is cutting up bits of sleeping mat to make improvised heel blocks to alleviate Martin's Achilles issues.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in now from day 19 of the expedition.

We awoke to pretty strong winds this morning. We had to steel ourselves to get out the sleeping bags and get everything packed; which was quite challenging – getting the tent down and getting the gear into the pulks when it was a swirling maelstrom of spindrift out there. But we got going, and we’re glad we did in the end, because actually the wind calmed, and we made some good progress.

And last night, I fitted the half skins onto Martin’s skis. We’ve kind of been waiting to put those on, because obviously it’s a bit more challenging for him, skiing with one arm. So we were just waiting for the right time; for the pulk weight to come down, for the surface to level out, before we did it. So we fitted them last night, and he was off to a flyer today, and was actually travelling much faster and definitely found it less tiring as well. A bit more
glide, but obviously a bit less grip. And towards the end of the day, the terrain did change a bit, became a bit more icy. And then he was almost Bambi on ice at that stage – was slipping
around and had to resort to walking for the last 90 minutes. But also the wind picked up again right towards the end of the day, which wasn’t ideal; when we were looking to get the tent up. It had definitely gone up to a good 35 knots I
would say. So it took the two of us, working in harness, to get the poles into the tent and hang on to this thing, to make sure it didn’t inflate like a balloon, and be lost in the wind.

After a bit of a struggle, we managed to get the tent up and bundle all the kit in.
Then tonight’s tasks, as well as the usual stuff of melting snow, preparing our food and making all our drinks, I’ve been cutting some sections of foam from Martin’s sleeping mat, to make improvised heel blocks. He’s been having some problems with Achilles tendons, they’ve been quite sore. So I’ve been cutting some sections from the mat, and making these little improvised heel blocks and putting them into the bottom of his boots, just to raise his heels a bit and take the tension off his Achilles tendon. Again, this is what these expeditions are all about; improvising when an issue comes up, or a problem, looking at what we’ve got here and how we can utilise it. And improvise. And that worked well.

And that’s also a good reason for not bringing an inflatable thermarest on an Antarctic expedition; you can’t do much with those. And I’ve got one, and it’s already developed a puncture. So I’m sleeping on a deflated mat most nights, which isn’t brilliant, much to Dog’s amusement (I can hear him laughing in the background). So that’s been tonight’s task.

A good day, we managed, despite the strong winds at the end of the day, and Martin slipping about like Bambi on ice, we still managed 15.4 nautical miles. So we were really pleased with that. We’re nearly halfway now to South 84, so we’re going to get out there again tomorrow, hopefully bang out another 15, and we’ll be real close. And we’re really keen to reach South 84, it’s another milestone and that’ll leave us one degree to go to the halfway point of this expedition. A good milestone and exciting times.

That’s all from Lou and Martin for this evening.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 18 - S83 10' 49.08", W80 34' 57.00"

Day 18

S83 10' 49.08", W80 34' 57.00"

///cuddle.rebroadcast.psychoanalysts

Day 18 sees the team cross South 83 degrees, which is great progress. Martin talks more about the history of the Adaptive Grand Slam

“Good evening everyone. It’s day 18 on the Adaptive Antarctica, Adaptive Grand Slam expedition blog.

We had about a 15-knot headwind today and that dropped down to around five at times, and then back up to around 15. So a bit of wind, but it wasn’t too bad. Good visibility and decent conditions underfoot, although we still hit patches where it gets quite icy, and I’m still slipping forward a fair amount. The biggest challenge today to be honest was my arm, my paralysed arm. It was giving me a bit of pain. Basically, the best way of describing it is it’s like having a five or six kilogramme dumbbell or kettlebell in your hand all day. So it’s just a deadweight. So it keeps on pulling down on that side. Although it’s in a sling, it still kind of drains. So that was playing with my mind a bit. Irritating me, and every time I thought about that, I thought, well ‘think about the amount of amputees we’ve got on the Adaptive Grand Slam team, and had on past expeditions; and you’ve got two legs. So get a grip. Face the direction of travel, and keep moving forward.’ Simple as that.

So we chugged on, and we managed 14.6 nautical miles today. We’ve crossed South 83 degrees now, and we’re bearing down on South 84 degrees; which we hope to hit in four days’ time. So that’s another good milestone passed.

A little bit more about the Adaptive Grand Slam. When I first started doing the mountain expeditions, it was kind of essential, if we were going to start taking people with disabilities, that we had a duty of care to make sure that we’re preparing people properly. And thankfully, through a legend of the mountaineering world, a guy called Russell Bryce, I met another legend called Harry Taylor. And Harry became our lead guide on the Adaptive Grand Slam expeditions. And with mountain guiding, it’s really important that you get people that know what they’re doing, but also they’ve got the right level of empathy, to be able to deal with people who’ve got additional challenges when it comes to learning to mountain climb. And Harry had that in spades. As well as a real good manner and a real good way of teaching, and adapting and improvising in order for us to facilitate climbing with our disabilities.

Harry also went on to help us finance some of the expeditions; bringing in some friends, clients, which we now call supporters on some of our trips, which helps finance taking some of the injured guys for free. So a thank you, and a shout out to Harry Taylor tonight, and his fantastic wife Cathy, who have become good friends over the years. Thank you for all your help and support over the years, and also to Stephan Clegg, Clark Woodward and John Wigg, three other mountain guides. Look them all up. These four guys have achieved some amazing things in the mountaineering world, and have always been there to help. And have prepared us thoroughly for each one of our mountaineering expeditions to date, and long may it continue. Hope to see you all again at some point in the future.

Thank you for listening in gang. And stay safe. Goodnight for now.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 17 - S82 56' 17.52", W80 29' 29.04"

Day 17

S82 56' 17.52", W80 29' 29.04"

///carmine.tombstone.butting

Dog's Mobile Disco and The International Space Station

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in now from Day 17 of the expedition.

So we’ve been skiing now for 17 days straight without a rest, and we’re definitely beginning to feel it; it’s been quite a slog, you know, pushing out 10 hours, every single day, of skiing. We stop for short breaks during that time, every 90 minutes or so. But we never sit down, we’re on our feet and stood up the whole time. It takes its toll. But we managed to grind out another 15 nautical miles. We’re pleased with that. And we’re camped now, just short of crossing South 83 degrees. We’re four miles away. So mid-morning tomorrow, we’re hoping to get across 83, which is another great milestone.

I should title this blog Dog’s Mobile Disco And The International Space Station. Which sounds really unusual, so I should explain! Martin’s nickname is Dog; I’ve been using all different permutations of that: Deputy Dog, and Husky Dog, and Dog Tired, and been having loads of fun with that. And the Mobile Disco bit – he’s not had much luck with his technical equipment on this trip. The first thing to play up was his headphones, and every time he plugs his headphones into his mobile to listen to some music on the move, for some reason, it makes the phone go into loudspeaker mode. And it was absolutely driving him insane on the first parts of the journey, and there was lots of cursing and swearing. But now it’s become a standing joke. Every time he pulls up next to me as we’re skiing along, he’s just got this music blaring out from his jacket. I’m now asking him if he does bookings for kids’ parties and Bar Mitzvahs. So he’s now known as Dog’s Mobile Disco.

The International Space Station bit is the solar panel that he’s got; which is around the size of the solar panels that are on the International Space Station, and probably weighs about the same as well. And it’s not working very well, despite its size! He can’t charge the satphone off it. He has it out on his pulk all day long, trying to charge equipment but it just doesn’t seem to work. And then he spends all morning and every evening trying to angle it inside the tent and just try and get a bit of juice into his tech kit. Bless him, he’s not had much luck with the technical equipment on this trip. I’ve got a panel, and we’re using that for the critical kit so we’re ok. But definitely some comedy value to be had with Dog’s technical equipment on this trip. I’m sure we’ll be laughing about it for years to come.

And tonight we’ve got quite an exciting event; we’ve got a solar eclipse! Unfortunately it’s at half four in the morning our time. Which is not ideal. Yeah, half four, 0434 I think it’s going to be tomorrow morning, we’re going to get a full solar eclipse out here. It’ll be the first time, certainly from my many trips to Antarctica, that I’ll have ever seen darkness in Antarctica, so we’re really looking forward to that, and we’re going to try and get some photos and video of what will definitely be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us. That’s something to look forward to. And we’ll be out, back on the trail tomorrow morning first thing, and let’s go and crack South 83.

That’s all for this evening.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 16 - S82 41' 21.12", W80 27' 42.84"

Day 16

S82 41' 21.12", W80 27' 42.84"

///healthcare.costlier.legislating

Weather and ground conditions are good. Martin gives some detail on the methods of navigation.

“Hello everybody, it’s Martin calling on day 15 of the expedition.

We were blessed with good weather (oh, day 16 I’ve just been told). Good weather and good conditions. The best ground we’ve had for days actually. Not much sastrugi at all, and big areas of fairly steady ice and snow, so we could get into a bit of a rhythm. As such we managed to get 15.4 nautical miles done today, which was better progress than yesterday thankfully. And the sun kept on kind of coming and going today. The sun obviously makes things a little bit more pleasant, but also we use it as a navigational aid, believe it or not. As the distances between our checkpoints are quite large, for example at the minute we’re on a route that going to take us more than 200 miles on the same bearing (we’re currently travelling on a compass bearing of 141 degrees) and as Lou and I keep on rotating shifts up front, you get used to where your shadow is on the ground, during each shift.

In the morning, on my first shift (Lou normally does the first shift) my shift, I normally take over at about half ten, the sun is casting a shadow to the 2 o’clock position on the ground. So if you imagine facing forward, and directly ahead of you is 12 o’clock – if you imagine a clock on the ground in front of you. Where the 2 o’clock position is, is where my shadow is. So I walk along, and keep my shadow in that position, and that tells me that I’m on the bearing I need to be on.

Obviously we’ve got the compass on our harness, but it saves you having to constantly look down to make sure that the compass bearing is accurate; just monitor your shadow all the time. Then throughout the day, that shadow shifts and moves around from the 2 o’clock position for me, till on my last shift, which is normally around 6pm, at which point, that shadow is normally around the 9 o’clock position. So it’s moving anti-clockwise, from my right hand side to my left hand side. The sun is really helpful for helping us navigate, so we miss it, or well I miss it anyway, when it goes in, because then you’ve got to look down at the compass much more frequently. Which doesn’t sound too onerous, but when you’re focusing on checkpoints in front of you, you want to get into your stride and keep on heading forward. So that’s that.

Other than that, all good. Our camp routine is really getting nailed down now – thankfully there’s no wind at the minute, so hopefully we’ll have a decent night’s sleep tonight.

I just want to say a shout out also and a thank you to a fantastic charity that’s been supporting us for a number of years now with Adaptive Grand Slam, called BLESMA (the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association [now called BLESMA The Limbless Veterans].

I’ve been a member of this since I lost the use of my arm in Afghanistan in 2007. I never actually got involved with them until a few years after I got injured, and the then operations director, a real good guy called Ian Waller, got in touch with me and said ‘we’ve been watching what you’ve been doing with the Adaptive Grand Slam. Can we help?’ I was a bit surprised by this, I was expecting them to say ‘can you do something for us?’ When actually they only wanted to help. Ever since then, they’ve helped support financially some of our expeditions overseas. And, more importantly, they’ve provided financial support to enable other BLESMA members to come on some of our Adaptive Grand Slam challenge events and expeditions. If you go onto adaptivegrandslam.com and scroll down to the missions, you’ll see some of the things that we do. And BLESMA have helped with that, so I look forward to seeing you all at the next AGM.

Good night all.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 15 - S82 25' 59.88", W80 21' 21.60"

Day 15

S82 25' 59.88", W80 21' 21.60"

///jumbos.bigness.qualified

Antarctica continues to throw everything at the team; with ice, sastrugi and strong winds again. Progress has slowed today. Martin's left Achilles is giving him trouble, and they're trying to treat it in the tent after a long, hard day.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in now from day 15 of the expedition.

Every day is different out here; despite that fact that we’re skiing across the continent, there’s different challenges every day. And it’s – there’s a saying amongst the Polar community that there’s no such thing as an easy day in Antarctica, and that is so true. It’s just different levels of difficulty. And today was a battle. It really was, from start to finish.

We woke up this morning to quite strong winds again. Pretty much a bang-on head wind. So it was quite challenging getting the tent down, packing all the gear. And we were keen to get moving by that time we as we were pretty cold. Temperatures were right down with the wind chill – I’m guessing in the late -20s, probably almost into -30, with the amount of ice that was building up around our faces early on in the day. But it was a really struggle battling against the wind and you could tell we were going so much slower. And then we came into a really unusual area of ice. We’ve had a little bit of light sastrugi, but we suddenly hit this climb and the terrain changed completely and there were these really big ice hummocks. We were really struggling to make ground, pulling the pulks up quite a steep incline, with a headwind, over this quite intense sastrugi. I ended up putting the skis back on with the full skins. Martin had a ¾ skin on and he ended up walking for a bit, and we were just trying different things to make progress through this area. And it was about a mile or so, working our way through it. And eventually we got the incline done, and it levelled out and then the terrain improved again. But we still had quite strong winds. So we lost quite a bit of time battling our way through there; and we felt pretty exhausted by the time we got to the top of that, and we plodded on for the rest of the day.

We had to finish slightly early. Martin’s left Achilles tendon is giving him quite a lot of grief. He’s obviously heavily loading on that side, because obviously that’s the one side he’s got the ski stick. So he puts a lot of pressure down through that Achilles.

So after a hard day battling the elements; the terrain and the headwinds, we’re in the tent this evening and enjoying our rest and recuperation. We’re just focusing on Martin’s Achilles tendon. His left one, that’s been playing him up at the moment. So we’ve been icing that; taking some ibuprofen, a lot of stretching, and hoping it’s going to hold out and we can get in another full day tomorrow.

Just to finish off, I want to give a shout out to my other daughter, Sophie, who’s based down in Cardiff as a criminal barrister. I know she’s really enjoying following our progress and the expedition, so I wanted to say hi to Sophes and her boyfriend Connor. And when I get back, we’ll have to head off to a Miller and Carter.

That’s all for this evening.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 14 - S82 13' 32.16", W80 21' 42.48"

Day 14

S82 13' 32.16", W80 21' 42.48"

///spirit.bioregion.fantasyland

It’s #AntarcticaDay2021 and the team has crossed 82 degrees south. Martin is feeling better and explains how Adaptive Grand Slam came into being.

“Good evening everybody. It’s Martin, on day 14 of the expedition.

Weather. Weather. Weather.

What a difference the weather makes. We had no wind for the first part of the day today, and it built up to only around 10 knots later on in the afternoon. I always said I was going to tell things straight, to our small but loyal gathering around the Adaptive Grand Slam expeditions; to family and friends.

There’s been so many times in this last 13 days when I’ve questioned whether or not I can do this when I look at the sheer distance of over 700 miles in front of us. And my arm, and the paralysis, and loading the left hand side, genuinely thought about quitting once or twice. And genuinely thought it was too much to ask to do with one arm. But today, for the first time, I genuinely, actually enjoyed myself. It was brilliant. The weather makes such a difference. We got battered that first week; we really did. Forty knot headwind day after day, night after night; very little sleep in the tent because of it. And driving with full loads, the heaviest the pulk’s going to be at the beginning of the expedition of course, into that head wind, really took it out of me. And trying to balance over the sastrugi crossings was really hard. This last week, the weather’s been completely different. We’ve had a bit of a katabatic wind coming down, but nowhere near as challenging as that first week. And that has allowed me to recover, albeit while I was still moving, and slowly improve. We did 16.2 nautical miles today, a PB for us and our biggest distance to date.

So I just wanted to say a bit about Adaptive Grand Slam and how it started. I was very fortunate in 2011 to do an expedition to the North Pole, with a small but excellent team of people. Two inspirational people set up a new charity called Walking With The Wounded. Ed Parker and Simon Dalglish – both remarkable human beings – who gave me the opportunity to join this team, along with Jaco Van Gass, Stevie Young, Guy ‘Maximus’ Disney and His Royal Highness, Prince Harry. And alongside us were a fantastic team... an amazing documentary maker and two amazing Norwegian beasts, is the best way to describe them.

They carried all their kit, and all the camera team’s kit as well. And that expedition really set things in motion for me; not only to leave the Armed Forces and try and find a new purpose, but instil a real taste of adventure that I wanted to try and help others achieve.

And that’s why I set up Adaptive Grandslam, I wanted to start organising expeditions and challenge events. The team on that expedition were phenomenal like I said, and they’ve all gone on to do amazing things. Dags was at the time was working for ITV, and he was very well respected in his commercial world, and loved by all. And still is – he’s a very senior player there... Ed went on to scale the charity, and do really well with it and Jaco went on to get two gold medals this year in Toyko, and a bronze. Guy Disney went on to become the first person with a disability ever to get a racing licence for horses. Not only get one, but win multiple cups. And Steve went on to have a full career in the Armed Forces.

The power of an expedition to push people in extreme environments, during a phase of rehabilitation, works.

So more on the Adaptive Grand Slam as we progress, on more expeditions and other people.

But for now, goodnight.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 13 - S81 57' 20.88", W80 18' 58.32"

Day 13

S81 57' 20.88", W80 18' 58.32"

///cruncher.retails.routinely

The team approaches 82 degrees south. Louis give some insight into the highly-specialised, and highly-personalised kit.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in from day 13 of the expedition.

We got lucky again with the weather; glorious sunshine, brilliant visibility, great surface and very light winds. So we made the most of it, and we achieved over 12 nautical miles. So that was really good going. And we’re just short now of crossing South 82 degrees. Probably fairly early tomorrow morning, mid-morning, we should cross into 82, which will be another great milestone.

I’m going to talk about the skins that we have on the skis out here; for those that are unaware of how we get grip. We put this synthetic-type fur that goes on the base of the ski, and as you slide the ski forwards, the fibres all fold flat, so you get a bit of forward glide. And as you pull the ski backwards, to try and move the pulk forwards, it grips the snow. So a bit like stroking a cat - when you stroke it the right way, it’s nice and smooth, if you do it the wrong way, all the fur comes up. So it grips the snow. And when we first started the expedition, we had full-length skins on, which cover the whole base of the ski, because obviously the pulks were at their heaviest, and we had quite a bit of steep climbing to do as well, to get from the Ronne ice shelf, just onto the continent. And now we’ve levelled out a bit and the pulks are a bit lighter, we’ve now switched. Martin’s are... probably 2/3 of the bottom of his ski is still covered with the skins because he needs a bit more grip because he’s only got the one arm to stabilise himself with. I’ve reduced mine right down to a half skin now, so I’ve got a bit more glide, but a bit less grip. It’s kind of working quite well, where the terrain has levelled out. So that’s the skins we’re currently on. And hopefully we’ll eventually get Martin on a half skin as well, which will make life a little easier.

And just to finish off, I just wanted to do a shout out to my daughter Amy, who’s serving in the Royal Air Force. Her and her boyfriend, Pit Bitch Mitch, are both based up at RAF Cosford and are listening in to these calls. So a shout out to you guys and I hope you’re enjoying following the expedition.

That’s all for this evening.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 12 - S81 45' 14.04", W80 13' 2.28"

Day 12

S81 45' 14.04", W80 13' 2.28"

///interventionism.adoption.meatless

The terrain continues to challenge, with patched of ice and sastrugi. The wind picks up again, but progress continues to be steady.

“Hi everyone, it’s Martin. Day 12 on the expedition.

We’ve done 14.2 nautical miles today, so some good progress. We’ve had clear visibility again, thankfully, and we’ve had a bit of a wind today, coming in from the south west, which was hitting us kind of front right. Not quite a headwind, but just off to the right, and mercifully that was only about 15 knots, which is not too strong, but strong enough to make you feel it, and you have to work a bit harder.

The terrain’s been pretty challenging as well, although because of the temperature and the combination of the temperature and wind, it kind of go through these patches where it’s quite icy, and it’s quite easy to slip, and then suddenly you’ll hit a bit of fresh snow, and you’re working quite hard to drag the pulk through, ‘cause the pulk’s still quite heavy, it’s still early on.

We’ve got to be careful of the terrain, but other than that, we literally just had a view of what we’re going to have for the next few hundred miles now, which is just snow and ice and sastrugi, albeit fairly small sastrugi areas at the minute, thankfully. They’re due to get bigger as we progress… as far as the eye can see. So it’s just a case of head down and really trying to churn out the miles as efficiently as we can. Starting to feel stronger. Not quite as on point with the heat regulation early on, with the layering system. My paralysed arm doesn’t sweat, and that makes the rest of my body hotter, and the base layer I had on was too warm. And that was causing me to get quite wet at times, with all the exertion, the phys aspect of what we’re doing. I changed to a different layering system a few days ago, and that’s working pretty well now. So it seems to be doing a good job.

I just want to finish off tonight with another thank you. There’s been multiple sponsors for this expedition; it’s expensive trying to get down here and do anything, just because of the location, and the cost of travel down here. But Michael Bickford at Round Hill Capital; I didn’t even get to meet, due to covid, but as soon as he found out what we were trying to achieve - with the Adaptive Grandslam and this expedition – he was really keen to get on board.

He’s a big believer that our values are aligned to their values as a business, and we were trying to achieve something that they were passionate about. So I just wanted to say thank you to all the team at Round Hill Capital for all your support, and to Michael. Also to Samantha Rush, at Round Hill Captial, who’s been helping us on the marketing side. I really appreciate it. I’m going to try my best to get that flag to the South Pole, and also hopefully to the top of Mount Vinson as well.

Thank you very much guys, stay safe and goodnight. Another day’s skiing tomorrow.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 11 - S81 31' 3.72", W80 11' 17.88"

Day 11

S81 31' 3.72", W80 11' 17.88"

///fasted.flounce.gamer

Another steady day as the team work their way towards 82 Degrees South. Louis gives an update on the expedition nutrition.

“Hi good evening everyone. It’s Lou reporting in from day 11 of the expedition. I can’t believe we’ve been out here for 11 days now!

We’ve been blessed by the weather gods again; really lucky, we’re having a good run at the moment of just clear blue skies, great visibility, hardly any wind at all today. Temperatures pretty mild, probably round about -10 degrees, which feels positively tropical conditions to be honest, for Antarctica. So it’s great travelling conditions.

Today we pushed out just under a 10-hour day, and made 13.7 nautical miles, which was great. Our target for today was the halfway to 82 degrees south. I talked on the last blog about how we’re aiming for these degrees of latitude, that we’re crossing, and we’re going to try and get to 82 degrees south in another two days, is what we’re aiming for. So we’re going to try and crack a degree – 60 nautical miles – in four days. Which is good going. We crossed South 81 Degrees and 30 minutes today, so 30 nautical miles to go. We’re going to push hard over the next two days and that’ll be great if we can crack that; that would be brilliant progress.

Just want to do a shout out to Mary and the team at Expedition Foods, who’ve supplied all the freeze-dried meals for this expedition. As always, absolutely superb. We’re using their high-energy – I think it’s called the ‘extreme’ expedition range – of 1,000 calories. And for those not familiar with how we’re doing the nutrition for the expedition; myself and Martin are both eating around, probably just under, 6,000 calories, about 5 and half thousand calories a day. Which is a huge amount, considering the average male in the UK is normally on about 2 and a half thousand, and a female about two thousand a day. We’re well over five and a half thousand, to fuel ourselves. And that’s made up of freeze-dried meals in the morning at breakfast. That just means it’s super lightweight, all the moisture’s been extracted from it, and we just melt snow in the tent, add boiling water, and we’ve got our breakfast. And that’s around 1,000 calories. And as we ski during the day, we have a grazing bag, that’s got chocolate, nuts, energy bar, cheese, salami. Every time we stop for a break – around about every hour, we grab a handful of that, a quick drink out of the flasks, and that will keep us going throughout the day. Once we get into the tent in the evening, it’s another freeze-dried main meal, of another 1,000 calories, which is really welcoming. To top all that up, we’re also drinking protein powder, so we have a litre of protein powder in the morning, and the highlight of the day, is when we finish skiing for 10 hours, is collapsing into the tent and the first batch of melted snow, we make up a litre each of this strawberry flavoured protein drink. We kind of just sit there and chug that, and it’s like drinking a nice cold pint of lager at a pub on a summer’s afternoon. It feels as good as that, at times.

So that’s how we’re fuelling ourselves, and how the nutrition works on this expedition, and we’re getting those calories into round about 1kg a day. Our food is weighing towards 50kg in total. Martin’s a bit more than that – old fat boy has definitely packed a bit of extra food on this trip.

That’s all from us, all going well, praying we can get ourselves to the end of the degree.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 10 - S81 17' 23.64", W80 10' 34.32"

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.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 9 - S81 2' 55.32", W80 0' 51.48"

Day 9

S81 2' 55.32", W80 0' 51.48"

///bozos.starkly.iconoclasts

WARNING: some strong language in today's blog. The team are on a high as they cross into 81 degrees South. Louis' practical jokes don't go down too well.

“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in from day 9 of the expedition.

We woke up this morning to another day of good visibility. There’s still quite a strong cross wind, but the sastrugi, the surface itself, wasn’t too bad either, so we’ve made really good progress. We’ve ground out our longest day so far; we were out there for eight and a half hours of skiing today, and in that time we managed to cover over 13 nautical miles. And towards the end of the day, we crossed our first degree of latitude; South 81. As most of you are aware, the South Pole lies at 90 degrees south, and we started down at the top end of 79, so we’ve got ten degrees of latitude to cover. Each degree is 60 nautical miles in distance, that’s why we’re working in nautical miles as well. [A nautical mile is 1.15 ordinary miles].

Today we managed to cross South 81, and punch three miles into that. Our next target now is 82 degrees south. We’re going to go for it and try and get there in five days, is our target. We’re looking to really start making some progress now. The pulks are a little bit lighter; tomorrow we’ll come to the end of our first 10-day food bag, so that will be over 10kg in weight reduced, and obviously we’ve burned a bit of fuel as well. The weight is slowly starting to come down, and with that, we’ll start to build the amount of hours we’re doing and hopefully the distance as well will increase. It’s encouraging, and the forecast looks good for the next couple of days at least as well, so we’re looking to continue in very similar conditions we’ve had so far. Hopefully we’ll make the most of that and start grinding out some mileage.

We’re getting more into the routines now, and just getting slicker with the tent routine, and getting quicker pitching the tent and getting packed up in the morning and getting moving a bit quicker, and just shaving time off all the routines and working out the best way to go about things to be as efficient as possible.

We had a bit of comedy today. We’re always paranoid in strong winds, when we stop for breaks, about losing any kit; a glove, a hat. So many expeditions I’ve seen people lose something in the wind, and once it’s gone, that’s it. And I was taking Martin’s jacket off today, and I deliberately held onto the corner tab of it, and he didn’t realise, and I made out I’d let it go in the wind. And for a split second he thought I’d let his jacket go in the wind, and I’ll I could hear was a mumble from under his ski mask of ‘you sick bast**d’. So I’m not sure he appreciated my joke. But a bit of bants starting to go on as well.

A great day all round and good progress – 13 nautical miles – and we’re looking to build further on that tomorrow.

That’s all from Lou and Martin, wild camping out in Antarctica.

Onwards”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 8 - S80 50' 22.56", W79 56' 36.96"

Day 8

S80 50' 22.56", W79 56' 36.96"

///evidently. tallies.crumpet

Steady progress again today, as the team approach 81 degrees South. Conditions are good. Martin begins to thank sponsors.

“Good evening everybody. Martin here at camp 8.

Last night was a bit windy, so a bit of noise in the tent again. Only about 20 knots, not as bad as it has been. Today: set off this morning, with good visibility again which was fantastic – but the terrain was quite hard. A fair amount of sastrugi – not as much as what we’re going to encounter further on in the trip but an incline as well. And physically that made it quite challenging. I’m struggling with the balance again, especially on an incline with the sastrugi. The pulks are still fairly heavy at this point in the expedition. I’m not sure if I mentioned earlier but the starting weight of the pulk was 108kg, so I’m guessing it’s around the 100kg mark now. Doing that on an incline just takes it out of you.

So I had a real couple of minutes well, more than a couple of minutes – where I was digging deep today, specially from around mid-morning till around early afternoon. I started to question all manner of things. Luckily I carried on going, kept on pushing, got through it. Lou, at one of the stops, gave me a bit of his salami; and that just seemed to make all the difference. About 30 minutes later, just the salt and the fat content just really helped. And the last two shifts of the day, I started feeling the best I’ve felt so far on the expedition.

When we finished tonight I felt like I could have carried on going for the first time. At every camp site we’ve got to so far on this trip I’ve been pretty hooped by the time I get in. But tonight for the first time I felt like I could have pushed on. We only did 12.2 nautical miles today – just because of the incline. But we’re around what appears to be slightly flatter ground now with a more gradual incline ahead
of us potentially. So hopefully we’ll get a decent day in tomorrow. And we’re going to increase the amount of time we’re skiing tomorrow. We’re going to add at least another 30 minutes to the skiing time, maybe even an hour. Slowly trying to improve our efficiencies on the ice, reduce the amount of time that we’re spending at the stops as well.

Another challenging day; but feeling like we’re slowing starting to get into the environment now. Feeling grateful for being here, and I just want to say thank you first of all to one of our headline sponsors, which is Olympian Homes; Mark, who’s the founder of Olympian Homes, and who I met after I came back from the North Pole in 2011, and it was obvious that he was very passionate about helping injured soldiers at the time. I told him about the ideas that I had for Adaptive Grand Slam, and he thought it’d be a great idea to use the power of rehabilitation to – what he described as – extreme endeavour. Well mate, we’re flipping doing that on this one, I can tell you. This is an extreme endeavour, that’s for sure. For everyone at Olympian, especially Rowan as well who’s been helping us with the foundation as well, the AGS Foundation, helping us with the financials for that, voluntarily. And Julia, Mark’s PA, who helps keep us all in shape, and helps get things done, I really appreciate it guys, I’m really grateful. I’m looking forward to seeing you all in a couple of months when
this thing’s flipping done.

Goodnight everyone, hope you’re all well. Keep enjoying the misery. Goodnight.”

— Martin Hewitt

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DAY 7 - S80 39' 52.92", W79 53' 27.24"

Day 7

S80 39' 52.92", W79 53' 27.24"

///belongs.populates.shoed

Despite the difficulties of the last few days, Martin and Louis have made excellent progress today, at a good pace. Spirits are high.

“Hi good evening everyone. This is Lou, reporting in now from day 7 of the expedition.

I’m sure you’ll have all heard from Martin’s blog yesterday that he was a bit unwell, and we ended up having a satellite phone call consultation with the ALE [Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions] doctor. And we started him on some medication, and definitely saw and improvement today.

The doctor’s recommendation was to take a rest day today, so I suggested to Martin that we just go out for a bit of a light ski, and we did, and we covered 12.8 nautical miles. So a really good rest day, and a really successful rest day. Much better conditions, the wind eased right off. We got the visibility back, which was great, we could actually see the terrain we were skiing over. A bit of sastrugi, but it hasn’t hampered our progress too much.

We set off bang on 9 o’clock this morning and skied right until 5, we put in an 8-hour shift. And covered a really encouraging distance. A great day. The forecast is looking good as well for the next two or three days at least, so we hope we can carry on making good progress and building on that.

We’re definitely settling in now to the rigours of expedition life, and the routines are getting slicker, like getting the tent up, even when there are quite strong winds and getting quicker in the mornings with the normal routine and getting everything packed and getting on the move, and efficient at breaks as well. We’re definitely settling in now, and in for the long haul. We’re trying to clear the mountains behind us, they’re disappearing from our view now and probably by the end of tomorrow, all we’re going to have is a flat white line right the way around – 360. Our next waypoint now is 300 miles away, Thiels, at 85 degrees South. We’ve got a long, long haul to get across to there. But we’re looking forward to the challenge.

A quick thank you to Shackleton who provided myself and Martin with our expedition suits – the salopettes and ski jackets that we’re using; which are prototypes and I’m pleased to report are performing brilliantly at the moment. So that’s all going well. So a big thank you from me and Martin to the team at Shack for providing those.

That’s all from this evening’s blog.

Onwards.”

— Louis Rudd

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DAY 6 - S80 29' 49.20", W80 19' 34.32"

Day 6

S80 29' 49.20", W80 19' 34.32"

///dusting.transmitters.propels

Finally conditions have improved. But Martin continues to find the journey tough. The team call the doctor.

“Hi everyone. It’s Martin.

So this morning we got up, and we didn’t have a great deal of sleep last night because it was quite windy again; but by the time the morning came the wind had calmed down a little bit which was good. We got ready and then opened the tent. There was a whiteout outside. Couldn’t see a thing. This place is brutal. It just keeps on flipping hitting you with different things every day. Anyway, we got going. And Lou was up front for the first stint. And I felt really good for the first 90 minutes. And then we switched.

I went forward. And it was a completely different ballgame in a whiteout conditions, going up front. Following Lou’s his pulk and following his route was quite easy, because I could use him as a reference point; you could see the terrain. But as soon as I got up front, I couldn’t see anything, and I was skiing by feel again. I had another fall. This time full frontal, onto the face. And I was worried that I might have damaged our compass frame. So we navigate using something called a globally-rated compass, and that sits into this little frame. Lou’s got us a harness that goes over your chest, and it keeps it out in front of you throughout the day, so you can just keep on marching on your bearing. And I thought I might have damaged that ‘cause my full body weight went forward. Luckily we didn’t, it was just the frame that was bent a little, but we managed to get it back into shape. So we got up and carried on.

Again, that stint, I’m still struggling with the balance on the sastrugi, with one pole. And the physicality of that is taking its toll. So, we only did four stints today, a shorter day. We did less than 8 miles unfortunately. I was just spent. Retching again today. Luckily there was no vomiting, just retching. But I think it’s just getting used to the environment and getting used to this terrain. Which is pretty brutal, if I’m honest. I’m hoping that the balance improves with one arm.

We’ve pitched the tent, and got ourselves into the tent routine, had a bit of rest and now I’m starting to feel a bit better. Spoke to the doctor from ALE at Union Glacier. He’s given me some anti-sickness pills that we had in our med pack. So I’ve got some meds there which will hopefully sort me out.

And for the first time since we arrived, since we started, it’s stopped blowing with massive wind. So I’m hoping tonight I actually get a decent night’s kip. And funny old thing, we started making dinner, looked outside, and the flipping cloud was all cleared and it’s perfect skiing conditions now. So a little bit gutted about that. Hoping it stays this way for tomorrow so we can actually get one decent day’s skiing done with decent visibility.

Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying my misery. Lou’s absolutely fine; loving it. I’m in clip.

Cheers. Goodnight.”

— Martin Hewitt

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