walking /skiing across antarctica in winter

[wayno]

ranulf feinnes has just had to pull out of his expedition to walk across the antarctic in winter due to frostbite that happened during training in antarctica in minus thirty conditions.
do you think it's a doable feat? or is it just too cold to be able to make it.

http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/

[PiniPowPow]

Absolutely possible, why not?

The gear was pretty interesting, no down, double skin tent? Also I can’t believe they are going with Marker Dukes as their ski binding! Why would you need a DIN 16 heavy binding for a journey like this, unless they are hoping to ski some big lines on the way

[wayno]

no down?
phd are one of their sponsors i saw an article that said they were making custom made down suits for them. and bags. , down is their business. and montane another sponsor.

[wayno]

coldest journey kit

http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/gear-featu ... 10336.html

[wayno]

my bad , they are skiing and walking....

[PiniPowPow]

Sorry should have been more specific, was talking about the outer layer option 1. The PHD gear is of course loaded with down!

http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/home/e ... /clothing/

[PiniPowPow]

my bad , they are skiing and walking....

If thats the case I would change my vote, I bet the house it can't be done on Dukes!

[wayno]

well i'd say they have to walk most of the way, you can't ski below a certain temp the skiis will stick to the snow and ice in winter temps down there... they say its a walk but they have been training on skiis...., so could be doing both

[blacksheep]

Anyone remember following Peter Hillary, Jon Muir and Eric Philips on their expedition to the Sth Pole in the late 90's? I bet they don't exchange christmas cards nowadays...

[wayno]

i went to a talk by john muir about his life, he never brought up the subject about hillary on that trek... funnily enough they didnt include hllary when he and eric skiied to the north pole...
hillary seemed more intent on talking to his wife on the new technology at the time the sat phone than getting up early to pull the sled
theres a book out recently "the third man factor" about people experiencing a ghost when under stress , peter hillary was one mentioned who said he experienced his deceased mother when the other guys in the expedition were writing him off, he said later on they shook hands and made up,, with the other guys, not with his mother.
when feines crossed hte antarttic with ike stroud, stroud wrote a damning book about feinnes being a real tosser, but theya re friends today, stroud suggested the trip, or was that because he was hoping the antarctic winter would finish him off

[blacksheep]

( off topic- sorry, but too good a Jon Muir story not to share.. I first saw Jon at Araps in 1991 I think, he was soloing a route called Little Thor, in thongs, in the rain. That same trip I heard that he seconded Gordon Poultney up (I think) Eurydice, and when he pulled onto the belay Gordy discovered Jon had untied, and tied in with a noose, worn around his neck. The first story is true, the second may be part myth, but both describe a man that was never going to get along with Peter Hillary!)

[wayno]

i watched john muirs dvd walking across aus, hauling a trailer.... often bogged down in mud.... the man doesnt hold anything back.... his wife said he was pretty fragile when he finished... poor guy took his little dog with him and it made it most of the way till it took some poison bait and died...

[Hallu]

Well I guess if Germans and Russians managed to fire at each other and take guard by -40°C conditions with no reinforcements weeks at a time, marching, attacking and retreating, with old school gear and survive (although with a pretty appalling mortality rate) I guess it's possible to walk across the Antarctic...

The worst part would be blizzards, you could be blocked for days, I hope they'd have permanent contact with a weather station or something to avoid them. Moreover, after looking at their timeline page, they say it's only skiing, no walking ( http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/home/e ... /timeline/ ). By the way did Fiennes get frostbites on his good or bad hand ? Because he's got one with no finger on it, so I guess if it's this one, he's not gonna be too bothered about it...

[Hallu]

Ah it's not as bad as I thought, I thought at first it was only walkers or skiers with maybe a sled or something, but actually :

The two-man ski unit will lead the traverse, while the rest of the team follows closely behind in the Ice Train. The Ice Train is made up of two Caterpillar® D6N track-type tractors which will pull two specially developed cabooses for scientific work, accommodation and storage, including fuel designed not to freeze.

So they have cabins for accommodation, they don't even need tents... More over, they talk about -90°C temperatures, but their fuel freezes at -75° C And if you look at the temperatures graphs, they'll be mostly encountering between -30°C and -40°C temps.

[wayno]

i'd imagine they wont turn the engines off, if the fuel tank is close enough to the engine, that should give a buffer for how low they can cope with the temp for the fuel...

[Hallu]

They should have just asked Russia to build them a nuclear powered Ice Train lol, after all they have nuclear icebreakers.

[wayno]

i wonder how a heavy caterpillar will cope with crevasses, i can recall a polar expedition being done with a bulldozer in recent decades.. i wonder if thats the best vehicle sponsor they could get, i wonder if any didnt want to lend their vehicles worrying they wouldnt cope with the cold....

[Robatman]

I checked the website and maybe I didn't get it but are they sledding/skiing or driving two Caterpillar dozers through with houses on skids?

[Hallu]

It's actually a combination of scientific survey and polar expedition. So you've got the two guys in the front coughing their lungs up on skis and pulling huge sleds with all their gear (and if they go that far maybe they even refuse to sleep in the bunks and use their own tents) with the scientific expedition following them with all the modern comfort, a built-in lab etc... Apparently the 2 skiers are also doing reconnaissance missions, so I'm guessing they'll explore the area and then go back to guide the vehicles through the best route for them in rough places.

[wayno]

their sleeping bags are rated to cope with the temps , they are equipped to tent it.

[wayno]

heres their tent...

http://www.terra-nova.co.uk/p/terra-nov ... t-journey/

http://www.terra-nova.co.uk/tents-and-s ... -greenred/

[wayno]

heres the daily schedule

http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/home/e ... n-the-ice/

[wayno]

ok, the tent is for the odd overnighting away from their cabins, so the cabins are the default accommodation

http://www.thecoldestjourney.org/home/e ... equipment/

[wayno]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21844634

When Sir Ranulph Fiennes was evacuated from Antarctica with severe frostbite last month, he left behind the five men he was supposed to lead in an attempt to be the first to cross the polar ice cap in winter. The team faced an agonising decision: give up or carry on without him. Here, writing exclusively for the BBC, Ice Team leader Brian Newham explains the group's decision to press on.

[wayno]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21647934

The suspected onset of diabetes may have been responsible for the frostbite that has forced the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes to pull out of a gruelling expedition to cross Antarctica during the region's winter.

[wayno]

an update

http://theadventureblog.blogspot.co.nz/ ... still.html

[KANANGRABOYD]

I have camped out in the High Arctic in Winter in temps down to -62c ( ambient, so without windchill). A lot of gear becomes very brittle and doing things requires more time, thought and a different approach. Frostbite is easily avoided if you do the right thing. In 13 years of living and working up there I only ever saw 3 cases of frostbite - all from patients being intoxicated and venturing out without right gear. You can comfortably work etc in -50c temps if you have the right gear. After 1 winter using mostly commercial down equipment, I ended up using fur as the warmth was much better, albeit you look silly and your clothing smells a bit because it isn't commercially tanned. Most people that live up there ( Inuit ) use big,heavy,bulky cottonduck canvas tents, and a coleman 2 burner shellite stove in it for heating. For most people who have never experienced what -50c is like, it is difficult to comprehend what it is like. You soon learn and adapt how to operate in those temps, and find out quick what gear is great and what is useless at those temps.

[KANANGRABOYD]

getting ready to venture out in winter

getting ready to go out.jpg (23.37 KiB) Viewed 23464 times

[KANANGRABOYD]

i'd imagine they wont turn the engines off, if the fuel tank is close enough to the engine, that should give a buffer for how low they can cope with the temp for the fuel...

Ive used regular cars ( ford Explorer) and skidoos in temps down to -60c. For the car we obviously had a plug in heater, but would also have to run it a lot during the day when it was really cold. The tyres become really hard, the brakes very spongy and we had all the wiring in the car door snap as we didn't have a heated garage for it the first year and it really suffered. For the skidoos we add a fuel line antifreeze sraight into the petrol tank, but the biggest problems ( for me anyway) was sparkplugs failing on start up, and also the fuel pumps freezing. Quite often when it was really cold <-45c I would put a little heater of hair dryer in the engine bay of the skidoo and cover it with a thick blanket to defrost it.
If I was out camping in really cold temps, we would usually start the skidoos up ever couple of hours and run them for a bit. I've walked home 30km's across the ocean because of skidoo breaking down. That is when I made sure never to go out on only 1 machine, and buy a sat phone.

[GPSGuided]

In 13 years of living and working up there...

That's masochism!