by Chris Bray
Despite this northern coast of Victoria Island being permanently locked in by sea ice, it was fascinating to see lumps of gnarled, weatherbeaten knots of wood and other flotsam that must have ridden the frozen Arctic Ocean perhaps for years. Without any trees on Victoria Island, they certainly couldn’t have come from anywhere around here. Disappointingly, amongst this natural flotsam we also hauled past the odd bit of pollution: cigarette lighters, bits of plastic and so on. It’s quite upsetting to see rubbish way up here near the ends of the earth, and so we’ve been picking up the lighter pieces as we toil past. I guess that people who dump rubbish at sea must think it will just get swallowed up by the vastness of the deep. Clearly, it doesn’t.
We couldn’t stay annoyed for long, however, as—cresting the last little rise—we found ourselves overlooking a spectacularly crumpled expanse of blue sea ice: Hadley Bay!
We made it! We’ve just set up camp on the south-western corner of the bay, and the campsite is perfect. Perfect weather, perfect terrain, perfect view and perfect food—Mexican Chicken tonight! We are genuinely thrilled (and even a little surprised) to be here at last—the biggest milestone of our trip yet—a point you can spot on any map of the world.
DAY 20: Back to sleep?
Just as we went to bed last night, the gorgeous summery weather did a total backflip. The wind blew up from nowhere, grabbing the tent and shaking it like a terrier, while dark clouds swept in, unleashing an odd mixture of rain, snow, sleet and hail that pummelled and splattered loudly against the shuddering sides of the tent. Inside, we tried to get some sleep despite the din, but it was impossible. Tossing and turning, I fought hard with the desire to use ear plugs, but terrified I wouldn’t hear the bear alarm go off, I resisted. At last, after several frustrating hours, we both managed to pass out.
Morning, when it arrived, was even less pleasant. It was as if God was dipping his fingers into a giant Slushie, then flicking his hand at us, flinging teaspoon-sized splats of icy slurry down upon us. The walls of my tent bowed in oppressively against me from the force of the wind, and water had somehow wicked through too, almost pooling around my sleeping bag.
As Clark cooked up the usual hearty breakfast, strangely neither of us mentioned anything about setting off. We both avoided the subject entirely, and returned to our respective tents to eat brekky, sip coffee, listen to our iPods and generally pretend we were somewhere else. Time ticked on, the weather continued to pour hate down upon us, and eventually I poked my head through to Clark’s tent and ventured, ‘So, I guess it must be about nut break time, then?’ We enjoyed it from the comfort of our sleeping bags, followed soon after by delving into our chocolate ration for the day. The weather gradually started to ease, and for a few brief blissful hours, we did actually relax. It was heaven. We still can’t believe we made it this far.
After lunch we did a session of serious route planning for the weeks ahead, up onto the plateau towards the Kuujjua River, and when we could stand the guilt no longer, we packed up camp. Clark downed a few painkillers and anti-inflammatories for his foot, which has been causing him some grief these last few days after spraining it, and we set off in high spirits, hauling around a corner and directly into the most vicious region of Death Terrain we’ve ever seen.
It was similar to the ‘original style’ expanse of jagged ice-shattered limestone, but here, every single piece was razor sharp and protruded lethally upwards 30 centimetres or more. There was no other way but forward, and so with our hearts in our mouths we crunched our way along, trying hopelessly to guide our unsteerable four-wheeled beast around the worst of the daggers, flinching at all the terrible cracking, popping, grinding, splintering and snapping noises as the tyres rolled over it all. Without exaggerating, every instant we expected to hear the dreaded ‘PSSSSssssssssss’ of our first ever puncture.
But somehow—amazingly—we got through it. We did sustain several more major tears in both layers of Kevlar—through which the inner tubes have started to bulge—but to our complete bewilderment, no punctures.
After the Death Terrain subsided into a gravelly swamp, we could at last breathe easier and admire the magnificent scenery as we hauled alongside the frozen ocean. Patches of turquoise-blue meltwater wound their way around the jumble of pure white pack ice and the occasional larger berg—the hearts of which glowed a brilliant electric blue. It’s perfect polar bear environment and we watched every chunk of ice nervously as we passed, half expecting it to spring to life. It’s rather scary, actually, constantly being aware that we could be being hunted—stalked by the world’s largest land carnivore—every time we turn our backs.
We racked up 3.85 kilometres as the PAC rolls this afternoon (3.6 by GPS), before we suddenly ran out of steam. Not bad, really, for half a day. About 600 metres away, the mouth of a large river is spilling deeply out into the pack ice—but we’ll deal with crossing that in the clarity of morning. For now, though, we’re enjoying chowing down on a tasty packet of Chicken Tikka Masala, while peeping out at the view over Hadley Bay, watching a big black seal lazing on the ice, watching us.
DAY 21: Grumble
Today was an absolute nightmare. It started out serenely enough, hauling towards the large river we stopped just short of yesterday, and luck, it seemed, was on our side. Drawing closer, we realised that instead of having to haul kilometres upstream to look for somewhere vaguely crossable, we could perhaps just cross the sea ice in front of us. Empowered by this novel idea, we each donned drysuit and life jacket, slung a shotgun over our shoulder, wedged a bear-banger pen flare in our pocket and took our first tentative steps onto the ice.
We walked out further, our confidence rising. ‘This is totally do-able!’ I shouted. ‘And it’ll make for great photos too!’ It looked spectacular, winding in and around brilliant blue puddles, past towering jumbles of ice with seals slipping silently into the water around us as we passed. We hobbled back, unlinked our PACs, pointed them in the right direction, joined them together again, and hauled boldly out onto the ice, our eyes flicking nervously left and right, searching for polar bears.
Right on cue, the sun came out, the wind ceased, and the pools of water formed perfect mirrors. We paused long enough for a few spectacular photos and video grabs, and then hauled onwards to the far side of the bay. It was magic. We saved ourselves several kilometres—perhaps even three or four—and enjoyed every minute of it.
Unfortunately, that was where our luck ran out.
Having clambered ashore, another stroke of personal genius suggested we could cut a further 5 kilometres off our route by attempting to cut over the mountain in front of us, rather than haul all the way around following the shore. Feeling pretty gung ho from our last success, we nodded in agreement. ‘Yep. Let’s do it!’
Trying to haul up the side of that hill nearly killed us. With the enormous weight of the double PAC constantly threatening to roll back down the mountain and drag us unceremoniously to our deaths, we doggedly fought our way upwards for two unrelenting kilometres. Slipping over awkwardly on ice, we were constantly forced onto our hands and knees for grip, sloshing through snow, squelching boot-deep in mud, and splashing and thrashing through small ponds. Every time we paused to quell the urge to vomit, we could feel the PAC shifting and starting to slip, so we’d desperately struggle onwards.
Our hard, positive veneer of optimism was wearing rather thin after a few particularly nasty slip-ups, when suddenly—about halfway up—we came upon what was clearly the birthplace of all Death Terrain. A wall of mangled rock rose out of the earth, all pre-shattered it seemed; stacked up and then just spilling out into such a malicious field of death that it seemed hard to attribute such precisely fashioned hatred to mere chance. We gaped at it. The rest of the hill—the remaining two kilometres—was apparently composed of this stuff. It wasn’t even remotely possible. We turned to each side: more Death Terrain. As one, we slowly looked back down the hill, down our smeared wheel trails all the way to the pack ice below, and bit our t
ongues in an effort to remain calm.
We bitterly lowered the PAC halfway down, and then—spying a string of muddy swamps amidst the Death Terrain to the left—decided to try and follow them around the mountain instead. At least the mud offered respite for our wheels, though not for our rising frustration. We linked these mud pits like a dot-to-dot, trying to avoid the worst of the Death Terrain in between, but there was too much of it. Joggling over it, I was continually pausing to try and kick down, break off, or dig out particularly savage lances before the PAC inevitably reached them, but more often than not this was only a token gesture, as there were lances everywhere.
It’s not that stumbling over rickety Death Terrain bothers us in itself, or that our boots overflowing with water, grit and ice affects us so badly, or that having pungent mud over everything including our nut breaks is intolerable—even the aches, pains and cuts all over us are manageable—but there is one thing we can’t ignore. The fact is, we’re scared our Kevlar wheel covers simply can’t last much longer. Any more Death Terrain like this is certain suicide for them, which, so early in the expedition, will spell disaster. The tears are already snagging on the jagged rocks and spreading by the hour. Crushingly, we have been lured well beyond where our mud dot-to-dot ended, and to our dismay, there is now Death Terrain not only in front and behind us, but above and below us too. We are marooned in a world of sloppy mud, rimmed by horrific Death Terrain we dare not cross, with no real way out. We can now see the black inner tubes bulging through recently slashed tears on several sections of our wheel covers, and the rubber looks terribly scratched and abraded.
On a brighter note, it just started pouring with rain, so at least our socks that we hung out to dry on the tent ropes outside will be getting … a wash? We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel of optimism out here now, and feeling pretty low. I’m sure after a good night’s sleep things will seem brighter, though, providing the stove doesn’t burn down both tents while we cook dinner. Really, it wouldn’t surprise me.
DAY 22: Shredded Kevlar and battered spirits
Today was just one of those days. Having burnt almost all our anger and frustration yesterday, we spilt the rest today within the first hour of hauling. From that moment on, we merely toiled onwards, slowly, methodically, mechanically—broken men—accepting each punishment as it was dealt out to us, and then slowly standing up and falling silently back into the line of the harness. We were beyond caring, our boots overflowing, our gloves saturated and icy water wicking right up our sleeves into, it seemed, our spirits.
Even the soggy snow now hides Death Terrain underneath—nowhere is safe. Stopping eventually for a nut break and to lick our wounds, we reassessed the rapidly deteriorating wheel covers. There were a total of four major tears now, right through both layers, and plenty of other slashes gaped openly through the first layer, some up to 30 centimetres wide. Standing in deep slush, we deflated each wheel in turn, slid in our ever diminishing reserves of spare Kevlar fabric, and pumped them back up. Just as we morosely headed off, the front spacer bar of the PAC—the thing we repaired only a few days ago—snapped again, this time completely in half. We cursed at it, but being in no place to attempt a repair, stumbled onwards into what looked innocently like a snow-clad field. It wasn’t.
Here’s a fairly accurate analogy: picture a large ice hockey rink with several fire-hoses sluicing water across it, then randomly scatter it with suitcase-sized ice boulders, and fill the whole rink with just enough frosty slush to cover it. After dusting the surface with powder snow to hide everything, strap some garbage bin lids to your feet to simulate snowshoes, tie yourself via a long rope to a small beach buggy car, and then try to drag it around and around the ice rink, for hours. That’s how it was today, except that it was also raining and foggy, so we couldn’t even see where we were going, or if this hell was going to end. Constantly slipping and falling awkwardly into pools of water, the PAC would often strike against unseen boulders, absorbing our hauling energy for a while and then springing backwards, yanking our waist straps so violently that we practically jack-knifed down into the slush. Progress was a series of five small lollipop steps forwards, followed by perhaps two steps sliding backwards, if we were lucky enough to remain upright. To add insult to injury, this entire time we were hauling beside solid, dry ground, but, being Death Terrain, we dared not use it.
Despite the miserable conditions today, we did have one comforting thought. Traipsing through the endless ice rink, I suddenly stopped and turned to Clark. ‘Imagine if this was 2005, and we had to pitch our tent down somewhere on this.’ We instantly felt better.
Although the PAC-o-meter (the modified bike computer) shows we hauled a whopping 6.74 kilometres today, the harsh reality of the GPS revealed that most of that distance must have been zigzagging around, because in a straight line we’ve only come a depressing 3.79 kilometres. Looking to the future, though, tomorrow is my 25th birthday! As far as I can recall, birthdays are always happy, fun, warm days, filled with presents, laughter, copious amounts of good food and general all-round merriment. So I am very much looking forward to all this tomorrow.
DAY 23—24: My 25th birthday!
After the trauma of yesterday, fate had one last nail to drive into us just before bed. Doing our usual email check, we received one informing us that the chap who was going to pick us up from the far side of the island by boat had actually just been thrown in jail. This leaves us with no end-point pickup, as our backup option—a mining exploration camp (we were going to detour one of their weekly resupply planes)—has unexpectedly decided to shorten their season and will have already gone home by the time we need the pickup. Brilliant. We went to sleep feeling rather downtrodden indeed, and rain lashed the sides of our tent harder than ever.
Then, inexplicably this morning, we awoke to a totally different world. Peeping out of the silent tent, we noticed that the thin clouds in the sky looked almost summery. The wind had completely died down, the rain had vanished, and we could see for miles. There were even some caribou wandering around in patches of sunlight on the distant hills! We could not believe it. ‘Happy birthday, guv!’ Clark beamed. ‘I called in a few favours with the weather gods.’
Our spirits skyrocketed. This expedition is such an emotional rollercoaster. ‘And guess what?’ Clark added, trying hard to bridle his excitement. ‘I think …’ He paused for a mental calculation. ‘Yep, I think we’ve finally come full-circle with our time-zone shifting. Not only it is actually morning for once and we’ll be hauling during the day, but because of all those 25-hour days, we’ve actually been out here for an extra 24 hours now—so today is not Day 23, it’s Day 24!’
My eyes lit up as realisation dawned. ‘We’ve got an extra day’s worth of food we haven’t eaten!’ Clark passed me a double helping of oats—with twice the sugar and butter—and the coffee was twice as creamy and strong. It was the best breakfast either of us can remember in a long, long time, and I literally can’t think of a better birthday gift.
After this leisurely brekky, feeling for once almost ‘full’, we packed up and clipped into our harnesses. Just as we did so, the sun burst through the clouds, flooding our world with the warmth and cheer that yesterday seemed so impossibly far away. We hailed the sun gods, Clark sang ‘Happy Birthday’, and we headed off, downhill.
Bliss. The kilometre or two of gently sloping downhill was mostly snow-clad, except for where the tops of Death Terrain rocks poked through in an attempt to rain on our parade. We saw them coming and arced left and right around the worst of them, jeering at them until we came to a stop in front of a stream.
We kicked down the snowy banks to form a boat ramp, and pushed the combined PAC into the middle of the stream, forming a bridge neatly across to the other side. We then simply scrambled on, over, and off onto the other side—perfectly dry—and kept hauling. It was perfect. The next stream crossing was rather more formidable but with the final 100-metre approach being steep enough to billycart-ride,
we couldn’t resist, and ended up careering into the water with a triumphant yell at 10 kilometres per hour (according to the PAC-o-meter). Stranded midstream, we tried to re-enact our success of bridging the first stream, only to find the current far too strong, and our cart simply swung downstream and took off, merrily bobbing along as we frantically hobbled after it. We got it sorted eventually and, despite wet boots, ate our double nut break still brimming with cheer.
After a double lunch, the next river crossing was not exactly a textbook performance either, and we emerged some five minutes after plunging in, wet and wide-eyed, but chuffed to have discovered that our carts actually float really well in deep water, even with us clinging on top like half-drowned rats. The sun was still pouring happiness into our day as we began our final uphill slog. It was stupendously difficult, and we ended up sinking into a sucking slurry of quicksand. The more we struggled, the further in we sank. We unclipped and tried to walk away, but we could barely even extract ourselves from the shin-deep mud—I almost lost my boots in the process. Somehow we managed to separate the carts, and—groaning with the effort—got one PAC to start rolling. Adrenalin kicked in and we went for it, giving it everything we had to keep up momentum. By the time we got it to the top, we were shaking, dizzy, and our breaths were coming in ragged pants. ‘All right,’ I gasped, turning back down the hill, ‘now the other one …’