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Quick
glance at the polar Arctic expeditions DISPATCHE
1 The
list of expeditions /The
latest news on their progress See
also our page "Other Expeditions Live" Including
the Compaq Pole II team, there are 12 professional
Five expeditions are setting out on to the pack ice today, Monday 18th March; two teams of Australians are attempting the same challenge: Cape Arktichevski -> North Pole, unassisted, Mike Horn, the Chinese man and the three British women who have just left Ward Hunt.
Let's
talk about the Chinese man Liu Shaochuang first: according to the
logistics people (Cerpolex), he arrived ill-prepared, with no ski
poles and a rotten sleeping bag. Christian de Marliave de Cerpolex
let him have some suitable equipment, but had to wonder about any
expedition - and of course there will be increasing numbers of them
as a result of the impact created by the great adventurers - that
arrives on the ground so ill-prepared and badly equipped. Four teams set out on the same day, 4th March: the Chinese man whom we have just mentioned, Mike Horn and the two Australian teams. Liu and the Australians were dropped off at 80° 45' N, or about thirty kilometres from Cape Arktichevski (80°16' N / 95°30' E) on account of the open leads of water at the departure point; Mike Horn, was dropped off at 80°35' N, and so is slightly behind the other three expeditions. Consequently, these adventurers opted to avoid the initial difficulties posed by the route. This is not the case for Hubert and Dansercoer, who set off from terra firma. By 17th March, the Australians Peter Philips and Jon Muir had covered 195 km in 13 days (averaging 15 km a day), encountering less severe difficulties than Hubert-Dansercoer; certainly the Aussies have already negotiated numerous stretches of open water and have encountered polar bears, but the terrain was a lot less difficult, with the ice more on the smooth side. By 11th March - or 7 days into their trek - the other team of Australians, Tim Jarvis and Peter Treseder (whose website is not updated daily), had covered 123 km (average: 17.5 km a day). No major problems, apart from a rapid rate of drift and some bear tracks observed on waking up in the morning. By 17th March, they had reached 83°30' N.
The South African, Mike Horn, who is travelling alone, ran into a massive storm with violent winds during the first days of his expedition. He has also come up against an enormous bear. By 13th March, he had reached the position of 82°36'40" N / 93°07'30" E, making progress at the rate of approximately 10 km a day. Like our Belgians, he gets up at around 7.30 am, leave at about 10 am and stops work at 5 pm or so. Same low temperatures as on the Hubert-Dansercoer route. As
for the expeditions setting out from Canada (Ward Hunt), only the
three British women - Ann Daniels (37), Pom Oliver (50) and Caroline
Hamilton (35) - have set out so far. That was just a few days ago
on 12th March. By 15th March, or day 3 of their trek, they had only
covered about 10 km to the North. The terrain is dreadful, the ice
rotten, but their morale remains excellent. For
further information, and for their resepective websites © photos : Mike Horn, Eric Philips et M&G North Pole Expedition 2002
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