5		5
	Week from 11 to 17 March

Sunday 17th March (day 21): is the terrain really improving at last? Possibly...

Sunday, 11 am, satellite telephone / Good news today : first of all, the chaotically bumpy ground of the previous days seems to be less dreadful than it was - the men were able to take advantage of the covering of snow left overnight to enjoy a few hours of smooth progress; and second, a fresh attempt with the 21 sq.m. parafoil saw them scudding along, covering 5 km in under 50 minutes.

Since they left on 25th February, Alain and Dixie have covered a total of 180 km, but have only actually advanced 168 km to the North. Awful weather this evening, no visibility, 7 hours on the move, minus 30°C, a few tracks of a mother bear and her two cubs, morale is good...

Saturday 16 March (day 20) : An unexpected visitor

Excellent satellite (Iridum) link today, which enabled us to make the acquaintance of Dixie and Alain's new travelling companion - an enormous and superb walrus.
This magnificent animal used his tusks to break the ice that the two men had just crossed (this episode took place just a few hours ago, so you can see that we are tracking our two adventurers closely). The beast then decided to come and lie down about thirty metres from the tent, taking his ease in the evening on a patch of young ice, where he took great pleasure in breaking the ice again. Chilly and scary... Let's hope that this polar mammal does not come too close or disturb the walkers while they are sleeping..


We use the word "walkers" with some justification : because apart from a few rare moments of good conditions for gliding over the ice, the two men are still very much making their way on foot. The ice is still as chaotic and bumpy as ever - and still just as bad for skis and sledge runners alike. The men are still suffering physically and their muscles are taking a battering. And Alain is still as unbelieving as ever about the dreadful condition of the pack ice. "We have reached the shallows," he explained an hour ago, "so I expect the ice will start to get better. But at the moment, I am afraid of the high equinox tides. We don't know where we're going. It's very, very tough..."

The temperature was again colder this evening - minus 30°C - 18.6 km covered in two days, the ice is still indescribably chaotic, fewer open leads of water, small lakes and little rivers instead, Hubert's thoughts on human vanity (that we will publish in audio tomorrow). Surprising...

Friday 15 March (day 19) : No satellite contact today

The opinion of doctor Jacques Richon
about the frozen fingers of Alain Hubert

Thursday 14 March (day 18) : Bis repetita...

A very short satellite link today; for one thing, reception is poor and also the two men are still suffering mightily because nothing has changed since yesterday. The terrain is worthy of the very worst icy chaos imaginable, Dixie just had the time to comment.
Under these circumstances, it's easy to understand why they didn't want to talk more. They have sore knees and aching backs and their joints have taken a battering, too. They ache everywhere. Physical effort such as this tends to generate discretion. Silence even...

Like Nansen before them, they are making their way as a duo towards the Pole; like Nansen, they have taken enough food for 100 days; and like Nansen, the wife of one of the two men is expecting a happy event while her husband is out on the pack ice...

It was exactly 107 years ago to the day that one of the great episodes of the Arctic story began. The Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, who wanted to verify the theory that the pack ice drifted, built a ship designed to cope with the torture of the Arctic ice. His ship was the celebrated Fram. On 24th June 1893, he departed for eastern Siberia. On 25th September, his sailing ship became trapped in the ice pack. 17 months later, the man who was the curator of the Natural History museum in Bergen, decided to set out with a companion and head for the Pole. (See also our pages devoted to the history of Arctic exploration).

Wednesday 13 March (day 17) : Baptised in the Arctic

Wednesday 13th March, 3 pm. All adventurers or explorers worthy of the name are unanimous on this point: when you undertake an assignment like this, and especially over such difficult terrain, there is always a moment - generally at the beginning of the expedition - when the players make a breakthrough. This 'frontier' is usually determined by a significant event of some sort. For some it might be adapting to the climate after struggling to do so for a number of days, while for others it could be a geographic area conquered or a specific problem overcome. Or it might be going through a new level of achievement in which the criteria of the adventure all come together in perfect harmony.
As far as Alain and Dixie are concerned, without them actually having said anything about it during their satellite (Iridium) slot - so this is only pure interpretation on our part, but we have got to know them a little by now - we are certain that some sort of breakthrough was made today. During their crossing of the Antarctic, Alain wrote to us after reaching the polar plateau and experiencing the most dreadful blizzards - so a couple of weeks or so of being underway - that he felt the 7th continent had just accepted them into its inner sanctum.

It's a bit like that this time. They have in fact just come through the toughest of all the 17 first days. It has been a day worthy of the more difficult moments the men experienced in 1994 during their trek to the North Pole. "I said to Dixie," explained Alain two hours ago, in a rather subdued voice, "that we have now really entered the real Arctic." He means that have reached the stage where a man's strength is just about at its outer limits, where the real struggle begins, where the dialogue between man and the elements comes into play. Thus far, they have experienced some difficult days. But this time, they have entered another world. We are sure that in a few days from now, Hubert will say, "The Arctic, my dear Michel, has finally let us in..."

So what have these particular difficulties been? The ice and the ability to 'glide' over it, which is worse than ever; the two men have been obliged to progress virtually on the tips of their boots and their crampons, puffing and panting like beasts of burden that have to go through hell just to get their sledges moving forwards. If they don't, nothing moves. The whole kit and caboodle stays where it is. When they finally manage to get into some sort of rhythm, they either stumble across a crack in the ice which slows them down, or they come up against an ice mound that requires them to adjust to a new set of movements, hence losing the benefit of the automatic actions that had enabled them to move forward for the previous few minutes...
So that's it: their entire day has been set against this uncomfortable backdrop. Our men can see no end to the hell before them. But it can't be said that they are demoralised or discouraged. Far from it. But they have before them a question that no-one can answer : how much longer will they have to labour against the odds?.

Tuesday 12 March (Day 16) : The effort required is inhuman, but they are making progress...

This evening, the two men are sleeping on an ice sheet the size of a basketball court. With hummocked ice all round them and, just for a change, not a bear track in sight. While we are on the subject of bears, we learnt this morning from the people at Cerpolex (logistics) that there is a tiny island situated a few hundred meters from Cape Arnisiy (from where the men set out) which is renowned as a real polar bear reserve. So it is hardly surprising that they met some during the first few days.

This evening, Alain and Dixie are extremely happy with their day's work because, despite the difficult ice and the horrible gliding conditions for the sleds, they covered 14.3 km including a drift of 3.3 km. That means 11 km traveled by the effort of their hips, pelvis and arms.

Another encouraging sign is that fact that, for the second day in succession, they have not had to cross leads of open water; even if the ice where they are is still young and fragile, it seems that the ice-floe is less disjointed and in a few days, they should be crossing flatter terrain.

The temperature remains a "mild" - 20°C, the equipment is OK, their morale is high, their strength is unshakeable. They have traveled 138.6 km since the start, at a daily average of about 9.5 km.

Monday 11 March (Day 15) : First day without open water, but not without chaos...

Monday 2 pm. "It's hard to imagine," explained Dixie on the telephone, "that while we haven't had to deal with any more open water since this morning, we are still faced with an indescribable chaos of ice that we have to negotiate with sledges that seem to weigh a ton... It's hard work..."

Setting out at 10 am, Alain and Dixie marched for 6 and a half hours today. No question of getting their skis out. Underneath the snow covering the ice (it snowed last week), there is a morass of seawater that prevents any ski or sledge runner from sliding over the surface. It's like white mud... And it is sapping the strength of our adventurers.
"We really can't do any more than we are," explained Alain, as if to justify himself. "By the evening we're absolutely shattered and in any event, we couldn't go any faster without taking too many risks. At first glance, the terrain doesn't promise to be any better tomorrow... We just have to wait, we're fit and healthy, but this initial part of the expedition has been exhausting. Having said that, we've been filming quite a lot because the Northern Lights are still as extraordinary as they were on the first few days, and we've been taking plenty of photos, too. Still not possible to send any because we have a few battery problems. Dixie has been taking good care of me, nursing my fingers, and in the morning he smokes a pipe before starting the day, which smells good... Morale is excellent. We just have to wait for the better days..."

Departure at 10 am, nearly 7 hours on the move, temperature less harsh: minus 20° C...

Monday 9 am. As we were talking about a possible battery failure this weekend, it may perhaps be of value to explain how the use of energy operates on an expedition such as this.

Apart from the fuel for the stove, the only form of energy used by the two men comes from the sun; they have taken two solar panels with them, 100/40 cm and 32W, which are fitted with special regulators to optimise the charge.
To charge these solar panels, you need a minimum of six hours in ideal conditions, i.e. stationary and with the sun's rays hitting the solar cells perpendicularly. However, the men will not always have the time to recharge the batteries while stationary, so they have opted to lash the panels to the top of the sledges and have them charge up while they are on the move. To do that effectively, you need terrain that is not too bumpy.
The two solar panels supply a main battery (12V,12Amp/h, 4 kg) which operates on the same principle as a car battery. This battery (15/12 cm) is housed in a small aluminium casing which is equipped with all of the outlets and connectors required. So the men only have to plug their leads into this casing and are not required to access the battery directly (fewer handling actions needed).
The main battery charges the following devices: the Iridium satellite photo (photo opposite), the Compaq iPaq computer and the Compaq portable. The type of connector selected is a cigarette-lighter. Using small 8.4V regulators, a special power supply system has been designed from the main battery to power the camcorder and still camera batteries. Hubert has opted to take 4 batteries for each: 4 for the Iridium (so they can't have had a battery breakdown at the weekend), 4 for the camcorders and 4 for the GPS (which operates on its own lithium batteries).
In terms of cabling, all of the cables have been replaced (where possible) by cables capable of resisting extremely low temperatures, otherwise the original cables would have broken quickly.