Ultimate North update: Avery and team make Arctic history!
Apr 27, 2005 10: 31 EST
With an 18.8 mile sprint on the last day, the Ultimate North team broke Peary’s 1909 speed record to the North Pole. The new record for the fastest North Pole expedition is 36 days, 22 hours and 11 minutes. When they finally reached the top of the world, they were 7 miles ahead of Peary’s pace. As promised, here’s Tom Avery’s full dispatch recounting Ultimate North’s historic final push to the Pole.
“We've arrived at the top of the world! It's been a long final day, nothing like as straightforward as we had hoped, and we're all absolutely shattered. But to be standing here at the North Pole, the center of the Earth's axis, looking south in every direction, feels incredible.”
”There were times yesterday when I genuinely believed that we might not make it. Having gone to bed after Day 36 with 15.9 miles to go to the Pole, we woke up the next morning to find that thanks to the ice drift, that target had increased to 18.6 miles.”
”And that drift continued at a steady rate of 0.3 knots throughout the day which was beautifully clear with light winds from the west.”
Three thin black water clouds
”Thankfully the surface conditions were superb and after the day's first six-hour session, we had just 7.4 miles to go to the Pole. Four hours later and we were less than three miles away. But you should never take anything for granted in the Arctic and just as I was starting to get excited about our imminent arrival at the North Pole, the clouds rolled in and just above the horizon we could see three thin black water clouds, indicating that open water was not far away.”
Disappearing pans
”Sure enough, the flat pans that we had enjoyed over the last few days disappeared and we soon found ourselves in an area of rough ice and our first leads since crossing the giant lead on Day 35.”
”The first of these was over a quarter of a mile wide but at nearly four inches thick, the ice was just about thick enough to support our weight and we were soon safely across.”
Path to the Pole blocked
”But Sedna had one final surprise for us. We crossed a few more freshly frozen leads before coming to one of no more than fifty yards in width that remained unfrozen in the center. It stretched from east to west as far as we could see, completely blocking our path to the Pole. We were all pretty exhausted by this stage, the dogs included, and we needed all our powers of patience as we searched for a way across.”
”We started by looking to the east, but soon gave up when it became clear that the lead splintered off into a series of fresh open leads. So we turned back on our tracks and headed off in the other direction wondering if we would ever find a way to the Pole at all.”
A heart-stopping moment
”Our first attempt to cross nearly ended in disaster when Raven's team broke through the thin ice, all of them ending up in the water in the center of the lead. Amazingly the sled did not go through and with the five of us calling to them from the bank, the dogs were able to haul themselves out of the water and return to safer ground. It was a heart-stopping moment but the dogs soon dried off and were able to carry on as normal.”
No larger than a tennis court
”After what seemed like hours, we finally made it across a stretch of slightly thicker ice and soon we were making our final steps to the Pole, which was located on a small flat area of snow, no larger than a tennis court and surrounded by pressure ridges.”
”We counted down the last sixty feet to the Pole on the GPS side by side and arrived just after 7:30 am local time. We hugged, laughed and cracked open the champagne. We had done it.”
Live image (over Contact 3.0) of North Pole celebration courtesy of barcapultimatenorth.com.
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