The Arctic Arc: It’s -46°C!
Alain Hubert (cold)
© International Polar Foundation
Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer are making good progress. Despite the cold and the channels of open water that have to be crossed, they are managing to maintain an average of 20 kilometres per day.
Alain hasn't been on the best of form during the early days of the expedition: his fingers were frostbitten, but above all he had a major bout of stomachache. Actually, his body simply had a hard time getting accustomed to their new food, because of its extremely high fat component. Indeed, during the expedition, our heroes had to follow an extremely very rich diet because they have to be able to withstand the extreme cold and make enormous physical effort. After a few days, the body gets used to things and the stomachache disappears.
The weather conditions are awful: although the storm envisaged by the weather people didn't hit them immediately, it caught up with them on the 4th and 5th days. Visibility was still more or less zero on the 6th day.
In addition, the ice they're on is only about 30cm thick. So it's really horribly thin, and can break at any time. In places, Alain and Dixie have to get across channels of open water that are 50 to 60 metres wide.
The 7th day was the coldest. The temperatures actually descended to -46°C, whereas on previous days they hadn't been lower than -40°C. Moreover, the wind chill factor was considerable. When Alain and Dixie had to walk against the wind, the wind chill made it seem like -60°C for them! It's a phenomenon that's aptly named.
At such temperatures, physical activity gets harder. Furthermore, the cold freezes the sledges' runners, quickly making them stick to the ground and harder to pull. Alain and Dixie walk for approximately five-hour periods and then warm themselves up in their sleeping bags, benefiting from the moments of respite to send back their news via the satellite telephone. Yesterday, Alain managed to send some photographs and a test film by warming up the computer so that he could turn it on. Today, it's too cold. The screen won't work at those temperatures!
The distance covered to date is 134 km, which leaves 785 km to the Pole and 647 km to Barneo. So there's still a fair way to go!
