Arctic Trucks

The first pictures from this tour to Antarctica are now on the web. More to come soon!

Also  new diary transactions from Mike and Gísli

A call from Gisli 27. Nov, 17:30

We got back to Nov at 21:00 last night the 26th, besides the problem with the radiator the trip back was fairly easy and fast.  We left the fuel drop at 12:00 the 23rd so we were 3 days and 9 hours to drive the 1.500 km.  I have not calculated the fuel consumption yet but it was much lower then when we drove there.   We could use our track and keep a good speed except in the saztrukies areas; the speed was from 15km/hour up to 70 km/hours.  It is funny to see how little snow has been added since last year, we could often see our tracks from last year very clearly.
We have some great pictures both of the fuel drop, pictures of one of the pallets almost hitting our tent and then we took lots of pictures when we got down to the mountains again, this new route thought the mountains is very fascinating, we walked to the top of one mountain there that does not seam to have a name on the maps we named it Þórshamar (Thorshammer).  It was a great walk that took us only 2 hours.  We are on our way to the airbase now and will try to connect to the Internet and send some pictures, hopefully the Internet works now.
We have rested today but tomorrow we will change the radiator and as we have some extra time until the next flight comes they are talking about having us find a save way to „Tanes Haten?“.   The Russians did this trip once before many years ago with snowmobiles and they had huge problems with the equipment falling into crevasses and no one has dared to go again.  The radar will is a great help. 
The radiator was really damaged by the frost and was leaking very badly and we had to fix it somehow.  It took us some time to locate the problem and then we used epoxy clue to fix it, we had to remove the radiator clean it, clue and heat the clue, pressure test it and put it in again.  All in all this took us some 12 hours.   By chaining the setup we can prevent this in the future.  Otherwise the cars are in great shape and ready.

Best from all of us, Gisli.

Gísli, Freyr, Mike and Andrey arrived from there expedition late night yesterday day to Novo. The team was tired after long tour and little sleep for the last days. The guys are save now in Novo. They will take the day off to rest. Tomorrow they will change the radiator in one of the cars. Otherwise the Toyota seems to be in pretty good condition after the expedition and when the radiator has been replaced the cars are ready for their next tasks in the Antarctica.

After the day tomorrow they will perform some small expedition around the Novo area, planning save driving routs for the future and some more tasks. The guys are scheduled on flight from Antarctica on 2nd of December. They will arrive to Cape Town on the evening of the same day. In Cape Town they will have a day off before returning  home.
This expedition started on the 4th of November when Gísli Karel, Gísli Jónsson, Freyr and Andrey landed in the Novo Airbase. Their task was to repair the four modified Toyota Hilux cars that were used in the South Pole Race last year and prepare the cars for this season in Antarctica. On the 11th of November Mike Herbert arrived to Novo in order to join the team and participate in the upcoming expedition.

When the first two of the cars was ready to go the team set out for expedition. It started on 14th of November. The expedition members were Mike Herbert, Gísli Jónsson, Andrey and Freyr. All of them have experience from travelling and surviving in hostile environment. There task was to find and prepare a suitable place for fuel drop. The fuel was dropped from an airplane and stored in the ice for this season. The fuel is to be used by airplanes and expeditions this season.
Meanwhile the expedition took place Gísli Karel one of Arctic Trucks most skilled engineering stayed in Novo in order to finish repairing the second two cars. Gísli Karel completed his tasks long before it was planned and arrived to his home in Iceland today.
The driving route from Novo to the fuel drop was 1500 km. In total the team drove over 3000 km in one of the most hostile environment in the world. They drove from sea level up to 3.500 m altitude. The temperature varies from -20 C to -50 C.

The modified Toyota has improved them self as a solid equipment in the Antarctica environment as well being efficient regarding fuel consumption and operation cost compared to other vehicles.
Arctic Trucks congratulate the team, Gisli Karel, Gisli Jónsson, Freyr, Andrey and Mike Herbert for excellent performance. They have completed difficult tasks and once again approve the advantage of the Arctic Trucks concept.
It will be exciting to hear from the guys and get their travel story.

The repair of the water cooler still holds. They have been driving straight until last night when they camped and slept through the night. Now they are down from the high plate and only have 100 kilometers to go to Novo. They are driving the new tracks they made on the way up to the high plate which is a much safer route than the one they drove last year. The spirit in the group was very good since they had crossed the most dangerous crevasse area.

Yesterday morning the group decided to walk up to the top of a mountain. The top is 2560 meters high, which actually was not too difficult since their altitude was already 2300 meters. They are pretty sure that this is the first time ever this top has been climbed.   The mountain has no name that they know of but maybe they will find one for it!

Gísli Karel has arrived safely in Cape Town and is flying out of there tomorrow evening.

They guys driving back had some trouble yesterday when they lost all the liquid from the radiator in one of the cars. The temperature was very low and the defrosting liquid got icy.  They had to take the radiator out of the car and find the leak. They were lucky enough to bring some epoxy glue with them which they could use to fix the leak. This took 12 hours of work before they would get going again.
They still have to drive 850 kilometres before they get to Novo and are planning to drive without a stop until they get to the plane wrack.

Hopefully the flight from Novo to Cape Town will leave on schedule to night and Gísli Karel will then be in Cape Town tomorrow morning.  It will be quite a difference temperature wise, since it is minus 20 in Novo but plus 30 in Cape Town!  The maintenance of the cars in Novo was easier than everyone had expected and the last few days he has been transporting people around the area.

The drive back from the fuel stop is going well so far. They took off this morning and have already driven 400 kilometres and are planning to drive well into the night. They still have 1100 kilometres to go before they get to Novo.  The tracks are fine and they have managed to keep the speed at 40 kilometres pr. hour.  Mike and Gísli are travelling together in one car Andrey, Freyr and the Russian guy who jumped from the plane are travelling in the other one.  The weather is good, temperature is minus 30.
The area ahead is more dangerous, there are lots of crevasses there but they have the equipment that search for crevasses on the front of the car which makes this journey much safer.