Arctic Trucks

Departed Stavanger at 1930 to Oslo stayed overnight at SAS hotel at Gardemoen. Took 1135 BA flight to London next day. Arrived terminal 5 and as usual I had some hassle at Security, and managed to loose my reading glasses. Did some duty free shopping, and got a good Sony HD VC, plus some more memory for the D300. Departed 1750 for Johannesburg and it was more relaxing traveling business! I managed to watch a video on Mawson the famous Australian polar explorer. It was pretty scary stuff, with one of the team falling into a crevasse with most of the food, all never to be seen again. There were two of them left and had about 500 kms to go, ended up eating the dogs one by one, and managed to get a form of food poisoning from eating the dogs livers! It sent the other guy slightly mad and he started to eat his frost bitten figures before dying from the cold! Mawson managed to make it even after falling into a crevasse just a few kms from rescue. Epic stuff!

Also noticed that the outside temperature was around -42C during the flight, which is about what it is in Antarctica …should have sat on the wings to acclimatize.

Arrived Johannesburg and only just made the connection to Cape Town , so when I arrived in Cape Town it was not a surprise that one of the bags was missing.
Hotel very tradition and quiet. Meet Victor who runs the Antarctica company. He seemed a very experienced polar person, and has been the North Pole over 20 times, plus has over wintered in the Russian Antarctic base called Vostok which has the world record for the coldest place on the planet at -89C!

Walked down into town in the evening and ended up at the Water Front a redeveloped area along the old docks, with lots of shops, restaurants and pubs. Found a really good restaurant called Servuga, and I feasted on Springboks and Shiras.

We have been travelling since yesterday without camping or sleeping. Everything has been going very well but we have driven slowly, taken a lot of pictures and enjoyed the beuty of the nature. Last night we saw a sunset for the first time since we got to Antarctica! We are now travelling north and the temprature is rising. Last time we camped we slept in 35 degrees below but now it is 8 degrees below. We almost feel we can go out in our t-shirts!

We now have less than 100 kilometers to go before we get to Novo, hopefully we will be there in 2-3 hours. We have already drivien through the most dangorous crack area and everything went well. We tied all the cars together and drove very slowly. We found a way through, built on experience since driving to the Pole and by examining the area carefully. I have to admit we were a little reliefed when we were through.

We needed to pick up a lot of things on the way, things that both we and the competitors had left behind on the way to the Pole. We now have found all those things and will not leave anything behind. We drove to this very beautiful mountain area, called Valley Berg, where we did a lot of photograping and fooled around, sliding down the slopes on our behinds! We thought about camping there but even though the weater is very good at the moment, the forcast for the next two days is not that good so we decided to continue all the way to Novo. The spirit in the group is very good and we are all looking forward to getting to our final destination. Hjalti claims that the cars are  getting homesick and that they are getting faster, he is now playing with leting the car jump – with not so good response from all the passangers!

The repair of the transfer box has holden perfectly. This is the first time in history that 4X4 vehicles drive to the South Pole and their performance is great. They have driven close to 6000 kilometers in the most difficult circumstances and they have really shown what they are capable of! If was strange to experience how the functionality of the cars changes when the temprature got down to 35-40 degrees below. Everything got very stiff, for example the shock absorbers froze just when we stopped for refueling. The tires did not work, even though they were deflated, they just became hard as a rock.

The altitude is now almost 1.600 meters over sea level and I am finally feeling good! This is totally different from beeing in 3000 meters altitude, and I have to admit that I was feeling pretty bad.

When we get to Novo we will prepare the cars for winter, but the cars will not be moved until october. Now winter is coming with extreme cold and darkness, almost all operation in the stations here will close down and most of the people goes away for winter. We will therefor find a good spot for the cars, cover the cars and here they will stand until september/october. Then we will propably send some people here to go over the cars and teach the people here how to use them.

Everybody that has been taking part in this expedition has been praising Gísli and Hjalti and they alls say that without them this would never have worked out. We can be very proud of our boys! I belief this is the longest 4X4 tour in the history of Iceland at least. This has been a great adventure and sometimes very difficult. Now we are all getting very exited about getting home, but Hjalti sais that the hardest part is still ahead of us, that is getting rid of the body odor! It is like it will take more than one shower to get that off!

Best regards,
Emil

We are now 400 kilometres from Novo, direct distance. Yesterday night we came to the wrack of the DC3 airplane that crashed here in the beginning of January. Victor wanted to evaluate the situation and judge if it was possible to get the plane out of there. Unfortunately it looks that the plane cannot be saved and it will probably be disassembled and dragged out there, but of course it is forbidden to leave anything on the glacier.

The airplane crashed when it was brining in the transmission box for Hjalti's car. The plan was to throw the box out of the plane and therefore the plane came in rather low. When it got near they flew into a fog and the captain decided to turn around. They turned the plane but in the fog they did not realize how low they were and crashed into the glacier, around 7,6 kilometres from Hjalti and his team. Luckily the 4 men crew were not badly injured, but the doctor from the competition went with Hjalti and Tony to nurse them until they were picked up by another plane.

Our fuel consumption the last few days has been well below what we calculated and therefore we were able to leave 1400 litres of fuel by the plane wrack. This will make things easier for those who later come here to remove the plane. The fuel consumption has been close to 40 litres per hundred kilometres for few days now.

When we came to the DC3 airplane we had been driving consecutively for 24 hours. We slept until 12 o‘clock and got off again at 13:00. The last few days have been extremely cold, yesterday morning we started in 33 degrees below and when the thermometer showed 40 degrees it cracked! I believe the frost was at least 45 degrees without any wind when it was the coldest. Because of the cold the shock absorbers froze and the tires became hard as a rock. If we stopped the cars everything got stiff and we needed substantial amount of patience to soften up the cars and get them going again. All tubes and pipes were frozen but in this situation there is a great risk that the pipes will unplug and also the steal can break easily. We use Jet Fuel on the cars and additionally we use two-stroke oil. It got so thick that there was no way of getting it out of the containers. The motor-oil was like syrup and on top of that a fuel pipe in one of the extra fuel tanks froze. We had to start a Honda generator that we have with us to heat up this pipe but the generator needed 50 minutes of heating in one of the cars before we could start it!

As you can probably understand, the thought of camping in this cold was not very tempting. Therefore we drove for 24 hours consecutive, total of 600 kilometres, before we camped by the DC3 wrack. We had some tasks to fulfil on the way, such as picking up all the empty oil barrels we had left on the way to the Pole in order to bring them back. We also did a lot of photographing.
The altitude is now 3.400 meters above sea level, last night we camped at 3.222 meters. Those of us who started this journey at the South Pole can feel the altitude and our breath is a bit shorter than those who have had a longer time to adapt.

Next stop is ETL, the place where the competitors were picked up in the beginning of this journey, but we have close to 200 kilometres to go before we get there. There the altitude will be lower and hopefully the temperature will be higher. Ahead is a pretty difficult route down from the plateau where we cross a difficult crack area. We plan to cross it slowly and securely. The cracks can be big and often difficult to see. We also plan to take our time to do some photographing and enjoy this incredible nature. For the last few weeks the group has not seen much else than a flat snow, but soon the mountains will appear and more colours can be seen in the nature.

Best regards,

Emil

The weather was very beautiful today, the temperature was 39 degrees below and there was no wind. The tents were very cold last night, the wind was blowing and it was not a very tempting thought getting out of the sleeping bag this morning! Today we have done a lot of photographing and still been able to drive on. Of course we have had some minor problems, which more or less are all because of the much too heavy load the vehicles have been carrying. Never the less, it seems that we are making a speed record from the South Pole and furthermore we are using much less fuel, compared to former expeditions in this area.
We had some trouble with one of the trailers today. It rolled over in the tracks which are getting very uneven. It can be difficult to keep the car in the tracks and in this occasion the driver was inexperienced.
We still have close to 1100 kilometers to go before we get to Novo. The conditions are very good and will hopefully remain that way for the rest of the journey.
Tony is very pleased with the team. Last night, when the whole team finally met, he said that this was the best team he had ever put together. Everybody is very pleased, especially that all the competitors are home, safe and sound!

Best regards,
Emil

We have been facing some problems with communications but everything is going very well. We reached Gísli and Kenny after driving 203 kilometers from the fuel drop. We put up the big tent, turned on the heaters and pulled out every luxury available! It got very warm inside the tent, even though it is very cold outside. We barbequed the meat Victor and I had brought with us. We also had onion and cheese, but the potatoes were unfortunately left behind in the airplane at the South Pole!
Very unexpectedly a bottle of vodka cropped out, but it was found in a transfer box brought from Iceland. The group had very welcomed snaps with the steak. Last time yours truly tried this beverage was over 25 years ago and after tasting it again I decided to stick to my former decision of staying away from this!

Best regards,
Emil

I have not reported properly for some days now, so I am going to give you some highlights of what we have been doing the last few days. Tony and I waited at the South Pole for some days and we were very happy when Emil and Victor arrived there with the last airplane. Emil brought the necessary spare parts to repair the cars. Victor went on with the plane to the fuel drop where he met Gísli and Kenny to help them clean up the area and make sure that it was tidy after the planes were gone.
Emil and I started repairing the gearbox in Ingrid (my car!). When that was finished we loaded the cars and prepared departure from the South Pole. Of course we took all the trash and made sure that our stay there did not leave any trace. One of the things we needed to take with us was a barrel full of shit (!) that we had to lift up on the trailer.  One of the employees at the station here at the South Pole was nice enough to give us a few beers which made this job a lot easier!
We left the South Pole on January 30th and when we had driven for 100 kilometers the transfer box broke! Emil had brought a new one so we just took out the old and put the new one in. I am getting pretty good at changing the transfer boxes and gearboxes in 40 degrees minus and I have impressed some of the people, even though my fingers are not that impressed! But at that time I was getting pretty tired and I forgot to fasten one of the bolts. Because of this, all the oil leaded out of the box and it broke again! Then we just put up a camp and turned one of the tents into a garage! We took the transfer box out and rebuilt it entirely by using spare parts as well as parts from the old transfer box. Pretty impressive in 40 degrees minus! Emil made a very strong move when he bewitched some bacon out of the box holding the spare parts! Tony fried the bacon and gave us some real meat which was a most welcomed relief from eating dried food from a plastic bag, or envelope-food as we call it! We then slept for four hours before continuing.

We drove on towards the fuel drop in a very good weather. When we had close to 160 kilometers to go we drove into a fog. When the sun shines above the fog and sends its beams into it, everything gets blurry. This is called a Whiteout. In this situation the visibility is next to nothing and we had some trouble keeping the cars in the tracks. And at this point the front shock absorbers in Ingrid broke, first one and we welded that one together, but an hour later the other one broke too!

I think Emil is starting to realize that he has not come here to rest! He is already as tired as the rest of us. He is starting to adjust to the height, but he starts his journey in 2850 meters. The air pressure is lower here than usually and therefore the effect of the height is more severe.

At 2 o‘clock last night we finally reached the fuel drop. We put up camps and slept for few hours. This morning we had to change a bearing in the trailer before we loaded it with fuel for the rest of the journey and at 13:30 we drove off towards Novo. We have been able to keep a good speed, the weather is nice, no wind and the temperature is 27 degrees below.  We are driving in the tracks we made on the way to the Pole.  Gísli and Kenny are 100 kilometers ahead of us. They left the fuel drop yesterday morning after cleaning up the area around the fuel drop which now looks very neat and all trash has been taken away. Hopefully we will meet them tonight and to celebrate we will have a steak that Emil brought with him. We will fry the steak on the primus and all kind of dried food, envelope food, will be forbidden tonight!

We still have close to 1.400 kilometers to go before we reach Novo where our journey ends.

Hjalti V. Hjaltason

After a good rest we had a very good day and drove close to 500 kilometers. We now have 35 km to go before we get to the fuel drop. Gísli and his team are close to 100 kilometres ahead of us. We planned to reach them today but it is clear that we will not be able to do that because the visibility is very bad. We are driving in white-out, a white haze is all over and it is very difficult to keep the cars in the tracks.

Emil Grímsson

Sunday February 1st, at 20:00