Wishful thinking... - The Coldest Journey

Wishful thinking…

Posted by Hugh Bowring in From the Ice on June 21, 2013

Mid-winter dream of winds easing didn’t happen! 14 days and counting…
(picture by Ian Prickett)

There are 13 comments

Posted by Jim Youncofski, Nashville, Tn. on June 21, 2013 @ 9:14 pm

How are you going to establish a base camp, will you move equipment as conditions change? Are you armed? If so how are your weapons reacting to the cold?

Posted by BF on June 22, 2013 @ 9:13 am

“Are you armed”
Are you kidding, or to an unbelievable degree uneducated?
Please google: “South pole”.
Please google: “Penguin”.
And read the information on this homepage. They won’t move, because their plans didn’t work. They got stuck after just 300 km and have to wait for help from outside.

Posted by Andy Lawrence on June 23, 2013 @ 7:52 am

As I understand it they will wait until next September or October and then bring themselves and all their equipment back to the coast pretty much the same way they have come, outside help doesn’t come into it. Those penguins can give you a very nasty nip you know

Posted by BF on June 23, 2013 @ 11:45 am

Food supplies have been calculatetd to last untl mid September (180 rations per person). Thus maybe they’ll even have to ration the food. Even if the plan to bring back all the equipment themselves, they will need airdrops with new supplies from a plane or helicopter, or food brought by snowmobiles from the coast (it’s just 300 km, a day trip for a scooter). It is impossible to make it back to the coast (70, 80 days again) without help from outside, they would starve.

And maybe they’ll need extra fuel as well. Fuel was also calculated for 180 days, fuel consumption was higer than expected until now. Now they burn fuel for heating and generators for several months and will have to see how much is left by October/November.

If the caterpillars are broken after standing in the cold for so long , they will have to be air lifted by helicopter as a whole, or dismantled.

In any case, they will need help from outside.

Posted by Andy Lawrence on June 23, 2013 @ 6:29 pm

Ice Team, what’s the plan?

Posted by Boris on June 24, 2013 @ 5:29 pm

There’s no way to airlift those bulldozers, they are just too heavy. No helicopter can lift 25 tons. Hacking them to pieces is very difficult and will take a long time, and nobody will fly 20+ missions 300km into the mountains just to retrieve a pile of dead metal.
No, if those bulldozers die, they’ll stay where they are. Environmentally, a pile of rusting metal is no big deal, as long as all the fluids are drained (which is no small job either).

Posted by Andy Lawrence on June 26, 2013 @ 4:41 pm

I checked this with Operations HQ. They have food and fuel supplies which were intended to cover them until February which is when they were due to be picked up from the Ross Ice Shelf. The blog by Anton Bowring makes it clear that everything, including human waste, needs to be removed. The recent blog from the ice team indicates that they will keep the Cats in running order. Although Operation HQ tell me no decision has been made how they will be extricated my money is on them repeating the journey they have just made in reverse in the Spring and being picked up from roughly where they started.

Posted by Boris on June 26, 2013 @ 7:14 pm

Thank you for the info Andy!

Posted by Mike the Cynical on June 22, 2013 @ 5:38 pm

Well Jim, I think you should be there with them with your many guns so you could protect them from marauding penguins – or Leopard Seals – 300km from the ocean. Or are you just concerned about the neighbours coming over and stealing their beer?

Posted by Jim Youncofski, Nashville, Tn. on June 23, 2013 @ 3:47 pm

Idoit!

Posted by Boris on June 24, 2013 @ 5:33 pm

Well, if you run out of food, a penguin or two might make a welcome addition to your diet. You might even be motivated to stroll a few kilometers towards the shore. It’s called “contingency planning”.

Posted by Asif on June 22, 2013 @ 7:57 am

As long as you guys are there in Antartica this expidition continues…

Just staying where you are till next year will be daunting enough, doing all that research.

By all means if you can get back to UK tommorow, please do so.

Another part of me wants you to be just become part of the landscape that is Antartica, forever.

Interesting quote…

“Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal
seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention
has diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is now
greater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing – and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is like death
through freezing – a pleasant one.”
― Reinhold Messner, The Crystal Horizon: Everest-The First Solo Ascent

Posted by Gloworm on June 25, 2013 @ 10:09 pm

The intrepid Ice Team need positive messages, not cynical negative ones from folk tucked up nice and warm themselves. They are brave and gallant men and my message is, have a group hug, get the whisky out and keep as warm as you possibly can. At least there are no polar bears down in Antarctica to worry about. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

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Wishful thinking…

Wishful thinking…

There are 13 comments

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