It was an amazing trip and we want to thank all the donations to the Ice Axe Foundation and all the sponsors.(Baffin, Rab, GE, OR, Wigwam, Black Diamond, GU Energy gels, Sole, Suunto, Brunton, Life Link, Smith optics and Aloe Up. Thank you to Andrew Peters, Karyn Stanley, Lauren Garcia and of course Jack Ashton and Dennis Garcia.

Doug Stoup & Jack Ashton at the geographic North Pole

Doug doing a headstand at the North Pole

MI8 airlift

M18 flying back to Barneo Ice Station

Camp on the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

Jack pulling his sled

Listen to the dispatch here:

]]> http://www.iceaxe.tv/2010/04/hiking-closer-to-the-pole/feed/ 0 http://www.iceaxe.tv/2010/04/hiking-closer-to-the-pole/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IceAxeExpeditions/~3/tqP2tdT8o0Q/ http://www.iceaxe.tv/2010/04/first-two-days-of-skiing/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 15:20:03 +0000 iceaxe http://www.iceaxe.tv/?p=1782 After being delayed for a few days due to weather, Doug & Jack are off and have started skiing toward the pole. The two arrived at Barneo camp around midday, and got in about 5 hours of skiing before setting up camp at 8 pm. The next day they got in a full day of skiing and made up about 11 miles of progress toward their goal of the North Pole.

Although the pair is battling the “treadmill effect” on the ice, they are still making progress. The treadmill effect is the name for the phenomenon that occurs when the ice under the explorers’ feet acts like a treadmill — moving away from the destination as they hike toward it — and therefore limiting their net distance traveled. However, while the ice drifted about 2 miles in the opposite direction overnight, Doug & Jack recovered about 11 miles of forward progress, for a total of 9 net miles.

Day 1

Listen to the dispatch here:

Jack Ashton happy in the cold weather

Day 2

Listen to the dispatch here:

Jack pulling his sled over the ice

Doug & Dennis in front of the glacier at Tempelfjord

Greetings from Longyearbyen, Norway.

I appreciate all of your good wishes and messages of support.  I wanted to let you know that after careful deliberation, I have decided to discontinue my journey to the North Pole.

The current conditions here are such that it has been very challenging for any of the 2010 teams to reach the pole on foot.  There are significant open water leads, thin ice conditions, southward drifting ice floes, and over the past two days cyclone rated winds.     I, personally, had a certain window on the ice to complete the journey, and because of the weather delays we were significantly behind.   I am physically and mentally exhausted by the preparation for this trip, and believe that undertaking this effort under these conditions for me would not be safe, and therefore discontinue the effort with a heavy heart.  However, if I have learned anything it is that safety is paramount for survival in extreme environments such as this.

Doug Stoup has made the decision to face these unusual weather challenges and is still going try to reach the pole..  As a professional adventurer/guide the conditions this year to reach the pole are a personal challenge for Doug that he wants to see if he can meet.

Doug will be carrying the “torch” for the Trek for Peace, as he did the Olympic torch in Beijing.

Thanks for all you support and good wishes,

Dennis Garcia

Trek for Peace

We have been delayed another day and are hoping to depart Thursday April 15th at 9am (+1 GMT). Our fingers are crossed that weather clears at Barneo but we made the best of it by renting some snowmobiles today and traveled 100km  to the Tempelfjord to the Noorderlicht floating hotel and glacier.

We witnessed some reindeer, ring seals sunning themselves on the ice. It was an amazing day in Longyearbyen, while 600 miles away it is blowing snow, no visibility and high winds at Barneo Ice Station.  Temps were around 20F and near 0F at the pole. We are making the best of our delay but the team is very eager to start the expedition and get to the ice. Keep your fingers crossed!

~ Doug Stoup

Trek for Peace Expedition Leader

Doug & Dennis in front of the glacier at Tempelfjord

Doug, Jack & Dennis in front of the Noorderlicht floating hotel

The team out on snowmobiles

Reindeer

Noorderlicht floating hotel

On delay in Longyearbyen, Norway. Cyclone at Barneo Ice Station and on a holding pattern until it lifts. New flight is scheduled for April 14th at 9AM.

Doug’s dispatch from Longyearbyen

Doug training in Longyearbyen

Dennis training in Longyearbyen

The crew is prepared and ready to hit the ice tomorrow! Stay tuned for regular updates.

After 8 days of some of the worst conditions I have witnessed on the arctic ocean, Parker and I had to call off the expedition due to a large open water lead many miles long that was impossible to get around to achieve our goal.

Throughout the week, Parker and I encountered significant negative southward drift, huge open water leads, massive pressure ridges, high winds and some of the warmest temperatures ever recorded on the arctic ocean this time of year. We were airlifted today the last 15 miles to the Geographic North Pole, had a quick congratulations, then flew back to Barneo Ice Station and to the Antonov aircraft back to civilization in Longyearbyen, Norway.

I am very proud of Parker’s accomplishment as he was a true expedition partner. We were one or two days ahead of all the other professional teams on the ice and I am not disappointed with our accomplishment. I feel that Parker’s will and call to young people to participate in dialogue and act now will be heard much louder due to what we witnessed. Our planet’s future lies in the hands of our youth like Parker Liautaud.

Congratulations, my friend and expedition teammate – you should be proud.

-Doug Stoup

“Every man has his White South.”

- Ernest Shackleton

[Cape Horn, Drake Passage  60 degrees S/60 degrees W]

The Antarctic
Peninsula is home to the continent’s greatest wildlife diversity within some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet. However, one mammal not found in Antarctica associated with Polar Regions is the Polar Bear. But that’s not to say this noble furry beast of the Arctic is not celebrated down south.

Antarctic surface water, at least the top layer, is the water which most directly affects Antarctic plants and animals. Ice and cold air from the continent constantly chill the layer. In winter it remains below 30 degrees F, but come spring it may warm up to 32 degrees near its northern boundary at the convergence.

Of course, most Ice Axe expedition team members weren’t thinking such things as they prepared for the ship’s Polar Bear Plunge  they were just hoping they didn’t have a heart attack. Beforehand, Laurie, our Quark Expedition director, had mentioned that a person had maybe five minutes to survive once in the water. He didn’t have to worry. The 40 or so who braved the refrigerated waters broached out of the sea like Moby Dick after strapping Ahab on its back. It was like Old Faithful sprewing human Popsicle’s back to land. Let’s hear it for Mica, Meaghan, Adrian, Maria and Belgium beauty Excel hitting the water in their bikinis (Thank you, too, Lord). Then there was Keoki and Tucker doing flips off the upper rail and Tal Fletcher doing a back flip. Yes, diving into the Antarctic is extreme if not a bit of crazy. Although attempting defy-defying acts such as leaping into the Southern Ocean for most sane folks would be tantamount to digesting a bowling bowl; to Ice Axe athletes who chase adventure the way a dog chases tires, called and crazy, willing to be hit, extremism is kind of like having groovy sex and nosebleeds at the same time.

By late afternoon, the Clipper Adventurer withdraws with effort from the coast, breaking her way offshore through the Aitcho Channel in search of open water towards the north.

Behind us, ice mesas, white plains without end stretch south and east watch us go. Our small ship becomes a mere blot on the immaculate white napkin of the Antarctic. Snow petrels, Snowy sheathbills and Kelp gull appear and disappear in the golden haze of an evening twilight. On sun-filled wings, like doves of peace, they stir indistinct feelings of faint emotion to those on deck staring back at the disappearing shorelines and tabular icebergs.

It was Shackleton, referring to man¹s romantic dream of great adventure, who wrote, “The longing for ice, the sadness of departure, as if after all we cannot bear to leave this bleak waste of ice, glaciers, cold and toil.”

Aboard the Clipper Adventurer, uncomfortably well-fed, cosseted by hot showers and comfy beds, with Zodiac service and skilled guides ensuring our safety, the Antarctic adventure could appear more than a bit spurious and removed from the great explorer’s words.

Don’t fool yourself. None on board would have missed this voyage for the world. Ice Axe Expeditions Ski Cruise 2009 was a groundbreaking success. So what? Why should those, living thousands of miles away and into their own archetypes of extremity, want to know about any of this? What can people learn from a cross section of mountain folks running around unclaimed icefields in their long underwear?

Down deep, this expedition was really about faith; a capacity lost more and more from our lives.

It is preached that Jesus was a healer and performed miracles. I believe Jesus was a man, and if he could do what he did, then so can all of us. He just had more faith than most. Each of us, however, has a certain amount of faith. And I believe that when enough people give themselves wholly to something, they can bring about miraculous changes. This Ice Axe expedition certainly brought about a miracle in weather, logistics, accomplishment, but most of all learning that Antarctica is a precious place to cherish.

“You can always do more than you think you can. You don¹t know until you take on the challenge,” explained Kevin Quinn to me one windy day high atop an end of the world snowfield.

The morning of the Nov. 18th, the luster of the calm return sea voyage wore off and we became horribly aware of tying up to the pier in Ushuaia. The Drake Passage swells had carried us gently back to civilization.

The next day on land, still in Ushuaia, around seven in the morning, I looked from my hotel room out upon the harbor at the Clipper Explorer. The sun rose with dispatch, as it does at the end of the world. The day was warm, but with a wet, cool breeze. Jagged boulders, piled by sea chop, rested against a distant headland. To the west, across the windswept Beagle Channel, stood cloud-diadem peaks and the Chilean frontier. I thought of Antarctica’s bending winds, the clean, pure spring of icy water and deserted late night sunsets where the sky changes from vermilion to yellow to indigo before burning off into the roof of the world.

Inside our hotel, Dick Banfield and Dave Marchi were gearing up to climb and ski down Cerro Martial above the nearby Aerosilla ski resort before heading to the airport later in the day.

You’d think after 12 days of risky endeavors, the cold and assorted fleeting infirmities that more climbing and skiing towards unforgiving peaks would be the last thing Ice Axe participants would want. Or, maybe, the thing they want most.

THE ICE AXE S.A.T

Q: True or false? If eaten raw, Arctic shark meat makes one feel very drunk, so much so that Eskimos call anyone who is drunk ”Shark-sick.”

A:True.

THE ICE AXE PROFILE

Even Sharks Need Love
5 Questions with Allan Marshall

Ice Ace marine biologist Allan Marshall, 42, might be the biggest fish out of water on the Antarctic ski cruise. The Brisbane, Australian born scientist and Florida Aquarium staff member, doesn’t spend his time bagging untamed peaks like most others. Instead, he’s worked as a Zodiac driver, which allows him the time to get on the wet suit and scuba dive into the Antarctic sea to study seals and other water life that thrives in the frigid waters. His work, much which is occupied with transporting species around the world, has taken him to such eclectic lands as Bali, China, Korea, China, Ireland and South Africa. In January, he heads up the Ice Axe Expedition trip to the Amazon.

ON WHY HE LOVES SHARKS

I grew up next to the ocean. I was always fascinated by the underwater world. Part of that fascination has dealt with sharks. I’m constantly impressed. Like any predator at the top of the food chain, I admire their power and grace.

ON THE BITE OF A SHARK

Bull sharks can grow up to 9 feet and weigh up to 400 pounds. They’re responsible for more attacks on humans than any other sharks. Once, I was transporting a Bull shark to a new aquarium. It was supposed to be sedated. I was in its cage next to him. A split second after I’d moved position next to it the shark awoke. Startled, it snapped its jaws just where I’d been. I mention this because I once saw this same shark split a 500-pound grouper in half with a single bite.

ON HIS FAVORITE AUSTRALIAN SAYING

“Don’t come for raw prawn with me.” It means, “I think you’re lying so stop
the line of bull.”

ON UNDERNEATH THE DEEP DARK SEA

I’ve made 1000s of dives around the world and encountered strange stuff.
Once I got caught on a coral reef at night in a small cave. I’d turned my headlamp off. I was smacked in the face by something very large and very hard. I have no idea what it was. I constantly remind myself to be careful and know my limits. Still, I couldn¹t help but swim with the Leopard Seals down here which can be a bit territorial. Don¹t tell my wife.

ON WORKING WITH ICE AXE

My biggest concern is getting the message out to the public about the environments. Ice Axe Expeditions is very good medium to do that. Doug goes up high. I go down low. It’s a good mix.