I’ve been back in the UK for five days now. Seems hard to believe that exactly this time a week ago we were ten kilometres from the Pole walking through a dense mist in a complete white out. It was the darkest it had been on the journey. We couldn’t see where we were placing our feet so were continuously off balance and it had been a very, very long day already. We’d tackled the hills of the Noice Peninsula, the last land mass before the Pole, for the most part also in white out, and we were very nearly about to call it a day and stop short of our goal. Jill who had joined us after CP1 had proved to be by far the best at leading in the white outs and she offered to continue so we stumbled on. For me this was the toughest physical day of the expedition and when we finally made it to the Pole a couple of hours later there was no elation as I was completely spent. Elation would come later but, like so many things on this journey, when I least expected it. Cognitively I was still ok but I was really struggling physically and had been hallucinating in the white out. Your eyes are open but as you can’t make out any definition at all after a while your mind just starts to randomly fill in some detail. We were on quite a narrow cliff edge for about thirty minutes and then flanked by an array of snow covered alpine pines for at least a mile. Later a polar bear was walking quietly alongside me enjoying not being seen before he charged. All, fortunately, imagined. Jill stopped to point out what she thought were the lights of a car at one point so it wasn’t just me. If you were behind someone you could see them and had something to focus on. If you were leading you could see nothing at all and we’d had to travel like this for a few days. When I was feeling dizzy, which was much of the time during the white-outs, I’d pick a number at random every twenty minutes and count backwards in 3s or 7s to check my mental function was ok. A couple of days previously, also in a white out, I’d had to stop for liquid quickly when dizzy and when this test had drawn a slow, slurry blank. If your head was ok and you could still monitor yourself fully, then everything else was just fatigue. Fairly often my internal conversation cycle, wonderfully effective and kindly borrowed from Sir Edmund Hillary’s legendary Everest account, would be pretty much like this.
“I’m absolutely knackered and we’ve still got hours to go and that’s just today!”
“Can you take another 100 steps?”
“Yep, I can do another 100”,
“Do that, then let’s speak again…..”
All through the superb training and build up it had been stressed regularly that, while fitness was important for this journey, this was going to be predominantly a psychological challenge. We did our utmost to prepare ourselves for this mentally and in the event it was this preparation that got us through to the finish – although for me the descriptive power of “challenge”, in hindsight, just doesn’t seem to cut it.
Last thing I think I actually saw on the way to the Pole
At the Pole
I came an awful lot further on this journey than the 600 kilometres of the race itself. For myself, and for anyone not wholly weary of our novice polar exploits, I’ve tried to capture some of this below and have to beg forgiveness for the over indulgence. Much of it is still sinking in so I best reserve the right to revise this completely in the future. In case one of us doesn’t have the patience to get to the end of this piece I should start with this. The overriding revelation that just grew and grew during this journey and is more powerful still in contemplation is of the utter and wonderful dependence we had on the support and contribution of others to achieve our goals. My expectation had been that, if we did indeed make it through, being stuck out on our own in an extreme environment, miles from anyone or anything and cut off from all inward communication for long periods would inspire the most incredible self belief. In a way it has but just not in a way I could possibly have foreseen. At every turn along this journey I’ve had input and support that I simply couldn’t have done without. A family that would give me the love and the time to do this. The invaluable training and expedition support of Extreme World Races and the input of Martin and Stuart who had taken on this challenge previously and were able to guide our expectations. A company that would give me the time off and ultimately great support. We would never have got to raise the funds we were able to, or to reach as many people with the journey, without Ian’s ability and drive and I can’t even be sure that I would have signed up for this incredible challenge without the support of two team mates who had enough confidence in me (I’m still incredulous) to want to form a team with me and were then able to help me through it. The money raised for the Children’s Surgical Centre, which is by far my proudest achievement from the experience, is all the kind donations of others who have chosen to give up their money, time and support. The full list goes on extensively from here. Ultimately the revelation is that there simply is no success in isolation. The ego doesn’t like this so much but once you get past that it’s enlightening and a wonderful feeling to have experienced this first hand and so very clearly. So. Very simply. And very heartfelt. Thankyou. Thankyou to such a long list of everyone who has contributed to what, for me, has been an incredible experience.
From the time we stepped onto the ice sleep would prove to be one of the biggest issues. The race this year proved to be the coldest for 7 years and while we learnt to keep warm when moving and during brief stops time in the sleeping bag was simply torture. We’d been warned that coming from the heat of Singapore and Australia would mean it would take us longer to acclimatise and by the time we got to the start line we’d had precious little actual sleep. Some evenings it was none and on a number of occasions when I did drop off briefly I’d wake with solid toes or fingers scared stiff (no pun intended) that they’d been like that for a while and wouldn’t be returning. At best part of my back or face was continuously complaining bitterly about the cold. The upside of this was that you looked forward to being out of the tent and moving – not a bad thing when you have 600Km to cover.
The dubious wonders of sublimation
Despite the 24 hour daylight it was considerably colder during the evenings. We’d decided to continuously extend the travelling day and travel through the evenings so try to get the planned 4 to 6 hours sleep during the day when it was, relatively speaking, warmer. We knew we weren’t quick on the ice so our strategy had to be to do longer days than everyone else. This meant when Ian’s feet just got too bad too continue and he really needed to stop it was 5am. By then Ian had gone right across Bathhurst Island with boots that, due to swollen feet, were now two sizes too small and had done untold damage to his heels and toes. The wind had picked up and we couldn’t safely pitch the tent on the ridge of the island so we clambered down a steep gully with the pulks out in front of us. This left us in a bit of a wind tunnel but it looked like this continued for at least a few more miles. We were keen not to do any more damage to Ian’s feet than absolutely necessary so we put up the tent, ate, made water and slept. This meant we were pulling pole at about 5pm. By 8pm the temperature would have dropped significantly once again. Stops would have to be short and if the tent needed to go up again we’d have to be quick with no mistakes. We got ready to go and talked through the planned tent down procedure a couple of times. The last time we’d taken the tent down in winds like these in practise we’d broken two poles and put one of them through the tent lining. If that happened now we were in trouble. We got out of the tent in the strongest wind we’d experienced, clearly compounded by our rather rapidly chosen location. The tents are very strong once erected and are designed to withstand high winds but they’re a flapping sail once you take out lines and poles. Not knowing how quickly we may need to put the tent back up and that it could be during the coldest period potentially in the same or stronger wind (anytime in the next twelve hours) compounded a strong sense of unease. We were still looking to win by sheer perseverance at this point but weren’t looking to take unnecessary risk. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the risk and said so to Ian and Georgie. The task allocation we’d agreed meant everything to do with the tent was my responsibility and to their credit they accepted this and we got back into the tent knowing this was very likely to cost us any chance of a race win. We called it in and the race organisers agreed it was always best to be safe than sorry but also had to stress that there was a cut off time for CP1 irrespective of our situation. They would need to move personnel to CP2 and the finish at the prescribed time which told us not everyone was in our situation. Unless they’d also been travelling at night they wouldn’t be. We tried to get some more sleep while we sat out the wind but were all pretty restless as well as cold. It was sinking in that an early stop plus the extended tentbound time could have cost us a finish. Have to say as the thought of being taken off at CP1 begun to sink in and I realised just how much I wanted to finish this I was close to tears. We were supposed to be sleeping but the atmosphere was clear it wasn’t just me feeling this low.
By 5am the wind wasn’t much better but was likely 15 to 20 degrees warmer. We now had little choice and actually performed the best tent drill we’d ever managed. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to put it back up but one step at a time. Ian’s covered some of this but for me it was such a strong mark of the team spirit and commitment we’d built up between us that I was never asked to second guess the decision to try to sit out the high wind or made to question or feel bad about it. This was even when it had looked like it may have contributed to having us exit the race.
Another five hour sunset. By the end of the race the sun was never below 25 degrees off the horizon
Never lose your face mask......
When we got into CP1 we’d seen a plane leaving but weren’t sure who was on it. We met Jill from Team Blue Eyes who told us that they’d tried to put up their tent in close to the same place (actually higher on the edge of Bathhurst Island before the gully) and had broken a pole. Jim, Jill’s teammate, had suffered frostbite fixing the pole in the boffi bag and was taken off the race at CP1. I was sorry for Jim who was a great guy and it strengthened the resolve not to take any unnecessary risks. We wanted to do well but this wasn’t a marathon and we couldn’t stop and walk away when we hit trouble. Unless we were unusually lucky, we would hit trouble. Often “us versus the elements” just didn’t seem like a very even competition.
It was the right decision for Ian not to continue but it was a massive blow. Ian had been the instigator of the project and it had been 18 months of hard work and planning for all of us. We were a great team. We were united in determination but we’d also been able to regroup and regoal when we’d hit set-backs earlier in the race. As a team in this environment, sharing every waking and sleeping minute together and having to continue to operate effectively when you are all tired and uncomfortable, you have to be a tight unit and you have to be working to a common goal. We’d set out to win; to use longer working hours to compensate for lack of speed on the ice and to ensure that we kept pulling through throughout the race when we suspected other teams would begin to tire. When events moved against any real chance of winning we were almost immediately able to reorientate around a strong, competitive finish. At the time I was grateful not to have to watch a great friend put himself through more miles of intense pain. How Ian managed 110 kilometres on crippled feet I simply have no idea. Ian’s determination and mental strength is unquestioned and would be hard to match. I was pleased he wouldn’t be putting himself through more pain but it was devastating blow to the team and the project not to be crossing the line together. Having to say goodbye 10 miles out of CP1 was undoubtedly the low point of the journey and it was hard not to let this hang over us. Although it was always a possibility that one of us would have to withdraw I actually wasn’t well prepared mentally for this. We still had over 250 kilometres to go and couldn’t afford the negativity that was hanging over us that evening. I guess we have to thank a run in with a polar bear the next morning for bringing us crashing back into the reality of our situation and our clear and present need to knuckle down and get the remainder of the job done safely.
We’d camped in some major ice rubble, which we’d been working through all day, at our first stop out of CP1. About an hour after we’d decamped towards the edge of a clearing Georgie and Jill stopped and turned to me to point out very fresh bear tracks. Georgie’s white face clearly wasn’t because of the cold. We hadn’t moved twenty metres past these tracks when a polar bear appeared from the rubble about 40 meters to our left. We’d been through the bear drill a number of times in training and got straight into it. There was no lack of incentive. We made a heap of noise, shouting and banging ski’s together, letting off the flares and putting a warning shot into the air. Polar bears have no natural predators but their instincts still ensure they’re cautious of the unfamiliar. It listened and watched us with some interest but eventually seemed to decide we were odd but probably lunch anyway and started to pad towards us fairly rapidly. Not charge, fortunately, but still start towards us with intent. It certainly didn’t look like it was coming over for a cuddle. We knew from training that a shot that made the snow jump up in front of the bear was most likely to scare it off and Georgie was able to put the third shot about 10 meters in front of it and spray snow towards it. This was enough for it to back away and move behind the rubble, still fairly close but out of sight. We then, gun in hand, had to move slowly away. We knew from training that any quick movements away from the bear at any point would make us seem like prey and were unlikely to end well (for us) and if polar bears truly can sense fear it is a wonder we are still alive.
In the training drill the spray shot fails to work, the bear charges and you are forced to use a kill shot. Our spray shot had worked and now we had a polar bear close behind us and we were trying to walk unsteadily through deep snow, still dragging our pulks – Georgie still carrying a loaded and cocked gun with the safety catch off. The gun never has the safety on in case it freezes and jams and never comes into the tent in case condensation similarly causes it to jam. Georgie had stated from the outset that meeting a bear was her worst fear of the expedition and this is why she had wanted to carry the gun. She said as we were trying to walk away that she was shaking and we’d got about 100 meters into the clearing when the bear came out behind us. It stopped but opened its jaws wide and put them into the air. Figuratively speaking, and having been surprisingly calm until now, I lost about a kilo instantly at this point. It certainly wasn’t this clear at the time but basically now three things could happen: The bear could charge, it could stalk us (bears can happily stalk prey from the horizon for over 20 miles) or it could let us leave, marking its territory behind us. Another 30 meters on, probably 3 to 4 minutes (obviously at the time about a fortnight) it hadn’t moved forward and was still watching us. Another 300 meters and it was out of sight. Another 500 meters and the ski’s went on and the gun nervously back into the valise (its cover). The gun stays loaded (not cocked) safety catch off and on top of the pulk at all times when travelling and is never far from reach which, not surprisingly at this point, was also not close enough. Whilst travelling you are required to scan the horizon regularly for any sign of movement to limit the chance of a bear, rather too literally, taking you unawares. You also travel fairly close together and avoid letting one of the group break away. The loose one of the herd looks particularly tasty apparently. We were looking behind us regularly all through the expedition but for the rest of the day we were pretty much owls as we stretched our necks continuously to see whether we were being tracked. There was a lot more ice rubble to come that day where visibility is reduced significantly and a bear, or the bear, could be meters away unseen. Suffice to say, again figuratively speaking, a fair bit more weight was lost travelling through this.
As we were walking away, with the bear still in sight I can remember saying “When we’re safely at home we will have preferred this to have happened. This is an experience we’ll never forget. You’re both doing fantastically”. It was a lot easier to concentrate on how the others were feeling than think too much about how I was. It was also true. Georgie and Jill handled themselves brilliantly throughout and, in hindsight, it added a huge amount to the expedition to have confronted a polar bear in the wild. When Georgie made our schedule call later that day and described the event it was Dave Martin, one of the EWR Directors, on the line. He simply said “You were lucky”. Both connotations stay with me. We were lucky to have experienced it. We were lucky to have come through unscathed.
Lethal Owl
Three evenings later I was awoken being roughly shaken. Georgie and Jill were wide awake listening to scraping sounds against the wall of the tent. They were wide eyed and trying not to make any noise so the communication was accentuated nervous hand gestures. I slept in the middle with my head against the tent entrance where the gun was so there was no question of who was going outside. Delay wasn’t going to help us so as quickly as I could, and pretty much without breathing, I was out of the sleeping bag, had unzipped and exited the tent door and with a loaded and cocked gun in hand spun round to the direction of the noise to meet whatever I had coming to me. I remember, heart absolutely thumping, thinking “Please, not now, not like this. Do what you need to do. Survive”. First glance told me it could have been a polar bear but it would have had to be an awfully long way away. Actually it was a lemming, about the size of a large fat mouse, looking up the barrel of my loaded shot gun from about two feet away. It held my gaze above the extended barrel and as far as I could tell held an expression that seemed to say “Is that entirely necessary?”. I decided that, no, it probably wasn’t. The little fella stayed with us while we ate our breakfast porridge and I think would have stayed with us for the rest of the race (and likely eaten through much of the tent) if we hadn’t had to chase him away as we packed up. In our four weeks on the ice these were the only two living creatures I saw. Both, at least initially, absolutely terrifying. One of them with good reason. I can remember what Gary, one of our instructors had said during one of the polar bear drills. He’d been asked whether he was nervous of being attacked by a polar bear as he’s seen a good few. “Yes” he said “but I’m always far more nervous about being shot accidentally by one of you”.
The shotgun for this little fella? Overkill, literally.
Ian, Georgie and myself had worked together for years and had spent a lot of time in training and preparation. The team dynamics were excellent and it was always going to be difficult to accept a new team member and difficult for a new team member to join the team. Jill proved to be, physically, one of the hardiest people on the ice and it was more the emotional side of the race that she was working through. We had some moments between CP1 and 2 but had the time to work these through during the stop at CP2 from which point we worked extremely well as a team and were able to match the times of the race winners for the final stage. Taking the race on without the support of a team and the events of the expedition itself meant Jill was required to work with different people at different points which can’t have been easy. Ultimately Jill did a great job and stayed strong to a finish she should be immensely proud of.
The arctic environment truly demands continuous attention. I had spent $200 on various audio books wondering how I would pass the time trudging away for up to 18 hours a day. In the event I had the iPod on for not much more than 15 of the 200 travelling hours (it got far more use in the tent scanning through the list of donations which always served to be a fantastic motivator). The environment and you and your team mate’s rather tenuous position in it really do demand your full attention. A poor decision, or indecision, won’t necessarily be fatal but will certainly be painful and can have real consequences. Your focus had to be on minimising the impact of the environment, not on endurance. You can’t endure the cold, you have to avoid or minimise it and this entailed a huge list of almost micro acts that contributed to keeping you as comfortable as possible. As Conrad, our most experienced instructor, said during training when I’d forgotten something fairly basic like putting my hood up on a stop, “Any fool can suffer out here Tom”. The phrase became a bit of a mantra within the team from then on.
I felt and continue to feel particularly sorry for Team Arctix (Andy, Oli and Jay) who seemed a capable and great bunch of guys. They were clearly the fittest team on the ice in regard to physical conditioning and are regulars and serious competitors at more standard ultra endurance events. They made it to CP1 quickly and in the lead (a few hours ahead of Chilled Out the eventual winners) but decided not to continue further. It seems from their description that they were a few hours ahead of the support team into CP1 who had been delayed by a skidoo breakdown and on arriving had been slowed putting their tent up in strong winds. There was nothing physically wrong with any of the team from what I can glean but they weren’t comfortable continuing. This is their story to tell so I’m keen not to guess at events or their orientation but can’t help but worry how leaving the race early without that strong a reason will stay too comfortably with such an ambitious and capable bunch. I wish them all the best and do hope their decision doesn’t come to haunt them and they’re able to take positives from the experience in time. Although it is a competitive situation you share the training and much time on the ice and from the experience can’t help but end up with a particularly strong respect for anyone who’s taken this challenge on. Their statement on their withdrawal here http://www.jayneale.co.uk/).
During training we’d been reminded time and again that this was predominantly a psychological challenge in an extreme environment and we needed to be ready for anything. I’ve had a few early exits over the years in past experiences (for mine you can read “quits”) that don’t sit well and I’d taken many of the “would’ers, could’ers and should’ers” into this event with such a strong sense of not wanting to find or look for any reason not to finish. We’d also had the benefit of some time with previous race competitors. Stuart Lotherington had been first over the line in 2007 and Stuart’s advice was brilliant and regularly came back to me. You simply had to be mentally prepared for anything to happen and when it arose your attitude had to be “We knew something like this could happen. This is what we came here for. How are we going to deal with it”. Disappointment at a turn of events would just fester and any psychological barrier quickly becomes a physical one. Through the strong winds, the blisters, the ice rubble, the broken equipment (I broke my bindings three times) and regularly managed to rip zips, the frozen fingers, the navigation mistakes, the lack of sleep, the tent fires, the polar bear, the faster competitors, the white-outs, the fogged up goggles (grrr), the stomach upset, the fear of your own bowels and the intense fatigue I’m pleased to say this advice came back to me and, usually, was able to bring me around to positive action.
Things just didn't always go to plan..........
I think I put this in one of our diary calls but the stats are pretty clear. The girls had 100% success rate this year, the guys, ehm, rather short of that. Have to say I did get a bit of a push to get on with it from the male ego when both Jill and Georgie were striding out ahead seemingly unaffected by cold or tiredness. I did know that last year’s race had been won by a co-ed team who’d got very close to the record for the event and in hindsight I believe, for a number of reasons, that the team dynamics in a co-ed team have some significant advantages for this event. I have a nine year old daughter and aside from being delighted to have as capable a team mate as Georgie am also very proud to have been able to take on this challenge in a team that made it quite clear this wasn’t a boy’s own adventure. Being unable to keep up with the girls on occasions, not, I should admit, such a strong source of pride.
In sight of the Finish
Team Chilled Out ran a pretty much flawless race. Jamie and Jack had gained some experience of a similar environment on a Patagonian ice cap last year and were well prepared. What struck me most having got to know them was that their attitude to enjoying and getting the most out of the journey was simply the best of any of the teams. Huge congratulations to Jamie and Jack on a well deserved win. I certainly wouldn’t bet against these guys in anything they chose to do.
Our best performance time wise was the final stage which we completed in the same time as the race winners, albeit almost 36 hours behind them overall. It was great to finish strong. We made good time on the last day to the finish across some of the easiest terrain we’d had throughout but I wasn’t much more emotional at the finish than I’d been at the pole and felt pretty flat. Andy and John were manning the finish and congratulated us but I felt more like “Thank God that’s over” than any semblance of elation. Then Andy told us Ian had got the message through that we’d had a big donation come in towards the end of the race that had pushed us over our target to over US$130k. This got a big smile out of me and really lifted my spirits. It looked like we were going to be airlifted out the following morning so Andy and John made us bacon sandwiches and hot chocolates while we drifted in and out of sleep in one of the deserted structures (the finish is by an exploration site perfectly preserved in the cold since it had been abandoned in 1978). We got a few hours sleep and heard the Twin Otter come in for us the next morning. We bundled all our stuff onto the plane and I made our last dairy call and climbed in. The Twin Otter holds about 8 people plus kit. Georgie and I sat at the front of the cabin which was lucky given what was to come. I still felt pretty numb at this point; physically as my hands had got real cold loading up the plane and making the diary call, I honestly couldn’t say why emotionally, just felt very flat. The plane took a while on final prep and taxiing into position, then the throttle went hard down and we quickly got airborne. The second the ski’s came off the snow tears just seemed to well up from nowhere and within seconds I was in floods. Definitely not sadness, just felt like a mixture of euphoria and relief. It was actually a fantastic feeling just totally unexpected. I looked over at Georgie and felt better to see she was in a similar state and maybe I hadn’t finally cracked. Looking back a week later the second the plane’s ski’s came off the snow was the moment when the responsibility lifted for the first time since we’d come onto the ice some 20 days earlier. The intense concentration the environment seemed to demand on your’s and your teammates’ safety was lifted and for the first time in what seemed ages someone else was in charge of our safety from here. We were free to feel the full force of what we’d come through. I will never forget the strength of feeling that just surged through me for the next thirty minutes. I have rarely felt so proud and so humble at the same time. It took nearly three hours to fly back over our journey and I watched every mile out of the window just enjoying trying to take it all in. You could hardly move and the cabin was freezing and drafty but this was still one of the best plane journeys I’ve ever had. Due to the very quick turnaround in Resolute we got into a hotel in Yellowknife after our second plane journey less than eight hours after coming off the ice. All I wanted to do was call my wife but it was then 4am in the morning in Australia and I thought I’d better leave it at least a couple of hours. I started writing a few things down but my thoughts were all over the place so I opened up the email. The first I opened was from Jim at CSC with some messages from kids being treated there who’d been told what we were up to and had wanted to give us their support. As I read through them it would have been hard to have felt happier or luckier.
Now, finally writing this up a week later, comforts that had become unusual are the norm once again. I no longer fear going to the toilet and don’t feel the need to continuously scan the horizon for predators. The sensation on my finger tips is gradually returning (although sending an sms remains a struggle) and I’m still sporting a beard. I’m 8Kg lighter than I was arriving in Resolute in April – despite stuffing my face continuously I still shed 10Kg during the expedition. Unfortunately the weight loss is unlikely to last as from all accounts my body, having been somewhat traumatised, is now likely to suck up and store all and any available fat. So much for the crash diet. The beard, so most people tell me, will need to go so any outward signs of the experience will soon have disappeared. However, I already know the inward impact of the experience will be considerably longer lasting.
From the time our team came together it has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Ian and Georgie. Georgie was somehow able to remain seemingly unflappable throughout with a rare gift to combine stoic resilience and determination with grace and humour. As she had the gun she’s also now in a very select group of people I have to thank for literally saving my life. Fortunately I was able to return the favour by fending off a vicious and terrifyingly aggressive lemming. I know team CSC wouldn’t have achieved half of what we managed without the input and inspiration of Ian and can only hope that not being there at the finish won’t cloud his celebration of the Mullane success Team CSC unquestionably was. I was fabulously lucky to have two such great teammates to share this journey with and can’t thank them enough for their support, determination, patience and humour.
To Presto Expat, Vanda Sports, SunGard and the River Rats my considerable thanks for your support. To all the team at Extreme World Races you offer a fantastic introduction to a genuinely extreme sport and experience that I would recommend to anyone even vaguely considering a similar challenge. To everyone who has supported us and donated time and finances thank you so very much and of course to Jim and the team at CSC who do what you do so very well, every day, you continue to be an inspiration. To Jacky, my wonderful wife, I would never be able to thank you enough for all you’ve given me but if I can finish this and get myself to Heathrow in about twenty four hours from now I’ll finally be back with you in Australia and can at least try.
We're going home
Once I knew I was OK, I’d glance over at Ian and Tom to see if they were OK. At all times, I felt very safe in the knowledge that they were also checking to see how I was doing. There were a couple of scary moments when it was clear that the cold weather was getting the better of us. I think Ian wrote about this, but on the walk to the start line, Tom skied up alongside me and pointed out that my right cheek looked white and waxy. As he stopped to look, Conrad (one of the instructors) joined us and in an authoritative voice said ‘right, that’s not good’ and promptly put the heel of his hand on my cheek to get some life back into it. While doing so, he matter of factly informed both Tom and I that ’20 minutes later and you’d be scarred for life’ – that shook me up somewhat, but in retrospect I was glad to have learned this lesson so early in the race. From then on, we adopted a team buddy system, checking each other after every break to see whether any part of our face was exposed.
We shouted at the bear, removed our skis, kept close to one another (to trick the bear into thinking we were one large animal, not three small animals), blew on our whistles….Jill continued to clap her skis above her head while Tom fired off a flare and while I prepared the gun. The bear kept a close eye on us, moved a little from side to side to get a better idea of what we were. Tom’s flare went off rather like a party popper. A little pop and whiz, which the bear didn’t respond to. As a team we agreed to fire a warning shot in the air. I let off a shot and the bear looked into the air a little bemused, but not scared. With the team still shouting and whistling, I let off a second warning shot – the bear looked into the sky, but still didn’t move off. Around this time, it also decided to take several decisive steps forward towards us. I was now shaking uncontrollably and was extremely scared that I wouldn’t be able to keep calm and keep an accurate line of fire. I was also scared that the bear was going to charge us. Tom and Jill shouted for me to reload. The bear drills indicated that if the bear continued to come towards us, we would have to ‘shoot to kill’ – I needed to make sure the gun was fully loaded. There was no doubt in my mind that I would shoot the bear dead if I had to. As a team, we made the decision to fire a shot into the snow in front of the bear. Unbelievably, I managed a decent shot into the snow. The snow sprayed up in front of the bear and it took a couple of steps backwards and then very slowly padded off further off to our left and behind a large iceberg. As it hid behind the iceberg, Tom took lead of Jill and I. He instructed us to walk away slowly off the bear’s territory and onto the flat ice ahead of us. We kept close to one another, walked off slowly, while I cradled the gun in my arms, ready to shoot at the bear if he came out of his hiding place. 
All I could think about was that this was the scariest thing I had ever experienced. That I wanted a helicopter to transport me off the ice immediately. That I didn’t want to continue the race. That the bear could track us down for the rest of the day. That we could see another bear in 10 minutes time. My legs were shaking almost uncontrollably and I wanted to cry and simply quit. I have no idea whether Tom was as scared as I was, but he seemed calm and was saying the right things to ease my concerns – he was being the voice of reason. I also knew that there was no chance of being able to quit. We were 1-2 days from checkpoint 1 and at least 2 days from checkpoint 2. We weren’t injured or in serious danger. No-one was going to come and airlift us out of here. We had a gun and we would use it if we had to. I think on the outside I looked in control, but I was absolutely terrified inside. Once onto the flat ice, we kept a close eye behind us, watching to see if the bear would track us. It came out of it’s hiding place behind the iceberg and lay down near the black ice disturbance to watch us walk out of it’s territory. All I can say is that it took almost three hours of walking/skiing for the adrenaline to wear off.
And of course, there are ‘thank you’s’……Thank you to Ian (our very own Arctic Hobo) and to Tom for so many things. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to join the team – I would never have considered entering such an extreme race if you hadn’t thought of me and invited me into the team. Thank you for looking after me. There was never a moment when I didn’t feel 100% safe in the knowledge that you were looking out for me. Thank you for your humour and for being able to make light of very testing situations.
