No Such Thing as Failure

by David Hempleman-Adams

  John tells us the Marines have pulled out due to the same sort of fuel leak we’ve experienced, but are now walking back to Ward Hunt Island for a pick-up having only travelled a total of 12 miles. I feel like crying when it turns out our replacement skis have the wrong bindings and won’t fit on our custom-made boots, so they have to go back to Resolute. Within forty minutes the weather is closing in and the pilot needs to leave, saying we’ve been very fortunate as he wouldn’t have landed in the conditions here now. He taxis to the end of the landing strip, and with a roar takes off. Once more we are alone.

  Quite apart from the skis things have not gone perfectly. We immediately find a bag of clothing that was meant to go back to be de-iced and washed before being returned to us on the next resupply, so instead of that we will have to order new replacements from the UK. Also I am disappointed that some Italian salami I had ordered hasn’t arrived, but apart from that we have everything we could need, including a newspaper. We gorge ourselves on cake, peanuts, even oranges, and now with plenty of fuel and new pumps we turn the stove on full to heat the tent up. The warmth is wonderful, but as we are not used to it our faces puff up. We don’t care though: ‘Feel that warmth,’ says Rune, ‘it’s as good as sex.’ Right now I have to agree, for the first time in weeks we are in a tent not dripping with hoarfrost, and under the roof of the tent it is like a sauna. We lie there stripped to our woollen underpants, our first chance to dry out all our clothing properly. Because I sweat more than Rune does mine is heavily encrusted in ice.

  As I sit there reading the Edmonton Mail I certainly feel we need these little luxuries that can come with a resupply. Struggling towards the Poles is difficult enough as it is without enforcing even greater privation than necessary upon yourself. Some people might think it somehow isn’t ‘pure’, but it would seem to me ridiculous not to use the modern equipment that is available or to reject the technology and knowledge we have that our predecessors of necessity had to do without. You have to strike a balance between the weight of what you need to carry and how much more bearable something makes our time here. For me now a bottle of brandy is essential for small celebrations, as are plenty of pork scratchings, the salt in which means we don’t experience any cramps. Perhaps you have to be a masochist to be here at all, but I don’t want to make it any worse than it needs to be.

  We know we will have to keep moving fast on the next leg of our journey, to cover the 150 miles and reach 86.30 degrees north for our second resupply by 15 April. On our first day walking again we encounter the worst rubble we’ve met with so far, and have to haul our sledges up cliff faces of ice up to 10 feet high. To make matters worse we are now pulling more weight than at any time before, with a lot more fuel and thirty days’ food, including two emergency five-day packs. Rune is incredibly strong, which makes him ignore my constant nagging about how much spare clothing and equipment he is dragging in his two blue bags of personal stuff, one of which is as large as a rucksack, but although it is a risk we agree to dump ten days’ food. The day after is an almost complete white-out with very strong winds, and I have to rely almost purely on Rune’s instincts that we are heading north.

  That night we cook inside the inner tent for the first time, the old leaky pumps having previously forced us to do so in the outer tent, from which most of the heat escaped. We know our bodies are burning 12,000 calories a day although we can only physically absorb half that, but we think and talk constantly about food and crave even our oil-soaked dinners, squabbling over the portions. We have to suck on our chunks of Mars Bars during the day, as the cold has shrunk the amalgam in our teeth and chewing on them could easily pull the fillings out. Although I now have new boots, which make a huge difference, when he removes the dressing on my big toe to rub in antibiotic cream Rune is very worried about my frostbite. I say I don’t mind if I lose the toe, but he says we will abandon the trip if I get gangrene. Over the radio that evening there is plenty of news from home

  On day eighteen the dreadful rubble suddenly ends and we have flat pans of ice. To compensate, yesterday’s new snow makes the going very heavy and even slows Rune down, so I keep catching him up rather than simply being able to follow on in his tracks. Whenever he slips over on the ice I can’t help saying I could do better than that myself, and must keep reminding myself to engage brain before opening my mouth. However much it irritates him, I just can’t stop it. On the plus side I seem to be acclimatizing to the temperature and my hands and feet feel better, and I also miraculously discover that I have got used to my skis, the incorrectly fitted bindings now actually making balancing easier, a wonderful serendipitous accident. Rune agrees, and we both decide that we will stick with them this way. When we hear how fast a Norwegian team are moving behind us we also decide we should emulate them and ask for rucksacks on our next resupply, since the ten kilos we could easily carry that way will make a huge difference to the weight of our sledges.

  From day twenty-one we decide to walk for seven hours a day, up from our initial five hours although we had already increased that to six as soon as daylight allowed it. It will help counteract the overnight backdrift that is often happening. We’ve also cut down the time for our breaks and decide to walk on day twenty-two, even though it should be a planned rest, since we are 4 miles behind schedule. During the day I catch myself thinking about celebrations on reaching the Pole, but know I mustn’t dwell on this until we hit 89 degrees. It amazes me when I realize that I have spent nearly two years of my life up here in the Arctic, even if that has been spread over fifteen. Despite a decent day’s distance the GPS tells us that we have drifted 12 miles west in two days, but the good news is that although my toes still look dreadful I have started being able to feel them again, which is a good sign. Rune’s feet, on the other hand, look like a battlefield, the skin falling off both the top and bottom, which he blames on sweat due to the vapour barrier bags inside his boots.

  Rune insists on resting in our tent on day twenty-three believing, quite rightly as it happens, that the lead we had camped beside and had seen open from 10 to 150 feet during the day would freeze over during the night. We cross it easily when we set off the next morning, heading north-east to counteract our continued westwards drift. It’s our fifth consecutive day of gale-force winds, but it is warmer and Rune says he has slept better since discarding his vapour barrier bag and his sweat will no longer freeze inside his sleeping bag. Then after a couple of hours we are stopped in our tracks. ‘It is almost as if we have seen the devil himself,’ Rune says. It is the mother of all leads, stretching east and west as far as we can see, a mile or more across, and the sky above us has turned almost black. Has El Niño and the warming weather caused the ice to break up a couple of months earlier than it should do? I will not listen to his suggestion that we strap our sledges together and try paddling across, and it is the first time I have seen waves on the Arctic Ocean, up to a foot high. For five hours we trudge east, and even though we sometimes see the thinnest of ice form the water is moving fast. Eventually we decide we can only camp beside the lead’s narrowest point, but for the ice to freeze solid enough for us to cross the wind will need to drop so it stops moving.

  In the morning we find we have drifted half a mile north, but nothing like enough to close the lead, and where it was partially frozen there is now open water and overhead we are still shrouded by that ominous black cloud. We set off east in a direction where the sky looks lighter, hoping this might mean the lead has closed there. In a couple of hours we find a place that might just afford a crossing, a jumbled mass of soft ice, debris and pools of water, provided we take the right route through the maze. From a mound of rubble we can see there might possibly be sufficient ice to bear our weight across to the other side, and Rune simply strides across the porridge-ice, his ski poles puncturing the surface with each step, but by moving at speed he does not sink. I don’t for a moment think I can follow him.

  I have no choice but to try however, and Rune will help me. He unharn
esses his sledge and fishes out the video camera, which he sets up on a tripod saying he wants to film this crossing, then he literally runs back across the slush to where I am. Pulling my sledge after me I tread gingerly from patch to patch of ice as he directs me, cajoling me to keep going, not to be frightened and not to stop. I throw him my sledge harness and keep screaming as my feet slip underwater, on a knife-edge between buoyancy and sinking. It is only a dozen feet, and I constantly feel I am teetering on the brink of going right through, but eventually I make it to the other side and slump down in relief. I now feel I need to direct Rune, yet from where I am standing the slush appears 6 inches beneath the surface, but he has crossed twice already and ignores me completely, stepping calmly through the water and crossing in twenty seconds when it seemed like I had taken twenty minutes. We have both made it over and head off again north-east to get back on course.

  The rest of the day is beautiful with clear skies and for the first time I can feel the warmth on my back, not caring that I am sweating heavily. We spot a seal, his head poking up through a polynya and the only sign of life since we left. Although the sea fog envelops us and the temperature drops Rune drives us on to continue westing, and despite the fact that I am exhausted by the time we camp we’re elated to find from the GPS that we have come 8¼ miles—our best day yet!—and crossed the 85th Parallel. A double brandy day! I am reminded of Peary’s words from his first attempt to reach the North Pole in 1906: ‘What contrasts this country affords. Yesterday hell, today comparative heaven, yet not such a heaven as most would voluntarily choose.’

  On the morning of day twenty-six I wake up feeling dreadful. I know that at 41 I am simply getting too old to be putting my body through the rigours of long polar expeditions, and my weight loss is very visible. To compound my physical debilitation I am also depressed that we have drifted back a further mile overnight. We start walking in another white-out, and it isn’t long before I contend with my worst moment in fifteen years’ experience of the polar regions. I am crossing what appears to be a solid section of ice across the first lead we come to, and suddenly it gives way beneath me and I am up to my waist in the Arctic Ocean, flailing desperately. I shout for Rune who is only a few yards away, and in a mad panic rip the ice-spikes from around my neck and seek to drive the titanium claws into the nearest piece of white ice I can see. I can’t swim with my skis on and feel sure I am going to drown.

  Everything seems to happen in slow-motion and our whole expedition seems to pass before my eyes, but before I know it Rune has dragged me from the freezing water and onto an ice floe where I lie gasping for breath. I am desperate for him to set up the tent so I can get my soaking clothes off, but Rune will have none of it. It’s happened to him many times, he says, and the only thing to do is keep walking and allow my body-warmth to dry my clothes, otherwise I will never get the ice out of them. He is so insistent I have no choice, but my teeth are chattering for hours during the rest of our day’s slog over difficult ice rubble and by the evening I am utterly shattered. My mind now seems dominated by two things, apart from my continual fear of drowning—our continuous drifting backwards and our next resupply, which is threatened by our many days of poor visibility.

  Assuming we can walk for just over another week on this leg, managing 9 or 10 miles a day, that will take us up to 86.30 degrees north. If we hang on until then for the resupply that would be great, meaning lighter sledges for the last leg, but it is a balancing act between working out when the weather will allow a plane to come in and if we go beyond that point the cost of a resupply doubling. We will have to rely on John in Resolute to argue our case for us, and keep reminding him over the radio that he must watch the expense. And we are rewarded with some flat pans of ice and easier going, breaking our distance record with our light sledges and achieving 12 miles on day thirty, even finding the drift has suddenly started to work in our favour and carry us north. John tells us that the resupply will probably be delayed until Friday 10 April, due to the weather over the ice-cap and unavailability of planes, but by then we will have run out of food.

  We are caught up by the Norwegian Express Team and sit and talk during a munchies stop. By walking for twelve hours a day and sleeping only six they hope to make it to the Pole in a month, the fastest trip ever, and have achieved 20 miles that day. They are clearly incredibly fit, even if two of their party of five have had to drop out. It’s disturbing to hear how based on their previous experience they expect the rubble to persist all the way to the Pole, but we can’t talk of the conditions all the time and find ourselves discussing the best pubs in London or where to get a decent curry in Oslo. When we get back to our tent John tells us that the air company say the resupply will definitely happen on Friday, another three days’ walking first, as low cloud is heading our way tomorrow. I simply don’t understand how they can be so certain Friday will be ok, and suspect that although we booked our resupply a fortnight ago they have made other commitments for their planes in the meantime.

  The Tuesday and Wednesday are excellent days, we achieve about 11 miles on each, but the latter is one of our hardest as we are running on empty with no chocolate to keep us going through the hours of hard slog, just some hot juice. The most frustrating thing is that we have clear skies, yet the air company believe the weathermen at Resolute who say we should be shrouded in low cloud. How can we feel confident about resupply on Friday when they can’t see the real-time weather, and although we will have to pay for the flight we have no real control on when they will come. Rune keeps talking about the goodies we can expect, and the thought of this is driving us both mad. Then at 9.00 p.m. when we radio First Air in Resolute we are told that the aircraft is already on its way and will be with us in two and a half hours. Rune immediately shoots off to prepare the landing strip and I furiously start writing letters to everyone. Then I can’t find the GPS to give our position to the approaching aircraft, and I curse Rune until it turns up in his personal blue bag outside the tent rather than in his sleeping bag where it should be.

  We see the plane approach shortly before midnight with the midsummer sun shining brightly. The Twin Otter circles overhead for a few minutes, then puts down first time with an almighty thump. Along with John there are journalists from the Telegraph and BBC, and we all hug each other even though I can tell they are holding their breath as I am sure we must smell like sewer rats. The most important piece of news for me is that Amelia has had her operation, and the biopsy has found nothing serious. We also discover that the resupply was brought forward at the last moment as a storm was approaching Resolute, and the plane had taken off in gale-force winds without knowing for certain if they would be able to land here on the ice. We rush around exchanging equipment, a new tent, sleeping bags and a sledge for Rune as his was becoming increasingly damaged, as well as fuel and food for twenty-five days. In less than an hour they are gone, making a very uncertain take-off after aborting one attempt and then barely struggling into the air on the second, just skimming over the top of a pressure ridge by a bare few feet.

  It’s party time in our clean tent, and we stuff down the cheese sandwiches and cherry pie that we had ordered, with fresh fruit, brandy and, of course, cigars for Rune, who now feels his life has been saved having run out of tobacco for a few days. There are Easter cards from home, and Rune gorges on four chocolate eggs as the party goes on until four in the morning, during which time the unfamiliarly rich food sends him outside four times to go to the toilet. We’re exhausted as much by the partying as the late night wait for the plane when we are finally ready to go to sleep, but have decided to take the remainder of that Thursday off, our day thirty-six, as a rest day. We will need our energy for the last leg, and once again we will have heavy sledges to cope with.

  Our first day walking again is Good Friday, and Rune is troubled with his vision saying he is almost blind. We are not sure if it is just the temporary yet painful condition of snow blindness, but he has to wear his goggles and fortunately we can
at least follow the tracks of the Norwegian Express, which we need as it is another white-out. There is no question that a plane would have been able to land today as originally planned. Rune now carried a rucksack of 15lbs, which leaves our sledges lighter, but we will need time to tell if this makes things easier. We are relatively lucky with the leads, but the full moon of the night before has broken up the ice, the noise of it grinding and crashing together having kept me awake for hours. When Rune’s eyes seem to be improving the next day, we come to the conclusion that it was probably the massive excess of sugar in the chocolate he ate that caused the problem. Even though he is better red splodges on the ice make me worry that Rune is bleeding for some reason, but they turn out only to be the tobacco juice he has been spitting out from his constant chewing. We’ve headed too far east, following the Norwegians, but still crossed over the 87th Parallel.

  Day forty, Monday 13 April, starts well, but we soon find ourselves struggling through alternating rubble and then across leads, dozens of them, although later in the afternoon the way opens up and we seem to be crossing old multi-year ice with humps but little debris. Then suddenly I stumble and fall, smashing my wrist down on some thin ice a long step down from an ice floe, worried at first I may have broken it. Rune rushes over, but I get no sympathy. ‘Get up David and get a fucking move on,’ he shouts. I’ve never heard him swear directly at me this way before, and ignoring the searing pain I scarper the 10 feet across the lead towards him. A crack in the ice splinters at my feet, and sensing his urgency I ski after him for five minutes, until we are finally clear of the fault in the ice-sheet that my fall had triggered. This is not the end of my bad day though, as when clambering over ice rubble I slip and my sledge that was balanced precariously behind me rams into the small of my back, making me scream out in agony. My back was bad enough already, but now it hurts all the way down its length.