by Chris Bray
And at last here we are, camped with commanding views of the surrounding landscape, and the sun is still shining! Being the Summer Solstice—the ‘longest day’ in the Northern Hemisphere (all that means here is that the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, and will continue its 24-hour spiral back lower and lower from now on)—we can actually feel its warmth. This sure beats having my birthday in Australia, where it’s the Winter Solstice—the shortest day of the year! We just enjoyed the dehydrated meal of my choice: you guessed it—Mexican Chicken. It was the most appreciated birthday dinner ever eaten.
Munching away, we gazed at our wheels. ‘They look a bit like Frankenstein’s monster,’ Clark mused. It’s true, like a badly bandaged ogre, the slashes are now so broad that some have pretty much split from side to side, others gape lengthwise. Great A4-sheet-sized flaps of Kevlar are hanging off, and unsightly tumour-like bulges of inner tube are starting to push through. But that’s the way it goes out here, and nothing—not even this—could dent our perfect day.
DAY 25: Transformers!
Our goal is currently just to try and reach the Kuujjua River. While it still feels unlikely, if we can get there, we might then be able to raft down it for about 100 kilometres, which would then leave about 250 kilometres to the far side of the island. The way things are going, though, the only way this will be even remotely possible is for us to somehow coax our wheels to survive at least until we reach the river—because rafting requires our inner tube tyres to be full of air. After the river, who knows? We can’t realistically see our tyre covers lasting even to the river. Afterwards, perhaps we can try to travel Indian style, simply carrying what we can for the last epic stretch? Maybe we could relay piles of gear in stages, slinging as many bags as we can lift between us, hanging them underneath two long sticks (probably our two axles) which we could tie to our harnesses, linking us like a train? As we eat through our food, perhaps towards the end we’ll be able to carry all our gear in one go each day. If we are more than lucky, perhaps we might after all stumble to the far side of the island in 75 days’ time, with nothing more than what we can carry on our backs. The wheels will be long gone.
For now, though, it all critically hinges on us getting to the Kuujjua with our tyres. The two biggest killers of our Kevlar are Death Terrain, and the huge weight on the tyres. To combat the Death Terrain we will pick our route extra carefully using Google Earth images, and have promised ourselves that we won’t hesitate to go well out of our way to haul right around whole regions if needs be. When we do have to cross it, we’ll unload most of the weight from the cart and carry that across by hand. Now, the other factor is the enormous weight we are carrying—if there was any way we could shed some kilos we’d get there faster, doing less damage to the tyres at the same time. So we did something radical this morning: we transformed our epic 8-metre double PAC into a single super buggy—a little four-wheeled nugget—a robust, double-hauling machine, with crappy wheels.
With a single hacksaw blade we amputated the front 2 metres from both PACs. We also set aside one tent, our ice hatchet, spare axle, half of our carbon fibre hardtop which we cut off, and various other items that we have decided we can survive without. This likely adds up to between 25 and 30 kilograms of weight saved. We have bundled it up into a tidy package, and placed it on top of our cart for now, but tomorrow, we’ll leave it beside a large lake on the way, where we can get it collected by seaplane in the future.
This transformation was a rather big and committing decision, and although we’re now both horribly cramped together inside what is basically a one-man tent along with all our electronics, we do at least have the ‘comfort’ of knowing that we really are doing everything we possibly can to maximise our chances. We spent all day transforming our PACs into ‘The Nugget’, and patching the Kevlar covers as best we can. Tomorrow, we’re going to ‘give it horns’ and aim to reach the Kuujjua by Clark’s birthday in exactly two weeks’ time—Day 39. Any later than that and the river (which is mostly fed by snow melt) will likely start to run dry. It’s always such a race out here—but we love a challenge. It’s ON!
DAY 26: Onwards!
We set off, onwards and upwards, starting the climb towards the plateau that forms the western half of the island, towing our newly modified and truncated PAC, ‘The Nugget’, with a sense of optimism. Despite still carrying the package of excess weight to deposit beside the lake, the new hauling setup and PAC layout felt really good. Traipsing through an endless sea of mud that would have stopped us dead in our tracks with PAC-1 in 2005, we’re finding ourselves able to force a tedious but sustainable march. It’s so muddy that our huge wheels are actually pushing small bow waves of muck in front, making hauling a real effort. Three kilometres later we finally made it to the lake, and very happily offloaded the package. We took the GPS position, had a nut break and marched onwards—feeling physically and psychologically much lighter.
We had to pause multiple times today to perform emergency care on our Kevlar covers, which are quite a sight to behold these days. The longitudinal tears around the tyres are spreading like the plague—linking up with others—and the pressure underneath is bloating the inner tubes to form huge bulges that make ‘rolling’ quite laughable.
It was looking like the whole thing was about to fall apart, when I suddenly had an idea. Tightening a loop of spare webbing around the Kevlar cover—from one side, over the top wearing surface, and back underneath against the rubber—really helps hold it all together. It’s worked a treat, and we’ve put six of these bandages on now. Not only do they stop the Kevlar tears from gaping open and exposing the rubber, but they also hold in the tumour-like bulges, preventing the covers from splitting any further. We’re very happy with this expedient, and so long as we don’t run out of spare string and webbing, we can hold the tyres together for a while longer … we hope.
Having pondered long and hard about the root of all our Kevlar troubles, I’ve finally come up with a theory as to why they split so early. I think perhaps one of the only things that can easily abrade Kevlar is … Kevlar! Those single-layer prototype covers worked a treat, and so we mistakenly assumed that doubling up and making the ‘real’ ones from two layers would make them twice as strong. Wrong! It looks like each crease or rumple on the inner layer has created a little raised strip that has rubbed against the outer layer, wearing away upon itself until it quickly split open. How ironic. We live and learn. Every day out here we’re learning, mostly about how to deal with problems—physically as well as psychologically!
The weather was beautiful today and it honestly felt like summer with the temperature soaring to a record 16 degrees Celsius. Beneath bright blue skies, we even put sun cream on, got out our Dirty Dog sunnies and rolled up our sleeves. I’d forgotten just how good warmth feels—luxurious, dry, glowing warmth. It feels so different from the sweaty heat brought on by exhausting exercise.
Towards the end of the day, we both abruptly ran out of energy, staring dejectedly up a slope looming in front of us. It’s always great to end our day on a high, literally, and so we had a bite of chocolate and gave it one last slog to the top. We’re glad we did—the ground up here isn’t even that muddy, and the view is very encouraging: it looks like smooth rolling tundra—for the next stretch, anyway. With all the snow melt going on, it’s quite an amazing landscape. Whole hillsides are awash with cascading sheets of water—the surface grass and tundra literally submerged—and in all directions the air is full of the sound of flowing water.
DAY 27: More of this, please
We didn’t see a single bit of Death Terrain all day, and our hopes are rising that we may have seen the last of it for a while—the ground has changed to a rolling expanse of grassy swampland. Sure, it has mud and is largely underwater in places, but it’s not bad at all. ‘This has to be the best terrain we’ve hauled over yet!’ Clark called out as we set off. It certainly is. A steady march between well-earned nut breaks, and the kilometres just started to ti
ck themselves off.
There’s a lot of shattered eggshells lying underwater on the tundra, and every so often tiny little birds—obviously fresh to this world—erupt from the grass and scamper hysterically across in front of us, evidently yet to learn that flying requires both getting airborne as well as flapping your wings frantically, and no amount of running, squeaking and falling over can replace the former. To our immense delight, we racked up 9.3 kilometres (GPS) today, despite three river crossings, weaving around a few lakes, and a few tyre repairs! And, better still, it looks like more of the same tomorrow!
DAY 28: It’s a record!
Today we smashed our daily distance record! We hauled a whopping 12.22 kilometres as the PAC rolls (11.23 by GPS, also a record), pushing well beyond our limits after promising ourselves the reward of a second dinner if the record fell. We are actually so buggered that as we staggered dizzily around setting up camp, we felt a little delusional. Our minds were drifting in and out of focusing on whatever we were doing, and I experienced the rather odd sensation of reaching out for part of the bear alarm we were setting up, only to have my fingers close around empty space. I missed the handle by several centimetres, despite looking right at it.
Tomorrow we’ll have to deal with a rather imposing set of mountains looming up ahead, and we’re also a bit nervous about a particularly wide river crossing. Still, we’ll—um, cross that bridge when we come to it. (Wouldn’t that be nice!)
DAY 29: Tent-bound
Shattered from yesterday’s epic effort, the thought of looming mountains and a giant river crossing was all too much for us this morning, and we stayed inside the tent all day. We periodically peeped hopefully out through the vestibule to check if we’d been teleported to another place—somewhere sunny, warm, windless, dry and inviting—but depressingly, we were always greeted by the same horrendous view.
The weather has just been unbelievable. The tent relentlessly tried to thrash itself into ribbons around us, the sides bowed in against us, and bullets of rain pelted seemingly from all sides at once. Trickles of water have also started running down the inside of the tent, simply because the sheer volume of people and gear we have crammed in here is pressing the inner tent skin against the outer, wicking the drops through. Constantly ready to leap out and start hauling the moment the weather improved, as we waited it only got worse: the wind rose to 40 kilometres per hour and the temperature dropped to minus 5 degrees Celsius with windchill. Occasionally we dashed outside to try and break the world record for speed toileting as great curtains of icy rain swept over us, and returning dripping wet—like drowned lemmings—we scurried back into the depths of our damp sleeping bags to try to regain body warmth and composure. While our bodies are loving the chance to revitalise, we’re thoroughly sick of being stuck in here. Irrespective of the weather tomorrow, we’ve decided to face it.
Clark has just pointed out that the wind’s swung around 180 degrees, so I guess the weather system is passing through. Tomorrow we’ll have been out here for a month. That sounds a lengthy period, until we remember that we could well be out here for anything up to a third of a year.
DAY 30: Disaster!
The atrocious weather finally relented as morning arrived. We poked our heads outside and marvelled at a patch of blue-ish sky on the horizon gradually drawing nearer, and by the time we’d shackled into our harness, the sun had come out. What a difference the sun makes to a day out here.
We racked up 3 kilometres in no time at all, and arrived at the river. Placing the paddles on the deck we rolled The Nugget down the bank and into the water, pushed out to floating depth and hopped aboard. It was fantastic. We were merrily carried downstream as crystal-clear, convoluted shapes of ice rose and fell around us. Holding a camera aloft lashed to the end of my hiking pole, we got some cool action shots, and then paddled to the far bank. The wheels touched the bottom and we simply leapt out and hauled The Nugget up the far bank. ‘Well, that bodes well for the Kuujjua, hey!’ I said, grinning. ‘What an awesome raft!’
Having climbed steadily for the last few days, we’re now surrounded by quite steep hills with the promise of the relatively flat top of the plateau still several days away. It’s not so bad, though, as the terrain at the moment is dry compacted dirt, and is a real pleasure to haul over.
With about ten minutes left before lunch, we crested a low ridge and looked down into the next small valley which ended in another perfectly graded slope up into the rest of the plateau. Some white caribou grazed calmly nearby, and a muskox shifted its bulk lazily across to chew a patch of tundra on the hill opposite. We started hauling down into this little valley, and joyously noticed The Nugget starting to roll gradually of its own accord behind us.
‘Billycart ride!’ Clark shouted, and both beaming with happiness, we hopped on as it trundled down the slope towards the soft, swampy looking bottom. We were filming at the time.
‘Woohooo!! I wish the whole island was downhill!’ I laughed. ‘Oh—oh no! NO!’ It was then that disaster struck.
Suddenly, something happened to the back left wheel. The Nugget bounced to a premature, lopsided, grinding halt as we sprang from either side, turning around to see what had happened. As I turned, I suspected that we must have finally run out of luck and got our first puncture, but as my eyes met the devastation in front of us, clearly it was no puncture. The entire wheel was lying over, twisted out almost horizontally. The camera was still rolling and Clark pointed it at me, a look of horror on his face.
‘Well,’ I began, stalling for time as I tried to think what must have broken, ‘it looks like we’ve struck a rather bad problem …’ Either the axle had broken, or—worse—the wheel hub with the bearings and all had torn itself right out of the centre of the rim. With a sickening feeling of dread, I peered underneath the wreckage, and stared numbly at what I had hoped never to see. The end section of what used to be our axle was now a mangled, torn, twisted mess of aluminium, with the wheel hub bent out almost at right angles.
In the space of about fifteen seconds—as if someone had just pulled a plug—all the warm, enthusiastic, optimistic vibes that had been buoying us along totally drained away, and we stood there in the muddy ground, completely deflated and in shock. ‘It feels like we’ve just been in a car accident,’ Clark mused weakly, staring unblinkingly at the wreckage. With absolutely no idea what to do—or even if there was anything we could do—we simply collected our lunch things and wandered silently over to a wind-sheltered embankment and huddled together, shaking our heads.
As the enormity of the problem began to sink in, we came up with a few ideas for how we could perhaps salvage the situation. Unfortunately all our ideas were horribly drastic, would take well over a day to implement, and would seriously reduce our chances of making it down the Kuujjua, let alone to the far side.
Then we had another idea. It would be a daunting repair—especially with the tools we have—but it was our best shot. We swallowed the last of our peanut butter wrap and set to work. What followed was just over ten hours of intensive surgery in the mud.
Basically what we decided to do was cut off the mangled end of the axle, and unbolt and slide the wheel hub back into the shortened axle. Unfortunately we knew there was more to the operation than that. As our cart is essentially two parallel load arms, a set distance apart—between which we sling our bags in netting, and on top of which neatly fits our carbon fibre hardtop panels—of course the shortened axle would no longer fit underneath. Somehow, we had to make the entire cart (both PACs), narrower.
So we got out our already snapped fragment of hacksaw blade, and took it in turns to subject ourselves to the hand-cramping torture of cutting through a total of about 75 centimetres of aluminium, with about 3 centimetres of hacksaw blade. We cut the mangled end off the damaged axle, and then cut the same amount off the good axle, discovering in the process that it too had buckled slightly. The PAC also has two ‘end spacers’ (100 x 50 millimetre angle) holding the load arms apart i
n the middle. Conveniently, one of these was already broken, so Clark then merrily cut the other in half over the course of perhaps two gruelling hours, and we then overlapped them by a few inches and pop-riveted them back together again. I turned my weapon of choice—our Leatherman Multitool—to our carbon fibre hardtops, which of course were now too wide to fit back between the wheels on our trimmed-down frame. Rather than make our tent floor area any smaller than it already is, I just ruthlessly hacked out sections on each side to accommodate the wheels. Annoyingly, before we could even start any of this, we had to first unload absolutely everything from the carts, and even untie the bag netting—right back to square one—in the mud. It was a nightmare, and an extreme test of patience, restraint, and self-control.
Thankfully, at least the weather was kind, but as hacksaw blade fragments snapped even shorter, and the tally of cuts and slices on our hands multiplied, and blood started mixing with the sweat and mud covering everything, the tears—we both admitted—were at times only just held back by a bitter, angry determination, and each other’s well-practised veneer of optimism. It took over ten hours of non-stop PAC building just to get it back together in a form where we could pitch the tent on top so we could get some sleep, well after midnight.
