by Chris Bray
With 40 minutes left of our day, we found ourselves at the base of an alarmingly large hill towering above us. Rising over two contour lines on our map, there was no easy way around it so we bit the bullet and started to haul directly up its face. It was quite a trial—the humidity made the sweat literally run off the tips of our noses and at each step we shed a small shower of droplets, blinking to keep our eyes sweat-free as we fumbled and clambered for the next foothold. Eventually, to our dismay, it became just too steep, and we stopped moving. Despite our best efforts, The Nugget hung there, with the odd scraping, scrunching noise as it slipped back another few inches while we clung gecko-like to the mud slope.
We both carefully manoeuvred ourselves behind the front two tyres and managed to inch it up the last 100 metres by physically grabbing and rolling the tyre itself for a quarter of a turn in one massive synchronised heave, and then quickly wedging our knees in behind it to stop it rolling back and reclaiming our hard-earned altitude. We’d pause for breath, and then just before the weight of the cart threatened to telescope our knees through our lower leg bones, we’d then heave another quarter turn, and so on. It was the steepest ascent we’ve tried, and at long last we made it, thoroughly muddied.
We’re now camped on a flat-topped hill, commanding spectacular views all around. There’s a big mountain range off to the north, and to the south we can see the ocean in Walker Bay, and ahead, west, looks like—well, more hills. But we’ll deal with those tomorrow.
Right now, though, it’s time to celebrate. We just broke our daily distance hauling record, again! We managed 15.46 kilometres by the PAC-o-meter today, of which a whopping 14.7 kilometres was distance-made-good—such an amazingly direct route today.
DAY 68: Aren’t we there yet?
The world has again become so quiet up here, and we’re both really noticing how far sound carries—bird calls, for instance. We’ll hear what sounds like a duck honking right near us, and only after carefully scanning the landscape we’ll track it down to a tiny speck on a distant lake. It’s the same with talking to each other. The other day we were standing on two different mini hills, well over 100 metres apart both looking for route options ahead. After our attempts at communication by exaggerated hand signals, shrugging and pointing all became too confusing, I just tried shouting. It almost knocked Clark off his hill—it turned out we could just speak normally to each other.
After a delayed start, we set off into what began as more rolling hills of tundra, only occasionally having to ease our increasingly flimsy, creaking Nugget down into the odd steeper ditch. However, as we limped onwards, a jagged rocky hill came into view, and then another, and then more of them—we were surrounded. Considering the pitiful state of our tyre covers, we have been dreading being faced with any more rough rock sections, but it seems all good things come to an end, and so too must our favourite terrain.
We tried to pick the least savage route through the sea of serrated rocks, and with a final gesture of ayuuknakmat, we plunged in. As we staggered in ungainly fashion from rock to rock, we could hear the metal frame grating and grinding against the larger boulders and the rubber tubes twanging as they were nicked and snatched at by the sharp edges. It seemed like it would never end—one rock hill after the other—until suddenly we found ourselves lowering down the jumbled face of the last one, back onto our wonderfully earthy tundra.
Miraculously, we got through without a single puncture! It’s hard to explain just how impossibly unlikely that was. One of our wheel covers has now slid off the inner tube almost entirely, exposing more than two-thirds of the rubber, flapping and flopping as the wheel lurches around. We’re lucky The Nugget is so much lighter now, as without the covers to contain their squashy, ballooning form, our wheels are starting to become very ‘flat’ indeed and quite a drag to pull.
Our PAC really is on its last legs, and so are we. Now that the end is so close, I think our minds are letting our bodies start to shut down. We just can’t cope with too much more. Mentally, I think, we are already there: we can picture it; we’ve lived that moment a thousand times in our minds, and really, all these days in between feel like they are just in our way, each one harbouring potential disaster.
We’re tired, and we just want to be there, yet we know we can’t let our guard down even for a second. Every kilometre, every day as we manhandle The Nugget through this convoluted terrain, something as simple as a stumble while heaving this wheeled mass up a steep hill (let alone those that slope down to a cliff) could so easily end everything. We’re getting a little paranoid that something is going to happen before we get there.
This last section of the island we’ve been traversing—the last 60 kilometres or so—is quite technical navigation. There are just so many contour lines, so many hills and gullies and rivers and lakes and ‘unconsolidated ground’ and cliffs and false summits and hidden valleys, that picking a route through it at all—let alone trying to pick the most efficient one—is proving to be a real challenge. Helpfully, we’re now onto a high-resolution satellite photo map we brought just for these last few days, but even though it shows wonderfully accurate 10-metre contour intervals, there are still surprises. Our debates often revolve around, ‘Well, sure, there’s a 120-metre contour line there, and the lake starts right next to it, but is the lake sitting at 111 metres and therefore ringed by a 9-metre impassable cliff, or is the lake at 120 metres also, with a nice broad walkway around it?’ These details can clearly make all the difference, and we usually find out the hard way.
As we feel our way across this island, we’ve been keeping our eyes out for any 300-metre sections of flat, firm terrain that a plane could potentially land upon, and noting them down for René Laserich at Adlair Aviation back in Cambridge Bay. Considering we’ve only found about four of these sites across the entire island, it goes to show how invaluable knowledge of these places is. We found one more today—22 kilometres from the far side—and we’re both desperately hoping that we can organise a boat pickup, so that we don’t have to haul all the way back here and charter an expensive flight out—if we can even find anyone willing to do an off-strip landing, that is!
DAY 69: She’s determined to stop us
Last night we deflated each of our four tyres and did our best to rearrange their shredded bandages for what we hoped would be the last time. We went to sleep rather late—about midnight—too excited to sleep in the knowledge that if the good weather and good terrain continues, today might be our last full day of hauling!
We woke to pouring rain. Everything was wet. Water had seeped in through the tent, into our sleeping bags, and puddles of water had collected where the tent’s material floor overhung The Nugget’s hardtop. I tried to mop it up, and as I peeled back our Thermarests from the manky tent floor and wiped, a disgusting brown-grey bow wave sloshed in front of the rag—a foul bubbly mixture of almost 70 days of accumulated dust, bits of tundra, mud and various forms of body hair. Now that everything is damp, it has started to smell, too—it has become quite repulsive in what used to be our only sanctuary out here.
More than once this morning we shouted loudly at the sky in a mix of frustration and desperation: ‘Get us out of here!!’ Sharing a glance that said more plainly than words, ‘I’m so ready for this to be over’, we’d just have to laugh at our sorry selves, and get on with it.
We remembered the saying, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ But as Clark pointed out, ‘I don’t see anyone tough around here anymore.’ It’s true; we’re feeling pretty used and abused now. Any abnormal stretch or foot movement sends us—especially our feet and legs—into painful cramps, sometimes dropping us to the ground. I’m looking forward to a hot bath, I tell you what.
Mid morning we called a mate of ours in Holman (the only other community on Victoria Island, way down on a south-western peninsula) who has been trying to organise a pickup for us by boat—it all looked like it was happening, and this phone call was to confirm and lock in the dat
e. It was the exciting moment we’d been looking forward to all morning … but when I made the call, we learned that the boat’s steering system is broken, and it can’t be used for the pickup. He was still full of enthusiasm, though, and said he’d see if he can find someone else with a dinghy, and we’re to call him back tomorrow night. We expect to be there tomorrow afternoon, so you can imagine how much this news crushed us. Visions of us waiting—stuck in purgatory at the end for weeks—were not encouraging.
Still the rain poured down, and after climbing yet another hill, we peered down over an angry expanse of cliffs, drop-offs and gullies—all made entirely from shattered rock. Our path blocked, we invented a new route, which involved an appallingly lengthy climb onto a side hill, but which would then reward us with a long stretch of what looked like our good ol’ favourite: dry golden tundra.
We knew something was wrong as soon as we set foot on the hill. The nice dry earth was dry no longer. The top inch or so had absorbed all the rain, and transformed into a strange, ultra-dense and incredibly sticky variety of mud. Every step we took, the surface inch or two of mud adhered to the bottom of our boots and lifted with them, adding onto the next footstep of mud, and so on. Within three or four steps we’d literally be standing on great stilts of mud layers—including several rocks as big as a fist—all stuck to our boots and hiking poles, weighing us down as if we were wearing manacles.
Having survived that, we then came to an innocent-looking river. Rolling The Nugget in, we punted towards the far side, until—still a good 10 metres from the far bank—the weedy bottom became too shallow, and we were stranded. We almost broke a paddle pushing so hard against the bottom, but it was useless. Grabbing the wheels and trying to turn them by hand was similarly useless. Annoyingly, our drysuits were packed away under the hardtop we were standing on, and so with a withering look at Clark, I took my boots off, rolled my Icebreaker leggings up as high as I could, and eased myself into the icy water. The arches of both my feet instantly cramped in the cold, and the false bottom of weed sank me up to my waist, thoroughly wetting my rolled-up thermals. I’m really starting to tire of Victoria Island and her cruel tricks.
Just around our usual 6 pm quitting time, the rain—having done its job for the day—also stopped. Replacing it, a blinding fog descended all around us. About 13 kilometres from the far side of the island, and determined to bring it within striking distance for tomorrow, we decided to push on for another few hours. We were wet through, our cart and everything on top of it—including our tent—were all smothered in sticky mud flung everywhere by the tyres, and the thought of clambering back inside our dank, dripping hovel seemed even worse than continuing to haul.
We’re glad we did continue on. As it turned out, Victoria Island had set up several nasty obstacles for what would have been our final day. River crossings flanked by towering multi-layered cliffs of ‘moss’—literally forming thick rubbery walls we had to squelch up and over and then somehow manhandle The Nugget over too; sudden kinks and 8-metre drop-offs in the middle of what looked at a distance like pleasant grassy hills … strange new terrain in all directions.
Realising we hadn’t gone to bed, the rain decided to return with vengeance to accompany the eerie white fog, just as we reached a large lake that wasn’t on our map. We couldn’t even see the far side through the swirling veil, and strange hills that also shouldn’t have been there loomed ominously in and out of view around us.
Clark then pointed out half a muskox leg.
Yes. That’s right. Just sittin’ there; a hoof and the fur-covered lower portion of the leg, with the long bone protruding through the mess of tendons and muscle, ending abruptly where something fairly large had evidently crunched the bone in half. Umm … yikes! We both peered unseeing into the fog around us. ‘This place is so creepy,’ Clark whispered. I couldn’t have agreed more.
We hurried on, down this valley that shouldn’t exist, and on into the next, until the fog became so dense, and the random drop-offs so steep and sudden, that we figured we’d better call it a day. With only 9 kilometres to go, we figured it would be safer to negotiate this kind of madness tomorrow, hopefully during a lovely sunny day for our last day of hauling.
DAY 70 (6 August 2008): The final steps
Having got to bed late at around 2.30 am, we woke feeling mentally and physically shattered this morning. It was still raining, the world around us was still veiled in thick fog, and everything was even more wet and disgusting than it was yesterday. Yet, the magnetic lure of the far side pushed all this from our minds as we prepared for what we so desperately hoped would be our last day of hauling.
That’s the thing that’s been tormenting us—even being so close, we still knew we couldn’t take it for granted, and for the last week we’ve been forever having to stick a ‘hopefully’ or an ‘if we’re lucky’, or ‘maybe’ onto the end of every potentially motivating thought or comment. While this frustratingly ate away at us now more than ever, it paradoxically also now spurred us on.
We wrung thick brown, putrid water from our socks, and squeezed on our hiking boots for the last time ‘hopefully’, and folded up the sopping bundle that was our tent and sleeping bags and wrapped it all in the blue tarp as usual and lashed it down to the top of The Nugget. Having packed up our bear alarm and done a last scout around to check we weren’t leaving anything behind, we finally set off.
It was a good thing we stopped last night when we did, as negotiating The Nugget down into the last steep river valley was quite difficult, and only as the fog slowly lifted were we able to orchestrate a practical, safe descent. Our spirits lifted along with the fog, and soon afterwards the rain also cleared as we began power-hauling up the face of the last real hill (maybe), making excellent progress, despite the grotesque, wobbly wheels now rasping and grating against the side of the cart itself, great flapping folds of Kevlar slapping and catching on things as the covers finally gave up the ghost.
With about 7 kilometres to go, we watched three muskox lumber around the base of the hill several hundred metres away and then start charging up the hill directly for us. We stopped. ‘That’s weird,’ I commented, as they continued thundering towards us. We both unshackled, and went and hid behind our cameras and waited. Typical, we thought, we’re going to be trampled and killed by a herd of rampaging muskox on the very last hill. It wouldn’t have surprised us.
‘Or, if they fail,’ I laughed, ‘Victoria Island will unleash a whole series of tornadoes from the clouds, ripping and churning their way towards us as we dodge and scramble to touch that far side.’
About 75 metres before impact, the big bull pimp muskox leading the charge of his two devout followers suddenly became aware of our presence and awkwardly slammed on his brakes, whirled around, and retreated a bit before swinging back to face us again, trying hard to maintain a nonchalant air of superiority, without success. ‘How embarrassing!’ We both laughed and hauled onwards, keeping our eyes on the clouds.
Much to our confusion, the top of our very last hill came easier than expected, and as we drew towards the crest, we could see the skyline falling further and further away in front of us, revealing an open expanse of … nothing. There were, for once, no more hills on the skyline. Finally reaching the very top, we paused, and, looking down, exulted at the view we have both been so vividly imagining for the years since we started in 2005. Dead ahead through the wisps of fog we could see the west coast of Victoria Island—the wedge-shaped lake right against the shore that we’d both stared at so often on our maps, and slightly to the north of it, that little round lake marking the most westerly tip … it was all there, just 4 kilometres in front of us.
We decided this was as good a place as any to have lunch, and nestled in to enjoy the view, but just before we took our first bite the fog came down like a curtain around us and visibility once again dropped to within a hundred metres. We just shook our heads, shook our fists in the air, and couldn’t help but laugh at the almost comic injustice
of it all.
Down we went, onto the flat coastal plain. The fog shielded us from any useful landmarks to aim for, and with Victoria Island clearly racking her brains to try and come up with some final obstacles to fling at us, we found ourselves climbing over some impossibly spongy ledges, faced with little rivers that were just the right width to neatly swallow and wedge our PAC’s wheels, small lakes that appeared from nowhere on either side, forcing us to haul through their sloppy, weedy bottlenecks in-between, and even abrupt mud walls that we actually had to multi-point turn to go around. Against all odds, though, the kilometres kept reducing, and we could still see nothing ahead. We had long imagined this final sprint across the coastal plain, the sparkling blue ocean ahead, clear blue skies, and a nice gradual ramp leading into the lapping waves … ha ha. Whatever!
With only one kilometre to go, I put the GPS around my neck to guide us towards that all-important waypoint, determinedly following the little arrow into the fog as the excitement—and suspense—mounted. ‘We’re almost there!!!’ We kept repeating this—and other variations on the theme—as we flung ourselves into our harnesses with all the feeble energy we had left. We were getting so close, so excited. We could now even hear the ocean thundering on the shore, and smell the salt in the air. With just under 500 metres to go—just as we were about to pull out the video cameras to capture the last (foggy) minutes—in a superb display of poor sportsmanship, Victoria Island parted the heavens and unleashed a torrential downpour of rain upon us. We flung on our Gore-Tex and resolutely marched onwards, with ever widening grins spreading across our faces. Two-fifty metres … 100 metres … the end was now drifting in and out of view through the billowing fog. We hauled faster, the surf in our ears, stupid smiles on our faces—‘fifty metres!!!’—and then, we stopped.
