1000HourDay.com [visit 2005 site]

My early morning pee was cut short by a gathering of curious caribou - the trend continued much of the day, we are seeing quite a bit more wildlife up in 'the hills' than the week prior in the desolate lowlands.

Vaguely filled with a hearty breaky of oats and coffee we set off for our first solid day of mountain hauling, determined to make a dint into those km separating us from The Kuujjua. The weather, although windy, remained clear and sunlight even came to warm our spirits from time to time as we worked our way through the maze of hills.

It is slow going around here, no more 'pick a point on the horizon, heads down, and just march for an hour or more'. With so many hills, ditches, rivers, sections too steep to haul, and some too steep to descend, some too muddy or wet or rocky or lumpy to negotiate, and everything hidden behind the current hill anyway, progress was a jolting series of picking a route up the immediate hill, grunting our way up, and then once at the top having to pour over maps and the GPS etc to try and decide which way down and up the next would be the most efficient. It's a compromise between not going too far out of our way, but not giving up hard-earned altitude by going directly down into a valley to then have to fight our way back up the other side. We got a bit better at making snap decisions at the top of each hill, but even after having decided which way to go - often involving almost an 80 degree turn left or right, our locked together 4 wheel craft is a real headache to turn. We have to do a 3 or more point turn, rolling it first backwards while one of us struggles to pull the back left while the other pushes the front right to squeeze it into a gradual arc, and then go forward arcing the opposite way, reverse again... like trying to do a u-turn in a narrow road.

The down hills are actually quite an effort, irritatingly! haha. Clearly, gone are the innocent, carefree days where we'd just hop on top of the cart and billy cart ride down. "Last time we rolled down a hill, we ripped the wheel off." We admitted to the video camera, wedged on the cart filming backwards as we both clung onto the back gradually lowering the cart down a particularly good billy-cart hill. It seems grossly unfair when we have to expend energy not only going up hills, but lowering down them too! =P Smaller ditches, perhaps only 3 or 5m of downhill, we usually just try and out-run the cart as it takes time to unharness and go to the back etc, and every delay like this adds up out here. This technique works well, until the ground suddenly turns into concealed mud, and running isn't an option. When this happens, we swing to the side, and the huge tire then inevitably grabs Clark's hauling harness rope, and drags it - and sometimes Clark - under the wheel, forcing him down into the mud. The wheels are big and soft so no real scaring, only psychologically. One particularly bad case of being run over left Clark with a slightly bent hiking pole and re-injured his already tender and swollen left foot. “This is just stupid - what else have you got for us Victoria Island” - Clark muttered as he clambered out from under the front wheels after yet another running over leaving him muddy and seething.

Only one session of wheel cover repairs today at Lunch, although to be honest, they are already crying out for attention again and we'll have to give them a bit more TLC in the morning before we head off.

Oh, and some of you may remember in 2005 there was some never-seen bird that had a call/screech exactly like our old bear tripwire alarm siren going off, which as you can imagine caused many minor heart attacks on our part, and today at lunch, we heard it again, and looking around, saw it was coming from a bizarre little speckled bird that was running from clump to clump of tundra, staying very low to the ground, shiftily standing up slowly to stare at us and then easing itself back to into the tundra again before scurrying off to emit the alarm from some other undisclosed location. It was a very suspicious looking little bird, uncannily adept at sneaking up and then plunging the fear of death into unwary hikers with its alarm call. This time we have a dual-tone alarm. Good luck mate.

The climax of our day today was after easing our PAC down a ludicrously deep valley and across a snow-cliff lined river, we then had to haul back up the other side of what was, by Victoria Island standards, the Mount Everest of mountain sides. It took FOREVER, every back breaking step threatening to pull us off the side of the earth, and hurtle down well over 100m of what felt like 45 degree incline of mud, snow and ice. No explanation will do it justice - it was the hardest prolonged burst of energy output either of us have ever done. It just didn't end. Sections we were on all fours, hand and knees, scrabbling frantically for a purchase - anything - as the ever liquefying and sucking mud gave way around us, groping in the mud for rocks to hold while our GORE-TEX® over pants became like core-samples as we slid backwards, literally filling up with mud and rocks forced up from the bottom as we were scraped backwards almost on our chest. This uphill battle took over an hour. We just made the top, about 40min after our 'stopping' time, and setup a well deserved camp, overlooking the next enormous valley with a horribly similar looking snow clad mud wall leering at us.

Buts that's for tomorrow. Tonight, we are fed, and the sun is streaming in, and we are happy. The fact that we made 8.4km as the PAC rolls came as a VERY welcome surprise to both of us.

Our live expedition updates are written on our tiny ASUS Eee PC 900 laptops, and sent via Iridium 9505A satellite phones from Landwide Satellite Solutions, using email compression software xGate from Global mareine Networks! Thanks guys - it's the perfect set up!