By Simon Harris-Ward, operations director

Posted on February 25

Setting off at the end of winter and travelling through the spring, an expedition of this duration is going to witness an extremely broad spectrum of conditions, which in turn will have a direct impact on how the Ice Team operates at various stages of the journey.

Subzero temperatures

In the early days of the expedition, ambient temperatures will sometimes drop as low as -50ºC (-58ºF), which is around two and a half times colder than a domestic fridge-freezer. This is even before any additional wind chill factor, brought about by the strong Arctic winds, is taken into consideration.

As well as having a debilitating effect on the human body and brain, such low temperatures also make the 100-kg (220-lb) sledges feel that much heavier still, as the sledges create drag whilst scraping against the cold, hard snow (rather than gliding smoothly across the snow’s surface, as they do in warmer temperatures).

Constant darkness

For the first month of the journey, the sun will be visible for just a couple of hours each day, rising just above the horizon, meaning that much of the sledging day is spent travelling in darkness. Not only does this guarantee that temperatures remain bitterly cold at all times, it also makes route finding that much more difficult, especially when tackling large, smashed-up areas of ice (with ice boulders the size of cars) or wide stretches of open water.

Icy plunges

Donning an immersion suit, lowering yourself into the inky black water and swimming across a stretch of ocean, with your sledge in tow, in complete darkness, without being able to see how far it is to the other side, is not a pleasant experience.

Perhaps more importantly, however, when travelling in the dark, it is that much more difficult to gauge the thickness of the ice beneath your feet.

It is highly likely, therefore, that at some point during the expedition at least one member of the Ice Team will fall through the ice whilst not wearing a protective immersion suit, into the freezing Arctic waters below.

The consequences of operating in such an environment

Although such conditions are bordering on brutal, this is an everyday part of operating in a polar environment. It is also the very reason that we use members of the explorer community for gathering surface-based data, rather than expecting scientists to perform this job themselves.

And so the project continues despite the day-to-day conditions, but that is not to say that the conditions can be totally ignored or disregarded. On the contrary, given the lack of daylight, the constantly low temperatures and the physically demanding mix of smashed up ice rubble and open water, at least three things are guaranteed to happen, particularly in the earlier stages of the expedition:

1) Equipment will break at some point, especially the technology. A large amount of time, effort and expense has been invested in the design and development of a wide array of equipment (more information on this can be found on the Technology and Kit and Equipment pages of the website).

Even having endured a very lengthy period of cold chamber testing and repeated, rigorous Arctic field trials, however, it is still highly likely that at least one part of the equipment will fail at some point during the three-month expedition, and will need to be fixed or replaced, such are the conditions on the Arctic Ocean.

No amount of testing can truly prepare advanced microcircuitry for the rigours of prolonged polar travel, with its constantly low temperatures, abrasion against the ice, constant abuse whilst travelling through frozen boulder fields, and the ongoing threat of exposure to seawater. At some point, something will fail.

2) Progress will be slow. In the very early stages of an expedition, it is not unknown for polar travellers to cover as little as one mile over the space of a full 10-hour day, such is the effect of the very heavy sledges, poor visibility and difficult terrain.

As the weather, light conditions and terrain improve, as the sledges become increasingly lighter, and as the Ice Team’s bodies and minds become more conditioned to the constant hardship, so their progress will improve. In the early days, however, progress will be painfully slow.

3) Flights out onto the ice will be delayed. Whether it is the drop-off flight, one of the resupplies, or the flight that goes in to pick the team up at the end of the expedition, it is virtually guaranteed that some of these will not happen on time.

In order for the small Twin Otter aircraft to complete a successful round trip flight, the pilots need suitable weather conditions at their start point in Resolute Bay; equally good conditions all the way to the mid-way Floating Support Base (based out on the ocean); a properly prepared ice runway at least 305 m (1,000 ft) long and 60 cm (24 inches) thick; good flying conditions for the onward trip to the Ice Team further out at sea; and another suitable ice runway at the Ice Team’s location.

As an expedition, we are at the mercy of the weather, and it is not unknown for flights to be delayed by anything from two hours to two weeks. Logistical planning (in terms of ensuring that the Ice Team carries sufficient spare fuel, rations and batteries) therefore needs to take account of such considerations at all times.

The good news is that as the weather, light and temperature improves, there becomes less of a need to focus on sheer survival and more scope for fixing damaged equipment, capturing additional video and photography, and travelling further and faster each day.

From the second week of April onwards, we enter the realms of 24-hour daylight, with temperatures as warm as -20ºC (-4ºF) to 0ºC (32ºF) by the end of May. As such, the second half of the expedition is likely to be that much more comfortable than the first half, and at the same time run that much more smoothly.

In the short term, however, there will be a whole host of obstacles to overcome. This does not mean that things are going wrong, it is simply an everyday part of polar travel, and this should come as no surprise once you have a keen understanding of the environment in which the Ice Team is operating.

And so for the Ice Team, the staff at the Floating Support Base, the pilots at KBA and the Operations Team, it will be business as usual from this point forwards.

We have contingency plans, we have a great deal of flexibility, we have a team of three highly experienced polar explorers, and we have a 24-hour Ops Room poised to deal with any issues as they arise. What happens next remains to be seen...