North Pole Challenge

There’s no turning back now as we meet the rest of our team at the airport for our adventure of a lifetime. After a last minute kit check, we will jump on board our flight to Norway and will stop off in either Tromso or Oslo, depending on our flight schedule. Overnight hotel/guesthouse.

Today is spent in the wilderness for a short training trip. Here we perfect our skiing technique for the first time with pulks and kit. You will also practice setting up camp, cook and get used to the equipment, terrain and the cold. It’s then back to our guesthouse to prepare for the challenge ahead. Guesthouse overnight.

It’s an exciting day as we have our exhilarating flight to Barneo Ice Camp. The essential Barneo Ice Camp is located approximately 60 miles from the North Pole and is only set up for one month of the year (April) and this is when we have the very narrow window of opportunity to trek/ski to the Geographic North Pole. Despite many years of setting up and dismantling the Barneo Ice Camp, each year presents new challenges and so the camp operators absolutely reserve the right to make schedule and logistical changes at a moment’s notice, even when we are airborne and en route to or from the ice.  If we can’t fly today, we will stay another night in Longyearbyen.

Today our expedition really begins. The North Pole trek takes place in one of the last true wildernesses in the world. Temperatures can be as low as -45 degrees celsius.  Each day we’ll complete around eight hours of ice travel and three hours setting up camp. We typically walk for an hour, then rest to eat and drink, repeating this routine for up to eight hours a day. We will constantly check each other whenever we stop to make sure we keep warm and dry. Overnight camp on the ice.

Each day our guide will select a suitable place to pitch our camp, we will take control, erecting and securing our tents, melting ice from our faces and then boiling snow/water for our delicious evening meal.  A moving ice pack has implications for journey times. If it moves in our favour (towards the North Pole), we will have to walk less distance to reach the Pole. If it moves against us, we can go to sleep and wake up to find ourselves with a few hours walk just to get back to where we were the night before. Overnight camp on the ice.

With a new album full of photos stored on our cameras, we return to Barneo Ice Camp and potentially take an immediate flight back to Longyearbyen. This will be weather dependent and subject to the schedule and logistical demands of the Antenov plane that will take us.  On the final evening of our trek we will enjoy a very special celebration dinner with the team and well-deserved night to thaw out at our hotel.