A great finish to a great season
Published on 26.01.2009 - General Info
While ALE is busy packing up at Patriot Hills waiting for the last Ilyushin to arrive, the Antarctic expedition season is drawing to a close. And it has been a fine one for everybody. Even for Mike Horn who wasn't able to reach Patriot Hills in time.
While his Pangea project is still ongoing and the youngsters involved are gearing up to experience other adventures with him (the next Pangea trip is a stay in the fjords of New Zealand aboard the good ship Pangea and a trek through some of that country's oldest forests), Mike Horn was taking full advantage of his remaining time in Antarctica to make his way back to Patriot Hills, alone and using kite power. Mike farewelled his friend Borge Ousland and his two companions Clémence Cadario and Nicolas Valdivieso after they arrived at the South Pole on 20th January.
But the winds have not been in his favour, forcing him to spend more than two days cooped up in his tent waiting for the wind gods to smile down on him. By 25th January, however, safe in the knowledge that the ALE logistics teams would come and pick him up from the ice sooner or later (probably on 26th or 27th January, as he wrote in one of his updates), he made the most of the now-favourable winds to cover 220 km in thirteen hours of virtually non-stop kiting, which of course brought him closer to Patriot. As you would expect, this pleased Mike enormously...
The duo of Thomas Davenport and Sarah McNair Landry has had better luck, with more favourable winds than those experienced by Mike Horn along his route. Just five days after leaving the Pole, Thomas and Sarah had already reached 86 degrees South, achieving an amazing daily average in the region of 100 km a day! 74 kilometres on 8th January, 88 kilometres the following day, 100 kilometres on 11th January, and so on. And they still managed to achieve that progress despite Thomas finding the return trip rather taxing, not especially so physically, but more mentally. Because while they were still out on the ice, pitting heir minds and bodies against the elements, their companions had long since begun their trip back and, in some cases, were already tucked up cosy and warm in their respective homes.
Consequently, it was at this incredible pace that the two reached Patriot Hills after making a final assault on their goal and covering the astonishing distance of 200 kilometres in 14 hours. When they were just two kilometres from the base, though, they were suddenly becalmed by a lack of wind. When the people from ALE came to pick them up by skidoo, Thomas and Sarah refused their help, preferring to make it back to the tents at Patriot under their own steam. When you think that back in December 2006, the medics told Thomas Davenport that he had cancer, you can only take your hat off to feats of endurance such as this and congratulate them. Speaking of which, a special three cheers also goes out to the three handicapped members of the Larramendi expedition who managed to reach the Pole, covering the Last Degree in under fifteen days.
The team at Explorapoles would like to thank the thousands of visitors who travel to the ends of the earth every day through our webpages. We are now taking a well-deserved break and will see you again around 10th March, when we will start telling you about the forthcoming polar expeditions that will be taking place in the Arctic later this year.
