The last couple of days have been mentally quite tough .... drum roll the sarcasm....
To date, I have had winds that have blown me over, antarctica cold temperatures, ice and even frostbite but that is all expected and ok... and I have to say, it has been great to test out my equipment in the cold night temps as it will mean that it should stand the test of south pole temps (ok bar the fuel containers that clearly didn't!!).

This year is very different to last year when I was out here. We had tonnes and tonnes of snow, white outs and our sleds/pulks were buried a few times. This meant soft snow undersled and in short, the snow would fill in many of the sustrugi holes, pits and sharp icy edges. This meant (as i have now come to realise), although there were plenty of whiteouts- the skies could feel the ups and downs of the soft, rounded sustrugi and respond appropriately.

Enter..... this year. Hard icy, no snow filling the gaps razor sharp sustrugi that rise up and away sharply that have many lines/channels that often finds the left ski in one channel, the right ski in another and the sled choosing its own channel that drops away steeply, thus allowing the sled to slide sideways and overturn at the bottom of the stustrugi channel... now that would be fine if the sled was acting out its own stunts in its own adventure movie!! Instead what the above means in reality is that I find myself reinacting Bambi on skies!! Add a whiteout .... yep .... suddenly i do a great impression of blind Bambi on skies!!!! Very messy and very slow!!