Day 32 - Now we're moving!
(Audio) Day 32I forgot to mention in previous blogs a question I asked the team about their sleds. Now that they are almost finished are their sleds lighter ? The short answer is, they may be but they don't feel like it. Even though they have gone through a lot of food the altitude is sapping their strength and the sleds feel just as heavy as when they started. The team is at about 10,000 feet in altitude so oxygen is reduced by around 30%. The mild effects of altitude sickness grow exponentially over 9000 feet and include shortness of breath, elevated pulse, coughing and disorientation. So, even though it should feel easier for them the higher they get the tougher it is.
"Hey everybody, it's Ray calling from the South Pole Quest Team on Day 32 and I'm calling to give you some news that you're probably not going to believe. We covered thirty nautical miles today. That's fifty five kilometers approximately. Ahhummm.. why you say? Why would we want to go out and ahhh cover so much mileage in one day. Well I'll tell you what; the weather has been very unpredictable lately as you know already from our blogs, and Kevin, and Richard and I made a decision that if the weather window opened up. If we had a nice sunny day, that we would take full advantage of it and go as far as we possibly could. So basically for the last twenty hours (ending approx at 5:00am EST Jan 6) on Day 32 we've been... well I've been trekking and the guys have been skiing this thirty nautical miles.
Ahhumm.. what a beautiful day it's been. Incredibly sunny, cold. We're not exactly sure how cold, but Richard figures somewhere around -35 ahhh without the wind, and ummm... but we're ahhh we're motivated. We're twenty four nautical miles from the South Pole, right now. And so we're going to grab some sleep, get something to eat and we're going to head out for day 33 and try and ahhhh get those twenty four miles done as fast as we possibly can. Hope you're all having a great day and thank you for following along. Ohh by the way, for day 33 and I'm.. and the rest of the way to the South Pole, I'll be calling in shorter blogs, and we'll all be calling in from the South Pole when we arrive, Ok, bye bye."
Tuesday January 6 2009 :: posted by Anton Stranc
