Audio Dispatch

Hello Aaron in Antarctica, day 39. Camp position South 83 degrees 14 decimal 182 minutes, position West 080 degrees 03 decimal 303 minutes. Distance traveled 11 miles, time 8 hours. Ran into some really nice hard packed ground here so I was able to make some really really good time. Although, around here was a crushing amount of sastrugi and the worst part is it’s headed dead South. So instead of being paralell which is just work or oblique where you could cross it, you stay in the sastrugi and it’s like an ankle and knee buster all the way cause your on these constant razor edges, it’s really quite miserable traveling. Didn’t figure that the sastrugi would all head South. There’s been a storm and complete white out or ground white out all day, so it’s been tough travel, I mean psycologically the white out ot the ground white out is by far the worst cause your constantly worries your gonna fall into a hole, stumble on something, smash something, wreck one of your rigs, I mean it just messes with your head like, I never expected that. And when the wind’s up to 40 knots it’s just kinda miserable and rough, punishes you physically and kinda gets in your head but you can deal with it. But you can’t see where your going and several times today, I wouldn’t say I got dizzy but just unknowingly disoriented, where your going along and all of a sudden you just start to fall over like somebody shoved you, with no orientation and essentially no horizon to see. It’s the weirdest thing, you’d be cruising along and all of a sudden, whoa whoa whoa. Just stumble over for no reason what so ever so. That is extremely frustrating. It’s definitely part of the experience down here, I mean everybody has to travel in white outs and ground white outs and bad winds and such but you definitely wish you didn’t have to, I mean, I’d rather have stayed in the tent today but I’m under now canstant pressure to try and keep the miles as best as I can. Repairs on Charlie Blue, the bag where the strap sewn X is completely or half disintegrated, so I seam seal it this morning or last night to hold it intact until the weather got better. Weather being better means it’s not windy as heck so I can deal with this thing. So I brought the bag in here and I’m sewing through and I actually, fortunately my needles will punch through the double webbing on that pretty well so the RayWay sewing thread that I have from Ray Jardine, that stuff is used to make back packs, so it’s ultra tough so I’m confident it will stay, I doubt it’ll get cut at all and I’ll just go crazy happy on the stitching there so I expect that’ll be ok. Boots look ok, I inspect my boots everyday. When I get in to the tent, get everything going, the moment I can kick those bad boys off, I brush off all the snow with my little bicycle gear cleaner, grind it off, chisel out the ice or snow in the three pin holes, clean those guys up and make sure there’s nothing falling apart on them because other than my stove um boots boy if those fell apart or something happens, you are absolutely toast here, I mean you can not go anywhere. Not like you carry a spare pair of boots so that is a critical must do item everynight, I can blow off some things but the boot inspection, brushing, getting all the snow off and ice is ultra critical to me. Hope all is well. Out!
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