I am crossing Greenland on skis in May, pulling my sled to raise money for "Right To Play" and "Children in Crisis". These charities help children in the most traumatised regions of the world. I strongly believe that the world is a community and that children are our future. So for me, it is absolutely necessary that children all over the world acquire social skills, team spirit and an education so that they can respect themselves. I will face extreme cold, howling winds, fatigue and icy snow. I will have to carry everything I need on my sled and back. I will sleep in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I might even encounter a polar bear!! I am really super excited but terrified!! It is a minimum of 3 weeks so I think that my limits will be thoroughly tested.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Alaska

After a rather complicated journey to Alaska, Chris having to fly 24 hours ahead of me, we are in Tordrillos, which is probably one of the nicest ski lodge around. It feels like a second home, with a very relaxed atmosphere and only 12 guests, and on top of it the food is absolutely delicious. Everybody is always so keen to help.  I brought my randonnee skis which have skins for traction. and they have rented a sled with a harness so that I can train for Greenland. I had booked my trip long ago, before finding out that the crossing would start within 3 weeks of this trip. Of course, not wanting to take the risk of injuring myself, I have decided to take this opportunity to train on snow for a week.


The setting is also ideal for Chris, as the heli-ski is probably some of the best ever, and there is plenty of space for training pulling my sled. Unfortunately the weather was too cloudy to fly the first 2 days, so there was no heli-ski. It did not affect my training though and I loaded my sled with 200 pounds and headed to the meadow. It is ideal as a full lap is almost exactly 50 minutes long, which is the length of a Greenland stint. I did 3 hours in the morning, came back to the lodge for lunch and went back for another 3 laps. The meadow is ideal as I can follow the track but can also cut into deep snow which is probably more similar to the first 2 days on glacier after leaving Kangerlussuaq. There are some old snowmobile tracks which makes it even more difficult to haul the sled. GREAT training!! Today I did 6 hours in a stint, about half of them in deep snow. It was quite tiring, and my feet are really suffering, but it is probably nothing compared to what it will be on the real trek.


It is really nice to see Christophe having such a nice time. He is totally in his element and very at ease with everybody. He had a wonderful day skiing today, and it looks very good for tomorrow.


I am going to go on the glacier with a guide training tomorrow as that will be the best training for the first few days in Greenland when we have to climb up the glacier to reach the ice cap. Hopefully the snow will not be too deep as I found out that it is extremely hard to pull my loaded sled in deep snow on the meadow so I cannot imagine what going uphill would be like!
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