Lou - Arctic Bound

Week 1 in snowy Svalbard: Basic Training, January 11th- 18th

Flicking through The Rough Guide to Norway on the plane (London-Oslo, Oslo-Tromso-Longyearbyen) as we flew to Longyearbyen, the capital of the Svalbard archipelago, was a disconcerting experience: "It is one of the most hostile places on earth, some 640kms from the mainland and 1300kms from the North Pole; two thirds of its surface is covered by glaciers, it's soil frozen up to depths 500m. The record low temperature is a staggering -46 degrees," I read as we flew into a blanket of ever more inky darkness and four weeks of polar night ahead of us.

So here we are in the High Arctic, the legendary land of Thule and the midday moon, where the sun never rises above the horizon between late October and mid February.

Yet despite being in a constant state of near total darkness, we have acclimatised surprisingly quickly and grown to rather love the dusky light, the stars overhead (when it's clear), the brisk cold and the gently rolling northern lights rolling... Though it is a little strange setting out for our morning pulk-pulling with head-torches on, and I do have a distinct urge to crawl back to bed and sleep, sleep, sleep after eating.

This first week we've been learning the basic skills we need to become "competent polar explorers": managing our kit-layering systems (which has basically involved exercising at different speeds to work out how to cool off/ warm back up, that sort of thing); navigation, orientation and getting to grips with our GPS's, pulk packing and pulling (not always as easy as it sounds - when navigating steep, uneven, slippery or deep-snow ground it can be a bit like taking a pesky dog for a walk); putting up/ storm-proofing our 2-man and 8-man tents in cold/windy environments (securing, defrosting poles); belaying and ice-axe-anchoring on steep, icy slopes (awesome fun bum-sledging back down) etc etc.

It helps that we've been kept so busy that we've barely had time to think about anything, let alone those big, white, furry beasts out there. (One was spotted in town last week for the first time since the locals can remember... Which suggests that food might be sparce and they're getting Hungry... Errrrrr, glad we'll be camping out in the wilderness over the next few weeks then.) That said, Jim has been imparting his 26-years knowledge of polar bears and teaching us (ahem, trying to teach us) not to panic when we hear one pawing the sides of our tent, as one did on his expedition a few years ago... Ian (fellow team-member, mean shot and trusted gun-treasurer), we‘re trusting you. No pressure!! All this explains why, when out exercising, we always take the pen flares, Berry gun (warning shots) and rifle (last resort).

At night we return to our hostel, Guesthouse 102 (top), up in the far end of town(Svalbard has 2,000 inhabitants) in Nybyen (“new town“). It’s an old miners' hostel that's clean, homely and efficiently run by a nice man called Trond. It’s a cross between a youth hostel and a basic Norwegian chalet - a modern, flat-pack, Lego-looking one. Every night at 6pm we head down to a restaurant/ bar called Husset (“house” - getting the gist of the original names here?) for dinner. All in all it's much cosier than we'd dared hope and sure beats camping out at -25 on nose-bags and “rat packs” (Arctic freeze-dried ration packs).

The highlight of the week was undoubtedly the Lovely Ness arriving on Saturday after a tantalising two-day wait (so near, so far) in Tromso ("the Paris of the North" according to the guide book, but more "Northampton of the North" says unimpressed Ness-ster) for the freezing rains to stop in Tromso. Amazing that rain stops planes in the land of frozen ice but apparently the horizontal driving rains were washing away the grit, freezing and making tobbogan runs of the runway. Fortunately she had our equally lovely mountain guide Howard to keep her company over red wine and pizza. What else? Ah, the end of week team-dinner last night at the legendary local restaurant/ bar Krau in town on "Bond Street" (some amazing kit shops here) which turned into a Jaggermeister-fuelled affair. Naturally. Nessie's table-dancing, Phil's Irish accent, Jack's drinking games (and ability to know every lass's name in the bar - sorry Jack!!) and Yolanda's Spanish drinking style were other comedy moments. Who said this was all hard work?!

The lowlight has been the unseasonably warm temperatures. Day one was -17 degrees, the perfect start, but temperatures climbed as the week progressed, reaching +2, with driving sleet and torrential rain. Rather depressing as we came this far north to experience conditions as close to the Arctic as possible. Instead, southern Norway has had consistently colder weather than here. And even the northern parts of the UK, would ya believe it? Grrrr. Bring on (advanced training) next week, colder climes and getting those planks out.

Have a fantabulous rest of January all. If you promise to never take your kettle, bath or local forgranted again, we'll eat mountains of chocolate for you! Big hug (not a bear one), especially to my boys. X