Heading North

Flying out of Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Heading North

..With the Russian crew smoking in the back of the plane ...(Remember those days???)

Welcome to ice camp Barneo 89 degrees north and drifting....

The Russians build and maintain the camp for about a month in April once a year. It costs about 2.2 million euros for the month. They have seven research scientists (polar, geophysics, math etc.) and about 20 staff and subsidize the cost with tourists like us.

The camp sits on the arctic ice and drifts.......

In the 24 hours before we arrived it had drifted 4km.

The winds picked up and in the next 24 hours we drfited 15km in 24 hours. The morning of the marathon we were drifting at 1km an hour -not a good sign.

We'd had 50-60km winds during the night and the Russian crew was up all night putting in new anchors for the tents.

The flags give some idea...It was a shock getting off the plane.

Not complete without a picture of a Russian in a furry hat...