Explorer



In the Spring of 2001 Dave Mill attempted to walk, alone and unsupported, to the geographical North Pole. He covered a total distance of 420km with only 12 days walking left before reaching the pole. Although this time remaining seems high, the further north he travelled the more even the ice would have become and so his speed would have increased. Dave is now available for corporate motivational speaking and after dinner events.

He aimed to average 20km a day for the later stages of the expedition, higher if possible.

During the last weeks Dave had done his 20km despite still being faced with rough ice, but as storms came over rest days were forced almost preventing progress over the final days.

The initial stage of the trek was expected to be the most challenging as Dave needed to first cross the area of re frozen broken ice that forms a vast rubble strewn ridge along the edge of the Arctic Ocean. This area of pack ice comprises of ice formations up to 10 meters high and often the only way past is to go straight through. Also for the first few weeks Dave needed to acclimatise to the conditions and also adjust to his equipment.

Once past 84 degrees the going should have evened out and then progress would be faster, but the bad surface continued well past 85 degrees north. The weather conditions were initially very cold, approx. -20 to -30 during the day, which helps by keeping the ice solid and static. Once the ice begins to melt with the developing season, cracks will develop, and as they freeze could give Dave fresh smooth tracks to follow, assuming they are heading the right way. These re frozen cracks are known as Leads. However if Dave meets these soon after they have formed he would be facing open water or ice too thin to ski over, and this can adversely effect his progress. On Saturday 28th April Dave passed the 84 degree latitude, which was a major psychological boost. Although the terrain was still rough going we were all hoping that the less disturbed terrain was not too far ahead.

Having now passed 85 degrees Dave was hopeful that the ice surface is less challenging and looked forward to achieving a high average distance each day.

For Dave the next boost was when he passed 85.08'N, this was how far he made at his attempt last year. Passing this latitude was also a new record as the furthest distance covered by a solo expedition.

And what about those leads. Due to relatively high levels of cloud cover accurate prediction via satellite imaging is difficult with the available Infrared images. The largest seen during the earlier stages were running almost northerly, and are up to several weeks old, but the amount of polar ice movement is low which means that the surface will relatively stable. As the expedition progressed storms developed which caused thawing and movement of the ice pans, and with it the ice surface more unstable. The difficulty in choosing a route will be predicting the age of the leads, new breaks will mean open water or thin ice which can seriously delay progress, but very old leads may be too rough to cross as the thinner ice will have buckled more that the more solid ice.

Finally the amount of thin ice or open water became too treacherous for safe passage, further hampered by "whiteout" where low contrast prevented seeing the ice surface with any degree of confidence. The decision was finally made that progress was too slow and dangerous to continue and a safe area for a plane pickup was found. Fortunately a break in the weather came quickly enabling the pickup plane to make a successful landing and return to Resolute Bay.