Day 21: April 23, 2026
Today was a "brutal" stretch of hauling where extreme cold and triple-relaying gear makes progress “not too productive.”
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Yeah, Will here on April 23rd, Day 21. And it was 24 below this morning. The cold hasn't let up much. When I got out of the tent, it was 11 below. And as I mentioned before, I'm making a broken load into three different loads. I'm going up more in elevation and that. And I couldn't haul a double relay again. I had to do a triple relay, which is really almost ... not too productive. So for each load you bring with three loads, you're traveling for one mile. You're traveling actual five miles. You go forward, bring back one, go forward, pick up the other one, and then back to your camp. So I got pretty stretched out.
But I had my loads here. I've got them all together now. But I still had a third load about seven miles back. That's a little bit too far to be separated in weather. I did travel in a whiteout condition yesterday, bringing up a load. And I navigated that only by following the poles. You're poking. The ski track blows right away in the snow. And in a whiteout, you can't see that definition. But the ski pole, the holes in the snow, you make them different coloring. So I traveled seven miles on this [...] ski poles and then went back on it yesterday or today. It's amazing how I was actually able to do that.
But I got everything together now. And then I'll start relaying, pushing again. I want to keep within two miles of the loads in the camps like that. So it was just a really brutal day today. Traveling was hard. The surfaces were good. But it was windy. And you could stop for less than five minutes. It would start freezing up. Pretty dangerous weather, actually. And so I pretty much went nonstop. I took a few five-minute breaks here. And so I ... I got the first run in.
So exhausting today. And it's still cold and clear. I'm waiting for hopefully a change of weather to come. And it's quite interesting watching the spring weather. This is very unusual cold weather for this season. So I'm watching for any variation of any clouds in particular that come. There was some high haze coming from the south again, which is really not too ... nothing happening there usually. But you'll see some changes because probably within a week or so, spring should start coming. As a rule, in the western Arctic it's much warmer than the central Arctic. And around May 1st is when it really, spring hits hard. The rivers start opening up and the meltdown happens. But we'll see what happens here.
I've been glued in. It's pretty miserable in the tent. But I've got a little bit of heat on right now just for the conversation. And pretty much on rations because I can't spare any for heating. But anyways, it's still great, though. I mean, the expedition's in good shape. And I'm looking forward to tomorrow. And Will here, April 23rd, checking out. Over and out. Bye-bye.
As he completes the triple relay mentioned in today’s dispatch, Will’s location at the end of Day 21 is the same as Day 20. Visit Will’s interactive map for complete control of magnification and orientation.
Will skiing solo on the 2008 Ellesmere Island Expedition. Will has been making several trips forward and back to camp (relaying) to shuttle loads forward, using ski pole tracks to navigate one run during dangerous whiteout conditions today.