SKIING INTO THE ENDLESS WHITE

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I returned from the expedition tired, but in one piece and elated, having learnt a lot after surviving and thriving on the ice for so long. However, as normal life resumed, I sometimes felt deflated and even depressed, missing that uniquely simple way of life, the intense, constant connection to nature. It's something that I had again not foreseen and something I struggled to comprehend and shake off.

As the adrenaline and exertion of the whole trip drained from mind and body, I began to slowly reflect on what had been, despite many setbacks, an immense personal and team achievement. For me, an adventure like no other, an expedition that would take time to understand. Greenland is epic to the extreme. Even more so after what had preceded it.

Three weeks before I was due to fly out to Copenhagen and onto our remote starting point in Kangerlussuaq on the rugged, barren but mesmerizing west coast of Greenland, I was having to contemplate retiring from the expedition. For a month I had been suffering from intense food poisoning, having to spend time in UK and Thai hospitals and as the expedition date grew closer and my condition failed to improve, the pressure to be fit and ready for the biggest challenge I’d ever taken on grew more intense. I'd lost 6kg in weight and hadn’t trained for a month and simply didn’t know what to do. Endless questions and scenarios clouded my mind. What was the right thing to do? The best thing to do? Could I trust my gut feeling?

After speaking with Taylor the expedition leader and my coach Jon at E3 coaching, I was given the encouragement I needed and crucially, a two-week specialist diet and training plan that would return me to some form of fitness, some form of readiness. If I wasn't eating and training normally two weeks before I was meant to leave for Greenland, I would retire from the expedition.

After visiting my doctor in the renal (kidney) department looking washed-out and skinny, she advised me against taking on the traverse but with months of training, complex preparation and the large financial investment involved, it was hard to accept that outcome. More importantly, people had donated thousands to my hospital charity fundraiser, rooting for me to become the first organ transplant patient to ski across Greenland under human power. With a resigned smile, my doctor knew I was going to try and despite the pressures and uncertainties, I felt mentally strong and prepared. I knew the expedition would be far more gruelling now but I wanted to do it.

Over the next two weeks, the training schedule worked wonders leaving me room to push myself harder on days I felt strong but space to rest and recover adequately so I wouldn’t burn out. Eating anything and everything I could get my hands on, I could feel the months of preparatory endurance fitness training falling back into place and I recovered faster than I thought possible.

Looking back on the expedition as a whole, I can see that without my coach's advice and expertise, I wouldn’t have lasted a mere 2 days on what was the most physically challenging month I’ve ever experienced. I still can’t quite believe my body did it if I'm honest.

Greenland was often beautiful, endless, peaceful. It was also unforgiving, harsh, even brutal, rarely giving us time to fully rest and relax as it threw all manner of extreme weather, gruelling terrain and challenges at us day after day. I wasn't regretting my choice though. Greenlands' 24-hour daylight, raw power, endless beauty, otherworldly atmosphere and all-encompassing nature were mind-blowing. I'd never experienced anything remotely similar and it was intoxicating. We pushed and worked hard, hauling our heavy pulks (sledges) through this epic country, always trying to eke out extra miles when we could. Pure adventure.
 

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• WEEK ONE •

Week one was as gruelling as it got as we each hauled two max-weight pulks bulging with gear and equipment from sea level up through the steep, crevasse-ridden icy labyrinthine of Greenland's immense west coast glaciers. Navigating was sometimes one step forward and two demoralising steps back but we always pushed on, covering respectable daily distances. The views were spellbinding but I often couldn’t appreciate what I was witnessing due to the extreme physical demands I was inflicting on my body. It was an odd experience.

It was also the week our teammate collapsed. Resuscitating him was one of the most intense yet bonding experiences I’ve ever been a part of and with the seemingly never-ending, winding uphill slog, wild weather and already struggling teammate, I was quickly realising why only around 1000 people have ever successfully traversed Greenland. I was also realising that I had some amazing teammates.
 

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• WEEK TWO •

Week two didn’t let up with three failed rescue attempts for our demoralised teammate, the exploration of an abandoned, half-buried and slowly collapsing Cold War radar station, and the summating of the Greenland ice cap at around 2600m above sea level. Despite team morale taking a sizable dent as our teammate struggled on, almost constant, face-numbing winds and temperatures ranging between -15c and -36c, we made good progress, slowly but surely ramping up our daily mileage averages. I was getting into the groove and our camp routine was becoming more and more efficient with the sound of laughter spilling out of each tent every evening while we cooked and socialised on the vast white expanse. Maximizing our downtime was crucial as the more time you had to relax in the evening, the more time you had to recuperate for the inevitably long, hard day ahead.
 

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• WEEK THREE •

By week three and with all of us hauling most of our struggling teammates' food and equipment, we’d become a well-oiled skiing machine, feeling fit and easily covering 15 miles per day. The endless icy grandeur of the Greenland ice cap and the realisation of how lucky I was to be experiencing it was a constant in my mind and often kept me going during tough days. Over the 27 odd days living and travelling on the ice cap we saw no land, no vegetation and very few people so when three migrating birds soared past us one day, it was a big deal. Spotting other teams, or more accurately small dots on the horizon was always exciting, oddly reassuring and highlighted how small and insignificant we were in this endless white expanse. These experiences always motivated me and as I skied hour after hour, day after day, brought into focus the enormity of our traverse.

Ever since we had summated the ice cap during week two we had been skiing through a constant sastrugi field which resembled a choppy, frozen ocean with seemingly endless undulating waves. This was not the norm with sastrugi fields usually only lasting a few miles. However, these stunning ice sculptures were being carved out of the ice by a massive storm we were shadowing and hauling our gear and food through the undulating sastrugi field was slowly draining our energy reserves and by week four, our gear was also feeling the strain.

To get a feel for what it was like, imagine skiing over 15 miles a day (a total of 160 miles), pulling two heavy sledges up and down rocky, ice-covered coastlines in windy, sub-zero temperatures and you’ll have a good idea of the last two and half weeks for us in Greenland. It was tough but undeniably beautiful terrain to ski through, keeping you on your toes and often leaving you mentally drained by the end of a long day. However, by week four of living with our trusty old sastrugi friend, we knew that we were slowly descending back towards sea level and our goal of the east coast. The excitement was building.
 

 

• WEEK FOUR •

Dreaming about food in all its forms was becoming a pretty regular occurrence within the team by now too as our bodies slowly starved from a calorie deficit. We each tried to eat at least 5000 calories a day but with the added exertion of pulling our teammate's pulks and the sastrugi field to navigate through, we were easily burning 6000 calories per day. We were all slowly losing weight and no amount of extra butter in our meals or snacking on various treats traded in our little black market seemed to help. I had never fully regained the 6kg lost during my illness so the weight loss was becoming obvious. We'd named ourselves Team Hairbo for a reason by this point! Week four also included our final day on the ice, a day that's hard to put into words.

After hunkering down for two days as one of Greenland's famously intense and exhilarating storms whipped around us, burying our shuddering tents in over 5 feet of snow, we began what would turn out to be a 29-mile, 36-hour day epic. Skiing, climbing and scrambling up and down the ice, crevasses and rocky remnants of the east coast glaciers to reach the beautifully serene coastline and our helicopter rendezvous point was incredibly tough but awesome. Emotions and adrenaline were running high.

On what was the most adventurous and unpredictable day of my life so far, we enjoyed our final evening meal above a frozen mountain range, patched up and cheered on our exhausted teammate, navigated crevasse-ridden, watery snow rivers in whiteout conditions, backpacked our heavy pulks down unstable, rocky ravines, nervously skied across a perilously thin icy lake and finally savoured, exhausted but joyful, our final breakfast on the edge of the lake. Cooking with my tent mate Dirk on a slab of ancient Greenland rock, we rustled up an English-style brekkie fry up and some whisky for everyone. Perfect.

And that was that! Greenland traversed, and a world-first completed. All that remained was the comparatively simple task of flying home, leaving behind what was one incredible country. After two days of storms, we were able to depart from the stunning east coast settlement of Tasilaq and two helicopter and plane flights later I was back home. No more ice, no more tents, no more adventure, just the reality of real life and all its trappings.

Considering all the setbacks and issues, I’m immensely proud of what we achieved in Greenland. We became a true team, supporting each other as we traversed a country that not many have. Without the specialist training, my teammates and everyone supporting me back home, I would never have become the first transplant patient to do so. I can't wait for my next adventure, testing my mind, body, fitness and endurance to the max all over again. Let's go!

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