Polar Gear ready for Packing

The days are rolling quickly into each other now! We spent a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago packing up most of our kit into our main bags. All the team equipment has to be split up, and taken out between us – I have the tent outer! I also have some Baffin Boots to fit into my bag. I don’t think I will be wearing these ones, as they are a tad tight with a couple of pairs of socks on!

I have been rooting in the ‘packed’ bag (Rooting was always a big sin on our family camping holidays as a child!), still using some of the kit for training walks. I will have a big re-pack tomorrow! There is a short video of Rob packing up ALL the gear!

I have not been sleeping brilliantly the last few weeks. I feel like I still have quite a lot to organise, and get my head round. I have a couple of fears, that I can’t address until I get out to the Arctic. 1, is the cold (I know this is an obvious one!). We have great gear (and I have a few extra bits!) I am sure we will be fine whilst we are walking / skiing, but how do you not sweat when you are pulling 50Kg pulks? As soon as you stop, this sweat freezes ….. and I get VERYcold. hmmmm. Here in the UK, I just jump into a hot bath to warm up. But in Northern Canada, that’s not really an option (gulp)  2. I keep waking up in the night about 4.00am to go to the loo. In the Arctic, I won’t want to be leaving the relative warmth of the tent, to go outside and wee! I have a shewee, but am not comfortable using it just for a wee, let alone trying to wee into a bottle, in your sleeping bag, in the tent, in the middle of the night …. if you get that wrong ….. cold, wet, smelly sleeping bag (lurvley!)

The Route

This picture shows the checkpoints that we will be walking too. As you can see there is quite a lot of sea in the 350 miles we are covering!

Only 4 sleeps until we leave!

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