Day 2 - Running-in stage

The second day started as usual, with the alarm clock ringing at 07:00. After this, Mikko, who was on the kitchen shift, turned on the gas stove. At this point of the expedition, from waking up to the start of skiing takes about two hours. In this time, the men have been fed, the day's food thermoses have been filled, and the goods have been packed into the sledge. The skiing itself continued from where yesterday ended, on a rather tight uphill. After the first leg, we got to a slightly gentler terrain, which practically continued for the rest of the day. The first three legs of the day were flown with a reasonably accurate instrument flight, with Tero leading the group. After lunch, the weather cleared up quite a bit, and skiing was already easy despite the unevenness of the surface. For the last legs of the day, we skied at a speed of about 3km/h, despite the steady uphill and heavy packs (including water, both 122kg at the start of the day). We purposely ski shorter days for about a week to get our bodies used to the hard work, and there is no need for us to rush uphill at the beginning (ascent already more than 500m). We are in a happy position as far as skiing goes because we have enough food and fuel, and the sledge is moving comfortably (the last time Mikko last felt this way was at the beginning of the expedition in 1999 in Greenland). Things are good here, and we're slowly getting into expedition mode. In this mode, life is ultimately quite easy: eat, ski, sleep, repeat.