Day 40 - A particularly difficult day

In the early morning hours, a centimeter layer of new snow fell. As our loyal readers will surely remember, new snow never is a good thing here. This time was no exception.

We started the first part of the morning in completely stagnant air. We had to take off our shell jackets and ski in just merinos, and it was still hot. From experience, we knew to expect the soon-to-come change of weather. This time it wasn't just one change, but the whole day going was like a madhouse: sometimes the gloves and cap were hastily taken off, and all the zippers were opened. Then the air suddenly turned cold, and we had to put on a warm top. Sometimes we saw one or two suns, and sometimes we were completely surrounded by clouds and had to navigate with a compass. Our bodies were completely confused as to whether they should be sweating to cool down or shivering to warm up.

Then the new snow. The sledge came along, making grating sounds. A really sticky platform the whole day. Achilles' tendons don't like it. On top of everything, we went down to the world's most enormous motivation pit on the lunch section: there was one really big sinkhole on the route, which we skied for 20 minutes downwards, and it was naturally freezing at the bottom. When we had to climb back for an hour, the motivation to do things started to fade for a while. At the end of the day, we reached another big valley, where many hard-earned altimeters were lost during the descent.

The worst thing about it is the altitude; that is how the lack of oxygen affects us: when we move, breathing gets quite heavy, and our best efforts are lost.

So it wasn't the easiest day. We dare not call it a good day. The exhaustion caused by the day made us decide that tomorrow would be our last day of rest. After the rest, we'll ski to the pole in ten days (ceteris paribus).

Picture of the day: sweaty skiing, ten days left. Note the slightly reduced level of consciousness with the gentleman on the right; we both occasionally had tough times today.