#20: Almost 30kms!

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, with a fresh coating of snow. Often fresh snow can make for slow going, creating drag on the skis and sleds, but this snow was different, we were gliding! The snow cover was made up of huge shiny snowflakes, almost like sequins. When a gust of wind came through you could actually hear them blow across the surface, like the rustling of leaves. We set the tent up for lunch to get a break from the wind, which was a nice social gathering! It’s a real treat sitting all together, interacting over lunch and seeing peoples faces; a huge contrast to the sessions of skiing in a line looking at peoples backs, and the occasional masked, goggled face that might turn around! We encountered some sastrugi today, which made the day a little interesting, finding ways up, over and around the firm ridges. We had heard from some other teams that there was sastrugi over this side, but I think the snow covering has been in our favour, filling in some of the gaps and smoothing things out a little. Despite the sastrugi and the weather worsening throughout the day, the glide and the wind behind us enabled us to cover 29km today! Great success! Mardi