North Pole 2014: Bengt Rotmo to ski solo North Pole to Canada
Posted: Apr 03, 2014 04:55 pm EDT
(By Correne Coetzer) Norwegian Polar guide, Bengt Egil Rotmo, sent over news about his plans for this North Pole season. First he will guide a Last Degree Expedition to the Geographic North Pole (GNP) for Eric Philips’ Ice Trek Expeditions and then a Last Degree for Borge Ousland Polar Exploration. After arriving at the North Pole with the second group, he plans to head south to Canada; solo, unassisted, unsupported. That will be around March 20, if everything work out well, he says to ExWeb.
Bengt has prepared food for 45 days. His pick-up point depends on the ice conditions at the Canadian coast, wether it will be Cape Discovery or Ward Hunt Island. He will also watch where the other GNP to Canada team, Eric Philips, Bernice Notenboom and Martin Hartley, is heading.
Bengt and his first Last Degree group, as well as Philips and his group, departed from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, to Barneo Ice Camp near the North Pole today.
Bengt explained to ExplorersWeb where the idea to ski from the GNP to Canada comes from, "The whole idea was to do the trip with clients, starting April 2nd… but I always wanted to do a trip by myself as well, and since we did not have enough clients to do the full-length trip - this is a good season.”
Usually after guiding the Last Degree NP, Bengt goes to Greenland to guide an Ousland group on a horizontal crossing there. But this year, fellow countryman, Are Johansen, is guiding the Greenland trip, he says, "so I do not have to be back in time for the Spring crossing either, and finally since I´m already at the Pole this is a great time to go.”
He added, ”Right now I´m really happy that I´m here. I have two great teams for Last Degrees, and food and equipment ready for the long haul back to Canada. So everything is lined up for a great North Pole season.”
Bengt Rotmo is a guide for Borge Ousland Polar Exploration, on Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland and the Northern Patagonia Ice Cap. Among his expeditions he has guided a Norwegian group from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole and has guided Clare O’Leary and Mike O’Shea, who were medical evacuated from the Arctic Ice two weeks ago, across the Northern Patagonian Ice Cap.
Ed note: Clare O’Leary told ExWeb, she and Mike O’Shea are going to head up to Iceland to Vatnajokull Glacier next week.
Links
Northern Patagonia Ice Cap: ExWeb Interview with Bengt Egil Rotmo
Borge Ousland, Thorleif Nokleby and Bengt Rotmo on their way to the Northern Patagonia Ice Cap
Bengt Rotmo and team at the South Pole
Cape Discovery, Ellesmere Island, to the Geographic North Pole (90ºN)
Unassisted, Unsupported:
Yasu Ogita, Japan, solo
(start March 7)
Yasu is came across open water (leads).
Day 27 tracker status report
3 April 12:15 Japan time (21:15 local time the day before)
84° 38’161”N, 75° 42'159"W
Ryan Waters and Eric Larsen (USA)
(Start March 15: 83.043627N, 077.374263W)
Brutal struggle on March 31, reported the men. Started good, but ended in total white-out and newly formed very high pressure ridges; twisting and pushing through a path. Ryan's snow shoe binding broke and they had to fix it in 10 minutes "of bone chilling wind". They worked pretty hard on the 4 nautical miles, Eric and Ryan reported.
The two men discussed tactics to get more milage per day. On April 2 they reported "to only do single pulls from here on out and it made a big difference in our mileage and we logged our best distance to date”; 7.74 nautical miles / 13.72 km.
Tracker: 01 Apr 2014 11:58 GMT
Latitude: 83.683 | Longitude: -75.497
Dist To Pole: 437 Miles
Tracker: 02 Apr 2014 02:20 GMT
Latitude: 83 | Longitude: 75
Dist To Pole: 432.7 Miles
Tracker: 03 Apr 2014 02:10 GMT
Latitude: 83 | Longitude: 75
Dist To Pole: 424 Miles
Starting from Geographic North Pole (90ºN) to Canada
Assisted, Unsupported
'Arctic March' team:
(Start April 4)
Eric Philips, Australia
Bernice Notenboom, The Netherlands / Canada
Martin Hartley, UK
The team boarded the plane from Longyearbyen to Barneo today. From there it is a short helicopter ride to the Geographic North Pole. Martin Hartley wrote they will be sleeping at the North Pole tonight.
Barneo Ice Camp /
Russian Geographical Society Expeditionary Center
situated in last degree North
(Open April 3-22)
The runway at Barneo was completed on April 2, the planned date to get the first flight in, but the weather turned bad. On April 3, the AN-74 could land after a two and a half hour flight from Longyearbyen and the camp was officially open and operating.
On April 1, an IL-76 took off from Murmansk to Barneo for airdropping. The crew reported, "The floe was seen from the altitude of 2500 m. At the first and second approaches we dropped supplies for the camp and helicopter fuel. During the third approach several parachute jumps were completed by the skydiving group experts and tourist skydivers from Russia, Sweden, Great Britain, UAE, the USA and Czech Republic. Everybody touched down at the given ground. The plane returned to Murmansk at 19.15 pm Moscow time.”
April 1 coordinates: 89° 33.04'N, 055° 48.09' E.
Temperature: – 23°C, air pressure 1010 mPа, wind of 5–7 m/sec, partly cloudy.
April 3 coordinates: 89 ° 27.927’N, 031° 16.378'W
Weather: temperature -15°C, with the wind gusting to 15 m/s.
Previous:
North Pole: Ryan Waters fell in the water; Tractors airdropped; Greenland season to start
A note on the North Pole ski distances: They are calculated in a straight line from where the skiers start in the mornings and end in the evenings. What is not added, are all the detours around high ridges, ice blocks, rubble or leads (open water). Also not added are the negative drift and relaying sleds.
A North Pole expedition covers the full distance between land and the Pole (90ºN).
The Cape Discovery route (Canada) to the Geographic North Pole is 780 km.
Ward Hunt Island (Canada) start point calculates at 775 km.
A Degree of Latitude is 60 nm / 110 km.
Geographic North Pole is at 90ºN
1996 position of the Magnetic North Pole:
78° 35'42.00"N, 104° 11’54.00”W
Resolute Bay: 74° 41.808N, 094° 49.402W
Ski Teams starting from Cape Discovery, Ellesmere Island, to the Geographic North Pole (90ºN)
Unassisted, Unsupported:
Yasu Ogita, Japan, solo
(start March 7)
YouTube
Team Eric Larsen and Ryan Waters
Last North Expedition:
(start March 15)
Ryan Waters, USA
Mountain Professionals Facebook
Eric Larsen, USA
Starting from Geographic North Pole (90ºN) to Canada
Unassisted, Unsupported
Bengt Rotmo
Starting from Geographic North Pole (90ºN) to Canada
Assisted, Unsupported
'Arctic March' team:
(Start April 4)
Eric Philips, Australia
Bernice Notenboom, The Netherlands / Canada
Martin Hartley, UK
Other:
MLAE 2014
Barneo Ice Camp /
Russian Geographical Society Expeditionary Center
situated in last degree North
(Open April 3-22)
Facebook Russian Geographical Society Expeditionary Center
Last Degree to 1996 Magnetic North Pole
Richard and Tessum Weber and team
(Start April 21)
Greenland
Kite ski circumnavigation:
Eric McNair-Landry (CA) and Dixie Dansercoer (BE)
Blog Greenland Ice Expedition
Facebook (Pittarak Expeditions)
Michael Chavarin (FR) and Cornelius Strohm (DE)
Follow blog posts (with RSS feeds) in the live News Stream on ExplorersWeb.
Previous/Related
Russian amphibious Arctic cars on the move from Canada
North Pole: Irish team injured and evacuated - update: Norwegians also off
North Pole Norwegians and Americans flying to Cape Discovery - updated landed and skiing
NASA: Warm Rivers Play Role in Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Norwegian North Pole team talking to ExWeb from the high Canadian Arctic
North Pole 2014: first skiers flying to their start point
Dmitry Shparo's Top 5 North Pole Tips
Irish North Pole team checking in at ExWeb from Resolute Bay
The cost of Arctic travel: Jerry Kobalenko talks to ExWeb
Yasunaga Ogita talking to ExWeb from the high Canadian Arctic
North Pole 2014 full route ski expedition list
ExWeb interview with Ryan Waters, "an unwritten and unexplainable mental edge”
ExWeb interview with Eric Larsen, "a mix of poetry and hell to the North Pole”
ExWeb interview with Bernice Notenboom, the Arctic and the world’s climate
Dixie Dansercoer and Eric McNair-Landry to kite-ski 5000+ km around Greenland
Ray Zahab and team Baffin Island run 2014
Weather links:
The Arctic Weather products link on the Canadian Ice Service IPY Legacy page
Two-day sea ice drifts for the whole Arctic Ocean on the Danish DMI website
ENVISAT ASAR images on the Polarview website
Canada Weather Office satellite image
NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
University of Illinois cryosphere images
Wayne Davidson’s Extremely High Horizon Refraction
#polar #northpole2014 #bengtrotmo
courtesy Correne Erasmus-Coetzer, SOURCE
courtesy Bengt Egil Rotmo, SOURCE
courtesy Sergey Panteleev, SOURCE
courtesy Eric Larsen, SOURCE
courtesy Arctic Ice Drift Maps 2013 : Image from http://www.arctic.noaa.gov / Mike O Shea and Clare O Leary, SOURCE
