Hi all! I just these great photos from Scott Gilmour taken during the Polar Challenge that just wrapped up in the Arctic. This expedition requires racers to work together, travel and move as a team from Resolute Bay, Canada to the 1996 position of the Magnetic North Pole. Teams race in harsh conditions and this year every team was supported by a ColdAvenger to protect their faces, lungs and airway. Some great shots–Enjoy!
The ColdAvenger has been everywhere this spring! It has climbed big ‘ol mountains and assisted two separate teams on their quest to summit Makalu; teams Shared Summits and 2010 Makalu Expedition Valandre each were supported by the ColdAvenger.
Chris Klinke
The Summit of Makalu is really only about 3 ft wide and it is proceeded on either side by a little tiny ridge that drops off on both sides for thousands of feet. It is covered by ice and corniced snow and you have to traverse past a false ridge to reach it. It is very tricky to reach.
I finally reached the summit at 5:59 pm! Alexia and Sandrine summited before me, and I was followed by Phillipe. Yeti had made the decision to turn around prior to reaching the summit ridge based on weather conditions which was probably one of the smarter decisions of the day.
As we started making our way down the mountain the weather progressed into real nasty storm. Now we were descending the ropes that we has put up and to add insult to injury, they were difficult to find under the snow that had just fallen. We finally reached the bottom of the couloirs after about 2 hours of descending into a worsening storm. We were all aware of the crevasses that we had passed over to reach the couloirs but none of us were sure of our ability to spot them in a white out in the dark. So we roped up and started our descent. It took me until almost 10:45 pm to reach our Camp 4. And along the way there were a few issues, but in the end we all safely reached our Camp 4 by midnight. Everyone was safe.
In the morning, I headed down to ABC. Being completely wiped out a journey that had previously took me 6 hours ended up taking almost 12.
What a great adventure! To get the full scoop on Team Valandre’s expedition to Makalu check out their blog here. Congratulations team! Now get some rest.
John B. Sullivan aka ColdAvenger Pro
