April 9th

April 9th (Day 8)
The day started with a problem; one of the fuel canisters in my pulk had leaked overnight. Luckily I store the fuel lower than my food so it wasn't affected but it’s a real pain. I had to empty everything out, fill the pulk with snow to soak up the fuel and then repack everything before we could leave.

Although we started the morning with a long climb we soon began crossing frozen inlets. These gave us our first (welcome) taste of moving across ice and a much needed burst of pace.

The weather was cold and overcast to start but in the afternoon a strong wind came up which moved the pulks around behind us. We stopped to put on windproof layers and had to huddle behind the pulks as windbreaks for our rest stops.

We camped on a beautiful frozen lake and I spent the evening patching my jacket after I burnt it on the stove. Doh!