Slowly, the terrain is changing. For most of the day, we were able to make tracks on smooth, flat ice. Occasionally, though, we did find before us pack-ice stretches that resembled huge furrowed potato fields, spreading out in every direction. It was often difficult to spot an easy route through such mazes. There was nothing for it but to straight through, and to hope for the best. In some cases, this was the only logical alternative, even though progress would be many times slower than on smooth ice.

Already, the sun shines for 12 hours a day. The sunrays are even beginning to feel slightly warm. Encouraged by this, we experimented with airing our sleeping bags. Quite large blobs of ice have grown in the thermal insulation of the sleeping bags. These icy lumps gradually accumulate from the natural humidity of our bodies at night. It was nice to notice that at least partial drying had occurred during the morning airing, despite the temperature being – 35 C.

The weather today was fine: clear, cloudless skies followed the Expedition all day.