The two explorers are crossing Franz Josef Land archipelago, trying to keep on firm ice – about 200 meters away there is a chaotic pressure ice area they need to avoid. Live image over Contact 4.0 of Franz Josef Land's coast courtesy of thomas Ulrich (click to enlarge).
“We’re both quite worn out, the breaks get longer - twenty instead of ten minutes, before we decide to move again," Thomas reported. "We have also reduced our daily food to half in order to have enough to eat until the end of our expedition.” FJL's map courtesy of Ulrich's website (click to enlarge).
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Ousland & Ulrich traversing Franz Josef Land: “Firm Ground under our feet”
Posted: Jun 26, 2007 11:05 am EDT
(ThePoles.com) Currently traversing Franz Josef Land after kite-skiing from the North Pole, on June 22nd Thomas Ulrich and Børge Ousland managed to complete the long passage on the ocean between Freeden and Hoffmann Island. “It wasn’t as bad as we had feared, we met quite good, land-bound ice on the way,” said Thomas.
“Once on Hoffmann Island, for the first time during this expedition, we found soil beneath our skis, real firm ground, not only glacial, ice, or water," Ulrich added.
“We also saw the first human tracks: an old abandoned polar station of the 1960s – an inhospitable place, all the rooms were filled with snow and everything was totally broken!”
Exploration in the age of technology
The two explorers are crossing Franz Josef Land archipelago, trying to keep on firm ice – about 200 meters away there is a chaotic pressure ice area they need to avoid. Counting on sat images and GPS in order to keep course, Børge and Thomas are impressed by Nansen and Johansen, who did accomplished the same trip in 1895 – with no such gadgetry to help them.
“We have reduced our daily program to eight and a half hours of walking,” Ulrich noted. “We’re both quite worn out; the breaks get longer - twenty instead of ten minutes, before we decide to move again. We have also reduced our daily food to half in order to have enough to eat until the end of our expedition.”
Sleeping on stone – sailing ahead
On June 24, their 55th day since the expedition started, they set camp among the boulders and stones instead of ice, on Alexander Island. “Tomorrow, Sunday, we hope to continue to the west and towards the open water where sooner or later we will use our kayaks as little sailing boats,” Thomas reported.
Norwegian Børge Ousland and Swiss Thomas Ulrich departed the North Pole on May 1, hoping to reach Norway by crossing Siberia’s Franz Josef Land on the way. Because the team is going unsupported, they are hauling food and gas for three months.
Børge Ousland was born in Oslo, Norway in 1962. Thomas Ulrich was born in Interlaken, Switzerland in 1967.
The archipelago of Franz Josef Land is under Russian military regulations and has been closed for outsiders since early 1930. Very few expeditions have visited the islands. No one has skied from north to south after Nansen. Borge has previously done two expeditions to Franz Josef Land: In 1993 he skied through the islands from east to west and in 2004 he was expedition leader on the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn.
In March 1895 Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen left the Polar ship 'Fram' to try to reach the North Pole. They reached the furthest north record at 86 degrees 14 minutes north. From this position they turned south and in August, they reached the undiscovered northern parts of Franz Josef Land. But it was too late in the year to continue, and with few provisions left they were forced build a stone hut on Franz Josef Land, and survive the winter under very primitive conditions, living off the land. On their onward journey in June they met a British expedition led by Frederick Jackson on Cape Flora.
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