Greenland Expedition 2010 » Equipment

Custom ski repair kit

Terje With Lunndal — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:08:46 +0000

In case we break a ski during our crossing we need a way to mend it. This involves a hacksaw, a custom hand drill, some bolts, nuts and a custom aluminium rail. We’ll describe the kit in detail after our return from the ice cap. The aluminium rail was skillfully produced by tinsmith Arne Linchausen at Aune Blikk. You can see him in action in the photo below. Thanks guys!

Satellite communications equipment

Terje With Lunndal — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:36:10 +0000

We are planning to update our blog on a daily basis with text and images during our crossing. To enable us to do this we need to hook up a mini computer to a satellite phone. This type of equipment is hard to come by and expensive to rent. Luckily Hugo Rolf Hansen generously agreed to lend us his satcom kit in exchange for my PLB which he carried when he set the world record for longest distance traveled by kite in 24 hours on Greenland in august 2009.

The complete kit consists of an Iridium satellite phone, data connector, mini laptop, chargers, cache battery and a flexible solar panel. In combination with some custom software this will allow us to keep in touch with all our followers on a daily basis. With any luck we will test it out on our training trip to Hardangervidda, starting on the 31. January.

Preparing the tent

Terje With Lunndal — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:48:28 +0000

Before we take a brand new tent out in winter conditions we need to pitch it in the backyard to make sure it’s fully functional and to make some small modifications. Also, since this is our first tent of this particular type, we could use some practice pitching it as well. I pitched the outer fly first and then I clipped on the inner tent. The inner tent will stay permanently mounted inside the outer fly. After verifying that the tent was intact and that all the bits and pieces were present I added some clothes lines in the ceiling for drying moist clothing and equipment. I took loads of pictures of the tent and some of the nice details. If you’re such inclined – have a look in the photo album.

New tent

Terje With Lunndal — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:57:47 +0000

We are happy to announce that we have entered a partnership with the Norwegian tent manufacturer Helsport. They have supplied us with a Helsport Svalbard High 3 Camp, which is our weapon of choice for the crossing of the ice cap. After thoroughly evaluating the Helposrt Spitsbergen 4 Camp we decided to go for a model with a smaller footprint against the wind and a more robust construction. The Svalbard model combines the spaciousness of the tunnel construction with the robustness of the dome. Below you can see the tent just after unpacking it on the living room floor. Next up is actually pitching it and testing it in winter conditions.

Insulated gaiters

Terje With Lunndal — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:24:23 +0000

Like many expeditions before us, we have had great success with the Berghaus Yeti Extreme gaiters. These particular gaiters fits like a sock around the ski boot and closes around your leg with a zipper. In addition to fixing them permanently to our boots we have experimented with insulating them with a thin layer of wool. Check out the images in the photo album.

Keeping the food warm

Terje With Lunndal — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:11:21 +0000

To be more efficient, and to avoid cleaning more than necessary, we will mix our breakfast cereal blend with boiling water directly in our eating bowls. It needs to set for a few minutes. To keep it from getting cold we are insulating the bowls using pieces of regular foam sleeping mat. This also keeps you from burning your fingers.

Our thermos flasks are also wrapped in insulation to decrease the loss of warmth. Click on the picture to see more images of the process.

Advanced sled how-to

Terje With Lunndal — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:03:44 +0000

If you choose to go for a solution like the arctic bedding, where your sleeping mats and bag is kept unrolled in a full length cover on top of your sled, the bag will protrude out from the back of the sled. To prevent excessive wear on the end of the bag, you can extend the Paris pulk with a pair of small skis in the rear. Also, you might like to fit permanent elastic cargo bands to the sled.

Click on the picture below to see the photo album with instructions on how to prepare a Paris sled for this.

Insta-sleep kit

Terje With Lunndal — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:03:56 +0000

After the tent is pitched, all you want to do is to get inside, light the stove and get in your sleeping bag. But before you can do that you have to unroll your foam sleeping mat and make it stay unrolled. Then you have to tediously inflate your inflatable sleeping mat. Finally you have to uncompress your frozen sleeping bag and fluff it up to get the proper loft. All of this eats precious time out of your schedule.

With this nifty bag we can simply leave our foam mats unrolled, our inflatables inflated and our sleeping bags lofted and dry inside the bag. The bag goes on top of the sled, which in its turn has been modified to support the extra length. The modified sled will be described later. Have a look at the pictures.

Same stove, new wrapping

Terje With Lunndal — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:02:12 +0000

All the water we need during the expedition we will have to melt ourselves. We will need 8-10 liters of water every day, so we need an efficient stove. We have chosen to use my old trusty Primus Omnifuel for this purpose. It will provide us with 3000 watts of jet sounding energy.

I have mounted the stove and its fuel bottle semi-permanently on a small sheet of plywood. The bottle is fastened with sturdy elastic bands and the stove is secured using steel wire to allow for tool free replacement with our backup stove in case of malfunction.

The whole rig can be lifted right into a clear plastic case that will protect it from damage during transport over the ice. The case in its turn fits snugly in the sled. Click on the image to geek out on more pictures from the stove-o-rama.

Our last resort

Terje With Lunndal — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:02:13 +0000

All expeditions in polar regions need to be outfitted with a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). If we find ourselves in a life threthening situation that we can’t get out of by our own devices, we will first try to call up the authorities of Greenland by sattelite phone. If that for some reason should fail we have one last resort; the PLB. Once activated, it will transmit our position via sattelite to a rescue central and they in turn will trigger a rescue mission if the weather conditions, manpower and equipment allows.

Instead of renting one in Norway for a small fortune, Terje went and purchased a brand new ACR Microfix 406 while visiting the US in January. It is small, sexy and weighs in at just 300 grams.