Mounting excitement - 100km to go

Latest updates from Anna and Karen as the team nears its destination. (Called in at noon UK time on Wednesday 31 May.)

From Anna

Yesterday we covered a further 37.16 km and completed a 238m descent. We now have only 100km to go to the pick-up point.

Today, like yesterday, the weather promises to be good with the wind behind us to carry us forward. It would be perfect weather for kiting. We have a kite with us but are afraid to use it in view of previous disasters.

My boots are still a drawback and I fell over about four times yesterday.  Things can be very slow. Now that Karen is more independent, Pasi and I find a little more time, now and again - especially in the evenings, to find temporary solutions to our footwear problems. We hope these 'fixes' will see us through to the end of our journey.

We saw the first indication that we are nearing the finish when the white snow gave way in patches to a few bumps and ice formations (Sastrugi: see picture above). It may indicate the start of crevasses but it is something different from the monotonous landscape we have been looking at so far. We also spotted some low-down clouds on the horizon and we guess these may be over the mountains on the coast.

From Karen

Whoooopeeee! It's good to be ski-ing on my own again, especially downhill with a tail-wind. The Sastrugi can sometimes slow us down though, as we try to cross these icy, hard-packed wave patterns. We have to navigate very carefully.

Socially, it is sometimes tricky. While we're ski-ing, we move in a long drawn-out single file, following each other's ski tracks. So we don't do much talking until our hourly rest breaks. At night we are split into two tents of three people and we have an awful lot to do to prepare for the following day.

Even cooking and eating can be a difficult task. And, yes, we do tend to dream of our favourite foods. Fish and chips seems to be our ideal, but Anna does get cravings for sugary, high-energy things - like Jelly babies. At rest-breaks, we sometimes do a bit of food-trading among the team.

As Anna says, the landscape is beginning to change as we near the coast. We saw a sort of ice-wall yesterday which, while frozen solid now, looks like it might be the boundary to some lakes in summer.

Wildlife? Virtually nothing. And certainly no signs of polar bears, thank goodness.

Love to you all from us all.