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Progrss record - 1 June 2006.
(The above map image will be regularly updated to show the expedition's progress. It is updated and provided by Boele Ruurd Kulpers of the Norwegian Polar Institute - a friend of the expedition team. )
Note: PC users with Google Earth can download the KMZ data and see what the team is doing.
This will be the first traverse of Greenland by a team which includes a disabled woman. The 600-kilometre, five-week wilderness journey - beginning on May 2nd 2006 - will take the team across the ice cap, starting out from near Tasilaq on the east coast to Kangerlussuaq on the west coast.
Once this ground-breaking journey has been completed, there will be no environment left on earth which is impossible to access by anyone who, irrespective of ‘ability’, has the will and courage to journey there. By pushing back the boundaries of knowledge about safe access to the arctic / winter outdoor environment for the disabled. This in turn will make similar journeys viable options for other disabled people worldwide.
In January 2004, Karen was one of a group of friends visiting Anna and Pasi in Finnish Lapland. After a day of begging and borrowing specialist kit and clothing and then another day of adapting a cross-country ski to fit her, she was ready to join the group and to venture out into the wilderness. Two hours later, with temperatures dropping to –35 C, even the able bodied participants had had enough. Everyone started to head for home.
For Karen, however, the experience had been a revelation. While it was not the first time, since the accident that had left her paralysed, that she had been able to journey under her own power into the wilderness, it was her first attempt on ice -and by ski. Alone in the Arctic landscape of Finnish Lapland, we stopped to let her enjoy the silence of the creaking snow-covered branches and the whistling of the wind in the trees. She had found a sport that provided access to the silence of the wilderness - something she had craved for many years. When we got home, however, she realised that her feet had already frozen and that severely cold spots had developed in quite a few spots on her body. (Paraplegics produce no heat from the level of their breaks down, and can only, therefore check how warm they are by physically feeling their body parts - something that had been too difficult for Karen to judge that first day).
As the seriousness of the situation dawned on the rest of the group, we sat down to discuss the challenges that the cold brings to paraplegics. We decided then and there, to not only figure out a way to enable her to continue to enjoy cross country skiing as a sport but to go even further than that. We decided to find a project that would be so inspirational that outdoor companies would gather behind it and use it as a galvanising tool for the development of winter kit and clothing for disabled explorers. In this way, we hoped to be able to facilitate access not only to cross country skiing, but also to true wilderness back-country skiing for the disabled.
The Greenland project was born.
A key expedition goal is the collation and dissemination of the technical and theoretical knowledge developed through the process of getting this ambitious project off the ground.
So far, we have helped to design, test, refine and develop proto-types of an adapted tent, sit-ski, sleeping bag, protective clothing system (including heat sensing and providing clothes), and even an inclusive expedition ‘leave no trace’ toilet. Because of the generous support of the partners who have worked with us on these projects, we believe that it is now as safe for Karen to access the wilderness as it is for the able bodied team members.
Post-expedition, we will obviously be communicating about the inclusive aspect of the expedition and attempting to encourage other disabled explorers to access this unique environment in a way that has previously not been possible.
We will be running regular inclusive cross country journeys in association with organisations like Interventure, the Scottish Hand-Cycling Club, the Integrate Paddling Club, ‘Equal Adventures’, and The John Muir Trust.
In addition to this, however, we will be taking the wider inspirational message of the journey to people throughout the UK and Scandinavia through a combination of radio and TV broadcasts, national paper, outdoor and lifestyle magazine coverage and - last but not least - through an organised lecture tour by some of the UK’s top motivational speakers which will be used to put further funds into the project and, in turn, to facilitate opportunities for exploration by other disabled adventurers.
"For some people, just getting up in the morning is too much effort. I tell them, "Look, life is like a muscle; if you don't use it, stretch it, it will waste away."
"You can't do anything if you lack the courage to fail. All my life I've had people telling me that this or that isn't possible, and I've always known that the toughest climb of all is Mount Closed Mind."
- Norman Croucher. (Norman lost his legs below the knee when 19 and recently ascended Cho).
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