Hardangervidda National Park

March 2022

In February the team headed off to Norway for a 10 day expedition including 8 days pulling our pulks (sledges) over the same terrain as where Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen trained before their Antarctic expeditions.  This was a chance to trial our food, polar clothing and day to day routines as well as improve our skiing and pulk pulling technique.  During the day we would ski for an hour then have a 10 minute break where we learned to sit backs to the wind and create a small micro-climate to eat snacks and drink.  In a larger group ‘break management’ means being rigorous and ready to start on time to avoid people getting cold and make our skiing time as efficient as possible.  Each evening we would pitch our 2 and 3 person Hilleberg tents, start our primus stoves and start our evening melting water, eating and rehydrating.  This was the opportunity to have some down time and get to know our tent buddies as well as our favourite (usually food related!) treats.

Being organised in our tents was helped by our Piteraq sleep systems which allowed easy carriage and rapid set up of our sleeping bags and overnight tent equipment.

In the mornings we learned to wake early, reheat water rather than melt new snow (which takes much longer), eat breakfast, pack our pulks, strike camp and at some point fit in a quick toilet dash.

By the end of the training expedition we all had a clear idea of where our gaps and areas for improvement were and as importantly had bonded further as a team.