North Pole Tenderfoot. Doug Hall

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      Selection of the right pee bottle was challenging. Later I would learn that I made the wrong choice.

      Heading back, I felt myself start to relax, feeling that I was finally ready for the expedition. Resolving the gear issues gave my mind a space to relax.

      I decided to take a swing through Edmonton before heading back out to the airport. I stopped at a bookstore to buy a book to take with me. I went to the information desk and asked, “If you were going to the end of the earth, what one book would you take?”

      The clerk gave me a blank stare.

      I tried again, “If you were on a deserted island what one book would you want to have?”

      “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a poetry book or a Bible.” She pointed to the self-improvement section, figuring, I guess, that I needed it.

      I ended up buying a book of Ben Franklin quotes, Franklin being my personal hero. I figured that if it didn’t inspire me, I could burn it for heat or, in a pinch, use it as toilet paper.

      As I walked toward the checkout I picked up a New Testament. I figured that if it was good enough for Paul it was good enough for me. Besides, given the emotional roller coaster I was riding, it might help calm my mind.

      I returned to the hotel at around 8:30 P.M. and carried my gear to my room. I was feeling good—too good. As I moved my gear into the new pack I suddenly realized that I’d lost my mittens. My big, blue, double-insulated plunge mitts were missing. I tore through my bags, my jackets, my gear, turning everything inside out.

      The mittens were critical. I had to have them.

      I backtracked. I’d had them at the ski resort that afternoon. I remembered taking them off to demonstrate the satellite phone. I was up and out of the room, running down to the truck that had taken us to the resort and back.

      I pawed through the truck and the dog crates. Nothing. I ran back upstairs to look again. Nothing. Then back to the truck again to look under the seats and beneath the sleds. Nothing.

      Tornarsuk the fear dragon appeared again.

      I called Paul’s room and asked if he’d seen my blue plunge mitts. Nope. I called Craig, then David. Double nope.

      After one more trip to the truck and back I was in a state of panic.

      I had no recourse but to call my new friend Matt at Valhalla Pure Outfitters.

      “Hey, it’s me again, do you have any really really warm mittens? You do? Excellent! What time do you close? In ten minutes? Uh, um, okay. Do you think it would it be possible for someone to bring a pair of those gloves to me? It would? You’re awesome, man!”

      Twenty minutes later, I had a spanking new pair of two hundred-dollar mitts. I gave Matt a hundred-dollar tip. I also gave him a Great Aspirations! Expedition patch and my eternal thanks. He seemed happier with the patch than the money.

      Tuesday, April 13: It was 6:25 A.M. My blind terror from the previous night’s exertions had worn me out, giving me six hours of uninterrupted sleep, the most I’d gotten in five days. The curse of my missing mittens had turned into a blessing. Amazing.

      But a sudden spiral of doubt started turning again. What if I didn’t have the energy to make this trip? What if, despite all my training, I really wasn’t ready? What if I was just totally nuts? One conclusion seemed clear: I had no business being on this trip. None whatsoever.

      I opened one of the notes Debbie and the kids had secretly packed in my bags. Without me finding out, they had packed a collection of small, folded notes in every nook and cranny of my pack. I had found them the day before and placed them all in a plastic bag. I’d decided to open one whenever I really needed a boost of confidence. This seemed like one of those moments.

      I grinned at what I read:

      My wife had the kids secretly stash notes in my backpack.

      My wife Debbie’s support for this crazy idea went far beyond what would be considered reasonable.

      Instantly, I had more courage. My family’s faith in me was greater than my faith in myself.

      At breakfast, in front of the whole team, Paul asked about the status of my blue plunge mitts. Terrific, I thought. Expose me as a total fool for losing my mittens.

      With a big, pearly white, totally engaging smile, Paul told me he’d found them in the truck and put them in the spare clothing bag.

      Paul found my mittens and enjoyed the site of watching me panic. I didn’t mind being the “fool” as long as I had my mittens.

      What a relief! On second thought, what the hey?!?! If he’d found my mitts in the truck, then, well, you get my drift. What kind of psychological magic was he working now? What lesson was I supposed to learn? Or was my role to be the entertainment for the team?

      I remembered something Paul had said in an interview in the New York Times. “Trips are too predictable when everyone’s a veteran. It’s much more interesting to watch a bunch of people who are still trying to figure out what to do.” It looked like I would be providing lots to watch.

      By 7:30 A.M., we were packing the dogs, sleds, and gear at Canadian Air Cargo. It took two hours to load it all onto the shipping pallet that would go into the plane.

      The scene was a bit chaotic.

      Paul was negotiating on the fly, so to speak, with the Canadian Airways representative, working to make sure all our gear was loaded. The issue was weight. The airline was used to this game. The seats had been removed from the front half of the passenger compartments. A set of doors on the side of the plane allowed for loading pallets. Our eighteen dogs in their crates with our sleds filled one pallet. There were also several pallets of perishable goods like eggs, lettuce, and bacon.

      The dogs were loaded into kennels and onto a pallet.

      At 11:30 A.M., we finished loading, and I took my seat in the rear for the flight through Yellowknife to Resolute. I’ve never seen so much carry-on luggage before or since.

      A woman in front of me shrieked when I went to put my bag in the overhead compartment. “Watch my donuts!” she hollered. She must’ve been packing six dozen.

      I settled in next to Paul Pfau, the last person to join the expedition. A deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, Paul had been climbing mountains for thirty years. He’d led four expeditions to the summit of Mt. Everest. In fact, he was climbing Everest—”gratefully so,” he says—when his colleagues stood in the global СКАЧАТЬ