North Pole Tenderfoot. Doug Hall

Чтение книги онлайн.

      The front of the plane held the pallet with dogs and gear.

      “Honor the process … Do your best each day … Burst your comfort zone … Value each step … Make each day’s steps better than the steps you took the day before.”

      He was on a roll, and I listened intently.

      “Focus on both the big picture and the small details … No detail is too small … Never underestimate what goes on in your head and heart … Goals are wonderful, but staying alive is the real goal … On the adventure you’ll find yourself getting into a rhythm, but it’ll still be nice to be back. It’ll be good to be home.”

      I madly scribbled notes. Maybe somewhere in all this, I might get the answer to why I was obsessed with taking this crazy trip.

      “The overall experience of such an expedition keeps feeding you—whether it’s good, bad, or in between—until the day you leave this planet,” he said.“For me, there’s been an ever-changing motive for taking on major challenges. Over the years, this has evolved into the pursuit of intangible, enriching experience.”

      I kept scribbling, not wanting him to stop. And he kept going, speaking in ornate phrases, as if he’d prepared the talk before we left.

      “The act of climbing a difficult mountain results in the convergence of the physical, mental, and spiritual realms,” he said. “I expect to experience the same sense of coming together here. I know the Arctic zone is a wonderfully beautiful part of the planet and anticipate that it will yield the kind of enriching experience that’s been a life force for me. And I know it will be one of those ever-enriching experiences that will stay with me forever.”

      Our conversation lasted nearly an hour. In some ways, what Paul said disturbed me. Who were these crazy people? In other ways, I found it fascinating.

      I dozed briefly, then was awakened by a flight attendant offering café Franklin—a combination of coffee, brandy, and whipped cream. She said it was named after the “famous polar explorer Sir John Franklin.” I flinched. He was “famous” because he DIED. He was killed along with 128 men in the greatest disaster in the history of the North and South Poles.

      I mumbled to myself, “I don’t want to be that famous!’

      Three-and-a-half hours later we arrived in Resolute Bay, Nunavut.

      A deep penetrating cold blasted us as we left the plane, the temperature standing at minus 5 degrees. With the wind chill, my temperature gadget, a special tool that measured temperature and wind speed, read minus 35 with the wind. It was my first hint of the incredible cold that would envelop us around the clock.

      We unloaded the dogs, ran out two lead lines, and clipped the dogs to them. Keeping the dogs separated on the line makes it harder for them to fight each other. Sled dogs constantly test each other for dominance, which means they can break into a fury with no warning.

      We trotted into a mechanic’s shop to warm up. Inside, Paul discovered that in the chaos of leaving the plane, he had left behind a small pack, one containing maps, contact information, our radio codes, his sextant, and other critical information.

      We looked at him with fear in our eyes. This was a huge problem that couldn’t easily be solved. The plane with Paul’s bag had already departed for its return trip south. It wouldn’t return for a week.