We had been talking about walking to Wilkes for a while and decided to just go out and do it before the end of the winter was here.
The idea came from Steve, wanting to walk to Browning Hut, across the sea ice (about 30 kilometres), but with never having done it before, we thought it would be a good start to head to Wilkes Hut first (about eight kilometres). This way we would work out the kinks in our operation, and we found out quickly, there were a lot. Steve decided to go for the sled towing behind option, whilst Cary went with the pack on the back.
Cary said his back was nice and warm under the backpack, while Steve had a pack with water on his back, which turned into an ice block after about 20 mins and made him very cold if he stopped moving.
Trying to stop for lunch half-way was another mission on its own. Cary bought muesli bars which were great, but Steve decided to ‘eat big’ and cryovac a sandwich. Having to take his gloves off and use his leatherman to cut open the frozen solid sandwich was tough in the 35 knot winds, making the temp -35°C.-35°C.
The wind was at our backs most of the way, until we came to the last stretch before we got to Wilkes, when it started to blow almost straight on. Our faces started to freeze, we started to move a hell of a lot faster and forgot about looking around and taking in the view.
It was nice to get to Wilkes after around three hours and be met by Matt, Nick and Scotty (the support team), who had driven there in a Hägglunds, warmed up the hut and had pizzas already in the oven.
Hopefully the trip to Browning Hut will happen in the next month or so, after learning valuable lessons on the Wilkes trip.
Steven Hankins