The Big Move

Diary By Joe Jones

Today marked the start of the move from Base Camp 2 (BC2) to Base Camp 3 (BC3) and the whole expedition was poised ready to find out if the sea ice would be adequate enough. Isbjørn made their move earlier than Polarrev as we planned to stop via the ice cave along the way. With the entrance found in quick fashion due to sizable cornices above, the Fire dropped down into a huge cavern. Supposedly more people have been to the top of Everest then inside this cave. We went about crawling, wriggling and walking 230m deep into the cave. Most importantly it was further than the previous group had gone! Once we had our moment with our head torches off in Fire headed back down, out of the cave and down to the bottom of the valley to find our pulks. The rest of the afternoon the Fire pulked across wet, slushy sea ice into the entrance of De Geerdalen. It was a huge relief that we wouldn’t have to be carrying our kit up and over the sea cliffs which put us 2 days ahead of schedule. Both Fires camped up in the same place and enjoyed supper in the warm evening sun.