29 December 2000: Arrived at Reykjavik and was picked up by Halldor Kvaran, with whom I have been talking on email, about Vatnajokull, for four and a half years. At Halldor's home, I transferred all my gear to his larger and superior expedition sled. I also loaded in 12.7 liters of white gas for my expedition stove, and took a number of spare items given to me by Halldor, including a spare stove (MSR Whisperlight -- my main stove was an MSR XGK-II), smoke grenades, handheld and aerial flares (for rescue scenarios), dried fish rations, candles, extra ski poles, an extra GPS unit, an NMT telephone for domestic communcation, and an Ericsson Globalstar satellite telephone with extra battery. I had arranged to contact support members in London and San Diego to make daily updates to the web site tracking my progress. The sled, loaded, weighed roughly 60 kg (130lb), containing food, supplies and stove fuel for roughly 40 days. Although my 100-mile trek should only take 10-30 days, depending on conditions, it was important, particularly because I was alone, to take a large food and stove fuel reserve. I felt good about the supplies I had packed. The following list indicates my basic gear:

After loading this gear into the larger sled, Halldor and I drove 7 hours to the east side of Iceland on road 1, the Ring Road. Switching to 4-wheel drive mode and maneuvering his Trooper like a tank, Halldor drove us up into the Hoffel valley, towards the southwest tip of Lambatungujokull, my ascent glacier. After giving me instructions in the use of the communication devices, Halldor wished me good luck, hopped into his vehicle, and began his moon-rover like truck journey down the valley. I watched for a while, until the lights of his vehicle disappeared bountain ridge, a massive blak hulk which dwarfed the truck. Ten hours off the plane, I was alone and in my tent, ready to start carrying loads towards the glacier in the morning. As I burrowed into my sleeping bag inside my tent, I felt similar to the day in 1995, when my climbing partner and I watched as our drop-off plane diminished in size, became silent, and passed from sight, leaving us alone to our Alaskan expedition. It was a great feeling, a cocktail of exhilaration, ambition, self-confidence, and, of course, some apprehension.

30 December 2000: With daylight I discovered that an 800m (2,400+foot) mountain ridge stood between me and the Lambatungujokull ascent glacier. This had been indicated on the map, but was significantly erroneously indicated on the map; it looked far smaller,vation was incorrect. Nevertheless, I began the day by examining the ridge; sliding volcanic rock under a dusting of dry, cold snow led in a 40-55 degree slope upwards; occasional steeper steps above deathfalls required me to put on crampons and use the axe. I did not feel the need to fix a rope, however, and in general I found the slope to be manageable, and returned to my camp for supplies to carry up as the first cache. I would have to spend a week or so 'humping' my supplies over the ridge and onto the ascent glacier. I had planned for such a possibility, and was not too concerned with this immediate change of plans.

I loaded 5 days' food and most of my fuel into my small pack, took them back up the ridge, and cached them just below the ridge top, not wanting to lose them in the event of high wind. At this time wind was moderate, temperatures were around -14C (+14F) before windchill (which dropped temperatures to c.-20C) and conditions were quite good. As I had experienced difficulties with my communcations units the night before, I now hiked seven miles SSE towards a small farm at the bottom of the Hoffell valley; here I was warmly greeted by Hordur Gudjonnson, owner of the farm and, by wild coincidence, a bit of an adventurer himself; he'd just been a crewmember on the Islendigur, the Icelanding Viking ship replica which had sailed from Reykjavik to New York City via Greenland and Newfoundland. Hordur helped me with my phones; I had been dialling incorrectly. In my completely exhausted, jet-lagged state, I had misunderstood Halldor's instructions the before. I made my way up the valley, seven miles back to my camp, and after a rather long day made dinner. I noted increasing winds as I drifted to sleep.

31 December 2000: Carried more food and gear up towards the top of the ridge. I did not, however, ever crest the ridge, again choosing to cache equipment where it would be safe from violent wind. 'Knocked off' a bit early, choosing to get some sleep and to try to get rid of the jet lag. After cooking, I noted the wind increasing dramatically. Consulting my barometer, I watched the atmospheric pressure dropping like a rock. A storm was brewing, and quickly. The sun sank below the horizon at 4:30pm, and soon afterwards the valley was transfigured from a rather benign but barren environment to a wind-scoured and inhospitable Hell. By nine p.m. the temperature had dropped to -20C (-5F); combined with winds in excess of 74kph (46mph), windchill dropped to -52C, or -62F. A good thing I was inside the tent, where, within the several layers of my sleeping system, and wearing heavy pile clothes, and with a thermos of hot tea, I remained relatively warm. Throughout the night, the storm built and my tent began to bend severly under the sustained wind. About 90% of the wind came directly onto the West flank of the tent, which was completely unexpected given the landscape: I had set the tent up to take most of the wind from the North.  I had to hold the tent skeleton up by leaning forcibly back on the West main pole, but even so the aircraft-grade aluminum poles were giving way, bending crazily.

As the wind increased in force, it began to come from every possible angle in forceful gusts which threatened to uproot my entire tent. I was astounded and terrified by the speed at which the wind changed directions and seemed to crash down like a wave breaking right on top of my tent. I even, for the first time in more than 20 years outdoors, experienced wind blasts from directly above the tent, in a bizarre vertical downdrafts of super-cooled air. This was a very strange phenomenon which often pushed the tent down so hard on my back that I feared being pressed to the ground and suffocated. I also began to fear the rockfall and icefall that can be caused by high winds, and I wrapped my neck with exta clothes and stuffed extra gloves into my hat to protect my head from rocks which might punch right through the tent walls. The mountain I was camped beneath was steep and unstable, and I knew rocks would be flying that night -- the only question was, where would they land? Intermittently I heard small pebbles skim off the tent, but thankfully none penetrated the fabric.

During the night I used my Kestrel wind and temperature guage to keep track of the conditions, which worsened continually; atmospheric pressure dropped to a low of 888mb, wind gusts exceeded 118kph (75mph) and windchills dropped off the chart after plunging below -65C (-85F). I knew that if my tent were to blow out, I would be in serious trouble; in this wind, I would have no chance of standing up, much less hiking out for help. The tent shook so continuously and violently that sleep was out of the question. I put in earplugs and put on my mittens, perpearing myself, mentally and physically, for an evacuation of the tent. I literally had to push outward against the wind as the tent fabric pushed against my back, feeling as though I had put the tent up in the midst of a river.

By the light of my headlamp, I put on all of my clothing, and boots, in preparation for a survival-mode evacuation. I hung my knife around my neck, fully expecting, at this point, for the tent to be destroyed, and that I would have to cut my way out to avoid being blown down the mountain valley, helplessly wrapped inside the tent. This has happened to mountaineers, and I did not want to become such a statistic.

Prepared for the worst, I wrapped up again in my sleeping bag, and continued to support the tent with my back, grinding my teeth and telling myself that everything would be alright and thinking back of the many mountain storms I had weathered. I could not remember one so violent, and my composure threatened to crumble as the relentless wind, seemingly bent on prying my tent from the ground, continued to thrash and hammer at my minute oasis of life in this black and gale-swept valley.

I thought of the millions of people celebrating the New Year and New Millennium around the world while I, for reasons I have all but quit pondering, chose to be huddled alone in a tent in Iceland, in winter, about to embark on a solo trek across the ice cap. I decided that I was a fool. Some minutes later, I realized that I was not a fool. And so my thinking went for hour after sleepless hour, while the wind thrashed the tent and slowly but surely bent its poles out of shape.

1 January 2001: I greeted the first of the year and millennium hunched over in my tent, supporting the frame in the continuing storm. For 15 hours, I spent all my energy holding up the skeleton of the tent. During this time there was no question of filming or cooking, or anything other than keeping the tent together. The sun edged above the horizon, and bnegan its daily 'crawl', but I remained in the tent as the wind continued to howl for hour after hour. I had cramps from holding the tent up with my back, and I changed to occasionally support the West wall with my legs. I was slightly light-headed from the lack of food or water, and the constant strain and worry. I ate some chocolate and felt a bit better. Finally, in the afternoon, the wind tapered off somewhat, from a sustained roar to sobbing gusts which hit the tent like an explosion. I quickly made some adjustments to my situation. During my several hours of daylight, I tried to bend some poles back into proper shape, but they seemed permanently mis-shapen. I made a quick cup of tea, and took down some of the tent poles to reduce the surface area of tent presented to the wind. I tied off the excess bundle of tent fabric, and, as the wind began to increase again, and the sun crept towards the horizon, I dashed outside and dragged the sled on top of the deflated third of the tent, and burrowed myself into the surviving 2/3 of the shelter. I was still completely dressed and prepared with the knife to cut myself loose in the even that the entire tent was ripped from the ground, which I knew was a possibility.

So went the better part of the second day of the storm, and I began to relax a bit as the wind did not seem to be increasing, and I was able to rest in a prone position for some time. However, as I was contemplating the dangers of getting some hours of sleep, the wind began to increase, and I watched with horror as it seemed to literally grab the tent fabric and flap it as a demented shark thrashes its' prey from side to side. I became convinced that the tent would be picked up and blown away. I decided the tent was becoming more of a liability than an asset. In my cramped 2/3 of the tent, which was only about body length long and a meter (about a yard) wide to start with, I felt vulnerable; the wind could blast me away completely. I decided to take my chances by descending the valley towards Hordur's farm, where I could recoup. Clearly, I thought, I could not go up on the ice cap in this sort of weather -- a full-blown hurricane had narrowly missed destroying me last night. I was exhausted and dehydrated with the sustained effort and worry of the past 18 hours; I decided it was time to make a run for it, rather than to sit here and be steadily worn down by the wind.

So, the decision was made -- now I directed all my energy towards a safe retreat. As quickly as I could, in the sub-arctic twilight, I packed my gear and then evacuated the tent, hastily but carefully stowing gear. When I crawled outside, I could barely stand in the wind, and hard snow flew horizontally through the air, scouring any exposed flesh. I had to work very carefully to pick a stable stance against the gusting wind, and to hold on to each item of gear lest it be instantly whipped away by the wind. I wrapped my hat and mask and gogles securely against my face and began packing for a 'General Evacuation'. Into my pack I threw several days' food, the stove and a liter of fuel, maps, a flare, a pot with lid and a spoon, other basic survival items; I spent a long time, with frozen hands, pulling up the tent stakes and stuffing my sleeping bag and the tent into my backpack; I then took up my axe and put on my crampons, always an agonizing chore at 30 below. Finally, I started down the valley. I knew that roughly seven miles SSE lay Hordur's farm; seven miles as the bird flies, closer to nine when all the convolutions necessary to walk though rough bouldery terrain, in the dark, were counted in. There was also a frozen river to cross, which I knew had water tunning beneath some thin patches of ice; there were also abrupt drop-offs, cliffs, to the West, that I must avoid in the dark. Nevertheless, anything was better than staying in the valley; I felt another night would destroy my tent, and that would be my end.

I took a bearing into the gloom as the twilight faded and the cold Hoffell Valley again became dark and utterly forbidding. I switched on my headlamp, which only served to illuminate a thick and endless blast of countless snowflakes rushing around and past me and into the blackness ahead. With the loss of the sun the temperature dropped considerably and I moved as quickly as I dared. The wind, from directly behind me, seemed intent on shoving me bodily downhill. I could barely walk, and I knew the windchills were extreme, at least -40C (-40F), so I kept moving.

My gait was strange and something directly out of the 'Ministry of Silly Walks'. My feet were more than shoulder width apart, for stability; I took short steps for the same reason, never wanting the wind to get the upper hand on my body mass. Above my wide-splayed feet, my legs rose, bent significantly at the knee to prevent coming down on a locked knee in the rugged terrain; my pelvis was thrust forward like some wierd ghetto-pimp, again for stability, and my upper body and shoulders were leaning far back, literally leaning against the wind which pushed me violently like a large hand, shoving, shoving me down the mountain valley. I was literally being blown down the valley by the wind. If I tripped and was knocked out, my body would simply tumble along the ground until it lodged on a boulder or crashed through the ice forming a skin over the river.

Dry, cold snow continued to blast past my face, and began creating drifts on the black, rocky ground. My visions were strange and disorienting, and I moved mostly by instinct and a feel for the ground beneath my boots; directly before my eyes was the relentless blast of snowflakes, just horizontal white lines blinking on and off instantaneously, across my whole field of view, without cease. It was utterlyu disorienting and for a moment I doubted my decision to leave the tent...Beyond the white lines of the snowflakes, blackness, and an occasional cloudy white blob, a drift of snow. I often stumbled into these drifts, which was generally alright as they did not represent cliffs, but solid matter. I became nervous when I had seen no drifts for some time, and where I occasionally, from knowing the valley from my previous hikes, felt I was about to walk off a cliff. Several times I dropped to hands and knees and crawled forward into the darkness, probing with my axe. One time I did find a steep drop-off this way, and I skirted around it, desending steeply and gratefully towards the valley floor.

I stumbled more than picked my way down the valley, being violently handled by the wind, disoriented and dehydrated. Sometimes I encountered the glassy surface of one of the many braided streams which flow down the valley and out to sea...when the ice sounded solid after a strike with the axe, I crunched across in my crampons, hoping against hope that each footfall would be secure. Once I went in to the knee, and bolted up and backwards like a startled horse, but this was the only mishap. Several times I crossed wider stream sections by laying on my belly and pulling myself across the ice with the ice axe...in doing this the wind was so strong that it helped by blowing me across the ice. At these times I realized how close to out-of-control my situation was. I rationalized that had I stayed in the tent, I would have been in a worse situation; but it was hard to imagine what could be worse than staggering around in a raging blizzard, at 30 below, with six feet of visibility, at night, seeking some shelter from the wind where I might bivouac. Well, I thought, I had made the decision to hike out, now I had to live with it.

After some hours of wandering down the Hoffell Valley, I found the rocky ground beginning to level off -- more ice crunched beneath my boots, and the wind tapered off ever so slightly as the valley broadened and the steep mountain walls tilted back from the near-vertical. As visibility increased, I spotted some large boulders, perhaps five hundred meters (a quarter of a mile) ahead. I zig-zagged towards them, trampling heedlessly over frozen hummocks of tundra. My bones were jarred and nerves were jangled as I tried to keep on course across the uneven surface. As I neard the large, black rocks, I realized they had of course come from the mountain slopes above. THey could have fallen years ago, or hours ago, dislodged by the wind. I continued ahead, and then stepped from the gale and into the quiet, windless lee side of a boulder. For the first time in 21 hours, the roar of the wind dropped off...I realized how exhausted I was with the silence. Out of the wind, it seemed that I had stepped into a bubble of protected space. Snow and wind dashed all around me, but the lee side of the boulder was relatively peaceful except for the occasional blast of off-angle wind. "To hell with it," I thought, glancing at the adjacent mountain ridge. "If I get crushed by more boulders, I'll never know it, because in ten minutes I am going to be fast asleep."

I dropped to a seated position, leaning against the boulder, and wrenched my frozen backpack from my shoulders. My legs stuck out like a child's and I plopped the pack between my legs to unload it. The fabric of the backpack was stiff as cardboard. I was so exhausted I could barely work the zippers and straps to open the pack. As I worked, my mind drifted, and I suddenly became very interested in the minute details of the plastic buckle of one of my pack straps. Seated there in the lee of the boulder, as if I were a mere marionette, my gloved hand brought the buckle to within an inch of my goggles, and I began examining in minute detail, by the light of my headlamp, the little black plastic fastener...My head nodded forward, my eyelids seemed to be dragged down...With a start, I caught myself falling asleep; I jerked myself back to consciousness. "Come on, Cameron!" I thought, breathing quickly, and deeply "Get with it! Get the tent up! Tea! Stove!  Tea!  Chocolate!  Sleep!" I struggled into a standing position and flapped my arms to revive my frozen fingers. Soon the aganizing 'hot aches' told me my fingers were not frostbitten, only somewhat frozen. After my momentary return of clear thinking, my mind lapsed again and I reverted to 'robot mode', in which I erected the twisted little tent working more as an automaton than a human being.

Although I was in some shelter, with the large boulder looming behind me, the wind continued to work on the tent, whipping it into a riotous explosion of fabric which bucked and flapped in my hands as I struggled to pin it down, like a wrestlera punch-drunk wrestler on his last leg...I anchored the corners, and having used my ice hammer as a tent stake, I could find no other object than my steel thermos bottle to hammer in the remaining ice pegs. I been in myu right mind, I would have pulled up the ice hammer to drive in the other pegs...but I was not in my right mind, I was exhausted from more than 20 hours of sustained effort, worry, and a lack of food and water; I was also freezing cold, such that my abdominal muscles were shivering wildly.  The work was clumsy in my heavy mittens, and I breathed hard through my neoprene mask. Finally I was able to crawl into the tent. I didn't bother to remove my boots or shell clothes; I just loosened them before crawling into my multi-layered sleeping bag. I did not allow my eyes to close more than half way, but I allowed myself a long spell of relaxation. I'd made it, for the moment. I was in relative shelter, but I knew that the wind could change direction, and blow me and the tent away, and I was determined not to be taken, too much, by surprise.

After some minutes of lying thawing in the sleeping bag, I somehow sd into a seated position and managed to get the stove going. The pre-warming stage of lighting the MSR stove was always dangerous, with unpredictable columns and balls of flame often threatening the tent. It was too windy to light the stove outside the tent door, however, and I had to zip the door entirely and light the stove with extreme care. It worked. I was exhausted, but happy everything was working. I melted snow for water, and took my second drink of hot liquid in two days. I didn't bother with tea, just hot water, tasting of lava gravel and stove fuel, but it was hot and it was liquid and I drank several pints. My brain, which had felt as if it had withered like a bean and was rattling around in my skull, seemed to be re-energized with the water, and my thinking cleared. Giggling with glee, I prepared some food, and soon from my tent wafted the primitive moans and mutterings of a human being joyous to be alive, eating, and drinking, in shelter from a storm.

Some time later, these sounds were followed by the clanking of empty pots, the long zipping sound of my securing the sleeping bag, and most likely very soon after that, the hearty snores of a slumbering mountain traveller. Outside, the wind continued to scour the valley, moaning and raging against the rocky peaks and over the wide expanses of frozen, broken ground. For the moment, I slept. I had escaped.

2-5 January 2001: After the windstorm, and recovering most of my cached gear and food (some had been blown away), I was able to get a ride to the fishing port of Hofn, about 20 miles from the Hoffell Valley. I settled into a hostel and considred the situation. At first, I wrote off the expedition, rationaliziong that I would be blown away on the plateau, that I had over-estimated myself and under-estimated the conditions, that the lack of snow would prevent me from digging snow shelters. For the first time in some years, I had been truly frightened by the environment. But after a telephone discussion with Halldor, and some thinking, I decided to try again. My confidence returned, but I did feel that the lack of snow would continue to be a problem. Nevertheless, I would cast myself upon the ice cap and try to make my journey. The wind -- well, I would just have to gamble. Some dangers on expeditions are manageable, but there are others that simply must be accepted or rejected, as they cannot be controlled in any way. On this expedition, I knew, the major hazard was the wind, and it had struck down my first attempt with ease, literally blowing me and my gear down the Valley, denying me even a foothold on Lambatungujokull. I would make a second attempt, and I would take the chance of being caught in another windstorm. "If one wishes to dance, one must pay the piper."

I had a few days to wait for Halldor, and I lounged about in Hofn, gobbling fatty foods and quaffing sodas to try to rehydrate my apparently mummified brain. I could not get enough to drink. I occasionally spoke with some Icelanders, who were quite reserved and cordially distant. I spoke to several people about the storm; they were all amazed that I had been in its' midst, and that I had survived. "This storm was very serious," said one of the stoic, hard-living fishermen in a smoky, dim cafe where I spent some hours looking over my maps. The fishermen all wore foul-weather overalls, similar to my one-piece, orange mountain suit, and their normal reserve was overwhelmed by their curiosity; they chuckled grimly at my descriptions of the storm, knowing all too well what it is to be exposed in such weather. It felt good to be congratulated by one of the fishermen on surviving. Out of the cafe window we could see a massive plume of snow being blown off the ice cap plateau, thirty miles distant. "Better o be here, eh?" one fisherman asked as we walked out of the cafe and into the perpetual, icy wind. I could only smile and nod.

As I waited for Halldor to arrive and transport me to the Skeidararjokull glacier for a second attempt, I re-packed some of my gear, replaced some food stores, and surveyed my maps. I made a plan to ascend Skeidararjokull to the ice cap plateau, spend some time exploring the geologically-active Grimsvotn region of the ice cap plateau, and then descend towards the original pickup point at Jokulheimar. This would not be a full crossing of the ice cap, but I would salvage the expedition and make an interesting journey of roughly 50 miles.

6 January 2001: I waved goodbye to Halldor and Ingvar as they turned around and trekked down the Skeidararjokull. They had hiked half a mile up the foot of the glacier with me as I dragged my sled Northwards towards the ice cap plateau. The Skeidararjokull was wet, with little snow. I travelled not on ski, but with crampons on my boots biting into the wet ice of the glacier surface. I was concerned by the lack of snow, but Halldor had assured me that the firn line -- the place where the permanent snow-pack began -- was just a few miles ahead, and that I should have no difficulty reaching Grimsvotn in a few days. As I listened to the sled grating across the bare ice, I wondered what adventures lay ahead.

On the first day on Skeidararjokull, I moved generally Northward, stopping occasionally to log my position on my GPS unit. It felt great to be dragging the sled, and I enjoyed the strenuous work. I was thrilled with the fact that I was finally on my way, pulling, as I had been planning to do for some years.

I slowly gained elevation up the low grade of the glacier. Strange ice and snow features, sculpted by wind, sun and rain, occasionally caught my eye. The ice, in places, was transparent for some feet, and I would occasionally look down to see my boots tramping across what appeared to be a thick pane of irregular glass. I knew the ice was hundreds of feet thick, of course, but the transparency was odd and at first it did feel like walking on a glass floor at the top of a skyscraper...

I continued pulling well into the night, not wanting to stop in fine weather and on decent terrain. Why stop? By seven pm I noticed some old, weathered cracks in the ice, their once-sharp edges rounded by melting. I was entering crevasse terrain, four miles up the glacier, but there was no snow bridging the crevasses. The crevasses were generally parallel with the long axis of the glacier, that is, running North/South. This meant that I had to begin travelling on the ridges of ice between crevasses. This was no problem at this time, but I knew that I would have problems if I did not reach the firn line soon, as the crevasses would only get deeper, and the ridges between them steeper, with each mile North.

I ended the day by setting up the tent on a relatively flat surface, anchoring all my gear to the sled, and securing my tent with ice screws. I was not about to have another wind-storm swat down my second attempt.

7 January 2001: Clear and cold is the best combination for ice work, and I woke to a perfect, if slightly warm, day. As the stove roared to life and I began the morning chores of cooking and packing up, I peered outside my tent. Not a cloud in sight; stars dotted the twilight sky. It was only around freezing, however, and this concerned me. During th day it would probably warm up, and this would effect the firn line and the strength of whatever crevasse bridges existed.

I pulled through increasing crevasses, Northwards. After a while, my course was dictated by the terrain. I could only travel where the terrain was not so steep as to allow the sled to slip downwards. Such areas became restricted to the ridges between crevasses -- there were no more flat plateaus or expanses of crack-free ice. And still, the firn line did not appear. The first kernel of doubt grew in my mind...I knew the crevasses would only get worse...the question now was, could I reach the firn line? How long would it take?

As the crevasse terrain became more chaotic, I occasionally had to back-track when I'd reached a dead end. I also had many episodes in which the sled tipped over, while I pulled over a steep feature, and had to be righted. This was always a struggle, as the sled was a dead weight of roughly 130lb. I had to 'wrestle the pig' at least a dozen times, to force it from whatever low point in the topography it had worked into. By this time I was pulling the sled by holding the harness in my right hand, my ice axe in the left hand as a balance and a lever for righting the sled. I did not dare to keep the sled buckled to me with the harness, as this would only result in my being dragged to a horrible death, wedged in a crevasse, unable to climb out.

After innumerable sled-wrestling episodes, some back-tracking, some scouting ahead to find a path, and much frustration, I finally set up the tent and prepared dinner. I had covered about three miles today, but had advanced up the glacier by only a mile or so. This was discouraging. I had to find a way through the maze, and I resolved to be more careful with my routefinding and to make more reconnaisance hikes ahead, to avoid back-tracking and dead-ends.

8 January 2001: Again perfect weather, if slightly too warm; but a labrynth of ice now barred my progress. I spent the better part of the day scouting ahead, carrying only a backpack with some 'last-ditch' supplies (in case I was separated from my sled, for whatever reason, and had to make a dash for survival). I searched Northwest, due North and Northeast, but found only mile upon mile of impassable crevasse terrain. I climbed the highest ice ridge I could and looked ahead with the monocular over miles of broken ice. And, there it was -- the firn line. Miles away...white, solid snow, packed and firm...perhaps seven miles ahead? I was excited...I could reach it, in time, but not with the sled. I would have to carry loads, like a sherpa, establishing caches ahead and then returning through the crevasses to haul forward the empty sled. It would mean a lot of work, and travelling at least 21 miles to make 7 miles ahead, but I would try. The work might cost me four to five days, and I hoped that the weather would hold. The main concern was to move quickly, as I would have to consume much of my 'storm rations', food I had reserved for a prolonged storm, in order to do the carries to the firn line. Well, that was simply something I would have to do, and hope for the best weather once on the ice cap. The last few days might be a bit lean, but I had experienced that before, and the thought was not too bad. Far worse was the thought of turning back at this point.

I turned to look back at the sled. It was out of sight, probably two miles behind me, hidden behind some ridge of ice or in a low point. Previously I had marked it's position on my GPS, which indicated the bearings to back-track. A great tool, but electronics can always fail, and at this point I began to also triangulate my position by taking bearings off the mountains to the East and West, with my standard compass. I was not going to be lost simply because of a GPS failure.

As I worked my way back to the sled, I found a sort of path which I had not seen before, and I decided to pull the sled absolutely as far North as possible before starting to carry loads.

One incident brought me to a standstill and told me that it was clearly time to begin carrying. I was pulling the sled, still loaded, Northwards on a ridge of ice. The ridge was only a foot or so wide, and dropped off steeply to the left and right, into the blackness of deep, lethal crevasses. I was, by necessity, holding the sled harness in my hands, and walking backwards, taking one extremely-carefully selected step at a time. I would look behind me, step backwards, setting the crampon with a firm kick, repeat with the other boot, and then slowly pull the sled forward, a foot or so at a time. If I lost control of the sled, I would let it go, but it would crash down into a crevasse and I would have a devil of a time recovering it (if that were even a possibility); so I moved with utmost care.

At one point I tried to lift my right boot for the next step, and instantly found myself off-balance. I knew immediately what had happened -- the spikes of my left crampon had become jammed into the metal frame of the right crampon. The ridge was so narrow, and my footsteps had to be so close together, that this had nearly happened several times, though I had prevented it before. This time I had inadvertently hobbled myself. Off-balance, I tilted left, then right...I furiously worked the muscles of my left leg to disentangle the crampons -- but I had to do it gently, as a sudden movement would throw me down into either of the crevasses. As I tilted off-balance, I instinctively held tighter to the sled harness as a means of keeping balance. This only served to increase the danger, as the sled began to move, almost imperceptibly, downslope and to the left. I was in a cold sweat, my heart hammering, and still I could not disengage the crampons.

I was teetering on one foot, holding onto the sliding sled, on the one-foot wide ice ridge between two crevasses. I was going to fall. All the muscles in my torso sprang tight, trying to keep me in balance. Suddenly the crampons disengaged; I kicked hard to set my crampons and with all my effort wrenched hard on the sled harness to bring it back to equillibrium on the ridge top. It worked. I stood absolutely still in the silence of the glacier, my mind racing, then blank.  I chastised myself for being so careless, took a few moments to compose myself, and then continued on, repeating my method with greater care and thinking only of how to maximize the efficiency and saftey of each movement. Finally I reached a juncture between ice ridges, and I could rest.

I secured the sled in a reasonable spot and packed the first load into my backpack. I then carried the load forward, also carrying my ski-bag and some flags which I set up as trail-markers though the ice. Carrying loads was far safer than pulling the sled, but it took much longer, and I had to cover five miles for each mile forward (ahead with a load, back to the sled, ahead with a second load, back to the sled, ahead with the sled). Also, this was not emptying the sled entirely, but it did eliminate almost all of the weight. Finally at the end of the day I had carried my loads and moved the sled a mile North. Slow progress, but progress.

This was an exhausing and dangerous day, with several close calls. Still, I had sorted out my method of ascending towards the firn-line. It would take longer than expected, but I'd make it. In the tent this night I realized that I was scarcely paying any attention to my food. I was so tired by the end of each day that I simply boiled the water, poured it over my dehydrated meal, and ate. I was so exhausted each day because I was carrying all the work -- all the mental strain, every single action, I had to do it all, there was no-one to assist in anything. Also, I had to be constantly on the alert to changes in the topography, my own actions, the direction of the wind...everything. While hiking and climging alone and unroped through the crevasses, snagging my crampon spike on a bump of ice, or on the cuff of my shell suit would lead to my tumbling and sliding down into one of the crevasses. In many places, a single mis-step would mean death, as I had found earlier in the day. Much of my work was done in twilight or darkness, and much of it was very dangerous. All of this was rewarding, as well as tiring... No, I was not thinking about the taste of my food...all my thought was on the path ahead, and in the hope for continued good weather, although deep down, as a mountaineer, I knew that the weather would in all probability change for the worse before too long. I just hoped that I would be able to move ahead appreciably before that happened.

9 January 2001: The weather continued to hold today, although some low clouds blew in from the Northwest and a slight haze developed. I began the day by scouting ahead before carrying my loads; the crevasse terrain was so complex that I feared carrying a load ahead into a dead-end.

What began as a day of scouting, working my way forwrd by headlamp and the dim starlight, and then the growing gloom of dawn, turned into a day of frustrations. Not only could I find no way ahead, but I found that even from my current camp location, the only way to move would be to carry ecerything South and a bit West, before heading East, and then North again....I would have to back-track...I was travelling in circles.

There was little else to do, however -- what options did I have? After spending most of the day scouting ahead, I decided on the back-tracking option. Exhausted, I just managed to carry my gear and pull the reluctant sled to a position about a mile South and West of my previous night's camp. Back-tracking! Well, there were no choices.

As I turned in for the night, I noted a drop in the barometric pressure and an increase in both the cloud cover and the temperature. At roughly 13F in my tent, I felt too hot and had to take off my balaclava (a hood-like hat) for the first time in days. This concerned me, but there is simply nothing to be done about weather. I drifted to sleep thinking of the work to do next day, and if I could make it any safer.

10 January 2001: As planned, I began this day moving South and a bit East. The weather continued to close in, and I watched as the barometric pressure dropped steadily; this was not a local change in the weather, and it would not 'blow by'. A low-pressure cell was arriving, and the weather would deteriorate. The temperature had also risen considerably, and the precipitation would be in the form of rain, rather than snow. I set up camp rather early, preferring to lose a bit of work time to getting soaked by rain; I knew that even in a waterproof shell suit, the heavy rain would find its way in and soak my clothes, which I could not afford.

I picked as flat a surface as I could find, anchored the sled and the tent, and spent some time guying the tent down with numerous lines to prevent a repeat of the windstorm debacle of my first attempt. It was pitch dark when the tent was ready, and I could sense the weather changing; the air was charged and a wind had started to blow out of the Northwest. I loaded several days of food into the tent, and settled in for a storm. By midnight, a heavy rain was steadily pummeling the tent, and I fell into an uneasy sleep.

11, 12 & 13 January 2001: The rain and wind continued through the 13th, pinning me down for three full days and nights. Although the storm I had feared did not develop entirely, on the night of the 12th I did not get a wink of sleep as the wind increased and raged against the tent. Again I found myself supporting the tent with my back, fully dressed, and contemplating how to best escape the tent when it would be blasted from the ice; but the wind died with the morning, and I was able to fall asleep throughout the 13th.

Through these days and nights, I did a lot of reading. At the last moment before leaving Halldor's home, I had grabbed a stack of books from his garage and thrown them into the sled; The Godfather, The Penguin Book of English Short Stories, a book on mythology. I also carried a book my brother Mark had loaned me, 'Losing My Virginity' by Richard Branson. Good thing I had these along; I read each several times, although the last third of the Godfather froze into the floor-slush and I couldn't recover it. A walkman would have been great; next time. It was not silent, however. Wind and rain pounded at the tent. Sometimes, jets flew over, and I thought of the passengers, warm, drinking coffee and eating buttered rolls, and headed for the Continent...Portugal, perhaps, or London...maybe Cairo? There were other noises; occasionally a sharp explosion as the ice beneath me cracked -- the formation of a new crevasse. These new crevasses started out only a few centimeters across, but would eventually be the bus-swalloing monsters I was trying to negotiate. An unusual and unexpected sound was that of a chandelier crashing down a flight of stairs -- this was the sound as a thick sheet of ice which had covered a crevasse spontaneously broke, sending an avalanche of hard ice shards tinkling and rattling into the icy crack. Time passed slowly, however, and even with plenty to read, I exhausted my little library and spent plenty of hours staring at the ceiling of the tent, mind relatively blank, existing rather than living, in what some mountaineers call 'slug mode'.

A number of problems occurred during this period. First, the tent, having been stretched and warped during the first windstorm, now had several leaks, and the relentless rain drove through them. The waterproof floor of the tent did not let any of this rain water escape, and I had to cut several small holes in the floor to drain the water and prevent it from soaking my sleeping bag. Once in the tent, this rain-water of course settled to the floor and there it was only separated by a thin nylon skin from the ice of the glacier. This cooled the water, which came to the consistency of slush, making life in the tent a misery. I managed to stay dry only by taking the greatest precautions and staying in my sleeping bag as much as possible; to roll over was to risk dipping my sleeping bag in the slush on either side of my narrow insulation mattress. Although I had a "waterproof" bag over my sleeping bag, it too was soaked from the ceaseless dripping, and in places, particularly at the feet, water was seeping into my sleeping bag. I spent many hours rubbing my feet together to warm the foot of the bag, which helped to keep it dry.

Outside, more problems developed. My sled cover was heavy nylon made for cold, dry conditions, not the wet and warm conditions I was experiencing. The rain soaked through the nylon, and formed a pool in the bottom of the sled bag. This amounted to probably fifty pounds of water, but was insignificant compared to the soaking effect on all other items which I had packed back into the sled; a 50-meter rope, once weighing 7 pounds, soaked, now weighed three times that. My spare sleeping bag, which I woke one night to find had fallen into the slush beside me, was now a mass of ice -- it looked and felt like a bowling ball! All of my spare clothes were all soaked as well as the unstoppable rain penetrated every item in my inventory; soaked, and now weighing dozens of pounds rather than two or three.

A further problem came with the wind of the night of the 12th of January; the temperature dropped, and the rain turned to snow, but this only froze every wet item into a solid mass. The sled and its contents weighed at least 250 pounds now, and when I loaded the tent and other items, I knew it would top 300 pounds. This was weight that I could not eliminate, as the frozen water could not be wrung out of the cloth. Also, the slush on the floor of the tent froze solid, bonding the floor of the tent to the ice. At first I thought I would have to cut the floor of the tent out, but later decided to laboriously use my ice hammer to break it all to pieces and throw it out the door. This was a miserable, cold job and I had to be careful that the pick of the ice hammer did not tear the tent walls.

Finally, on the evening of the 13th, as the snow tapered off, I saw the barometric pressure increasing, slightly but steadily. Outside, I could see fast, low clouds hurrying southeast across the sky. Pale stars glimmered behind a low mist. The barometer told me that the weather was changing, but the sky suggested it would be a short change. I crawled outside for the first time in days, and my heart sank. The rain and snow had wiped out any chance of continuing any time soon.

First, the rain had melted large areas of ice, changing the local topography. I could hardly recognize where I was...The problem, however, was the 30cm (one foot) or so of snow that now lay silently draped across the glacier; this obscured the ice and made walking difficult; a step into a low spot might be a foot deep, or meters deep...I knew the crevasse terrain ahead, as well, would be even more treacherous now, with only a thin veneer of snow hiding many of the crevasses...I was willing to travel alone in the night, through the crevasses, but I was not going to do it with the crevasses obscured -- that was beyond my margin of saftey. The decision to retreat was not too difficult to make; the problem was so clear, the dangers so great, that I felt to walk into that terrain would be stepping over (leaping over!) the fine line separating boldness from stupidity. I turned my attention towards a safe descent.

14 January 2001: I was up early, and as dawn approached, the sky cleared somewhat, and I began to strike camp for a dash down the glacier. Everything was frozen, stiff, and buried in the new snow. My idea to dash down the glacier was nixed as I remembered that I had to carry loads before taking down the sled, for at least a mile or two. I worked as quickly as I might, while staying safe, and I worked well into the night.

While the weather held for the day, the pressure barely increased, and I knew that this was a small 'window' of escape before the next system developed. I set up the tent a mile or so south of my first bivouac site, having travelled several miles this day, and hoped for continued good weather tomorrow. The camp was uncomfortable and awkward, with so many items frozen, and I did not sleep well.

15 January 2001: The morning of the 15th was utterly miserable. Through the night the temperature had risen, and every frozen item was now thawed; every article I owned, aside from my sleeping bag and the clothes I was wearing, was soaked through, dripping and drenched, or sitting in a pool of water. Jamming my feet into wet, cold boot liners, with freezing wet hands, and looking at a day of manhandling my 300-lb sled down the glacier in retreat from my second attempt of the expedition, put me into a rather foul mood. I cursed at everything as I packed up and began to lead the sled down the glacier.

The sled had other ideas, and as the incline increased towards the bottom of the glacier, the sled began to lead me downwards; I put on the harness and let the weight of the sled push me via the aluminum poles connecting the sled to the harness. It was like being bullied by an annoyed and demented gorilla, pushing, shoving against my back every step downwards...

Finally I could make out, through a low, blowing mist, the features of the landscape where Halldor and Ingvar had dropped me off nine days ago. Rain trickled down my neck and I hurried along. The last few hundred meters were again on rather transparent ice, over which ran a sheen of water in a wierd, other-worldly spectacle.

I tramped down the last few meters and stepped onto the meltwater stream running at the very edge of the glacier. I dragged the sled through the stream, and heaved and bullied it up onto a small plateau of black, volcanic sand which was spread liberally here on top of the permafrost. I was off the glacier and on solid ground for the first time in over a week; I could even take off my crampons, and walk normally in some areas.

It continued to rain, and I set up the tent. Everything was soaked, the sky and air gray with mist and dowpour. Rather than crouch in my tent, I cooked outside, heedless now of the rain and not even trying to stay particularly dry. A steady, watery roar caught my ear, and I walked some distance to my right to find that the meltwater stream running past my tent descended steeply and then dropped vertically into a black shaft in the ice which twisted away abruptly. I backed away carefully and returned to the tent. Only my sleeping bag was dry, and I crawled in and fell into an uneasy sleep. I was too tired to move the camp, but I was worried that some sort of flash flood could raise the level of the meltwater stream, and flush me, my tent , and my sled into that roaring hole in the ice...I vowed to move camp tomorrow, and drifted to sleep.

16-19 January 2001: I was not flushed away, and woke somewhat refreshed, having had a full, unterrupted sleep for the first time in quite a while. On the satellite phone I arranged to be picked up by Halldor in a few days. I then spent these days moving my camp to a safer location, and exploring the dramatic landscape at the base of Skeidararjokull. I mapped out features with my GPS unit, naming the landmarks after whatever images came to mind...

One plain of rocks, scattered with patches of ice, I called 'Mars', as it looked strikingly similar to the surface of that planet, particularly when I crouched down to simulate the view of the landers we have sent there. Another 'Moon'; another, 'Mystery Pool'. Three pyramidal ice structures, one containing a meltwater hole, I called 'Gizeh', and a lonely hollow atop a barren hill I named 'Weathertop'. I spent some time musing on the possibility of finding artifacts, or a person entombed in the clear ice of the lower glacier, and one day I surveyed several kilometers in search of an old Icelander trapped in the ice...but no luck.

After several days the weather turned again, and as I was preparing the tent once again for a protracted storm, the lights of Halldor's truck flashed on the tent. I unzipped the door and saw the truck through the blowing hail. Halldor stepped out and jogged across the volvanic boulders to join me in the tent for a few minutes before packing up. There was no more need to talk to myself. The expedition was over.

On the weather and environmental conditions: Everyone I spoke to about the subject agreed that this had been an unusually snow-free year; that the storms were to be expected, but that they should have been depositing snow rather than rain on  Skeidararjokull.  Mr. Ragnar Kristjaanson, park superintendent at Skaftafell Park,
near the Skeidararjokull, told me it was a very unusual year, to warm, that normally there would have been several meters of snow not only on the glacier, but leading up to the foot of the glacier. I should have been able to travel entirely on ski, rather than by crampon. This convinced me that the conditions were indeed
anomalous.

My plan is to try again in the winter 2001-2002 or 2002-2003 season. Many have asked whether I regretted anything about the trip, and my answer is always no -- I had a great experience and was able to extract myself without calling for assistance. Everest, the North Pole, the South Pole;each required several attempts before the goal was achieved; and, in fact, what is a goal easily attained?Nothing compared to thatwhich isobtained only through bitter struggle.I will try again, but only on one more expedition. Although I want to carry out this expedition to its completion, I also have many other plans, and do not want to become bogged down with this goal. If I can make it on my next attempt, very well; otherwise, someone else will have to be the first.