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In a post-summit blog post Andrew King writes: “After setting off this morning in sub-zero temperatures, the team realised that today would challenge each and everyone of us. It would be a day that would make any previous day look very ordinary. The gradient and loose volcanic scree continued relentlessly for 4 and a half hours from Kibo Huts (4700m) to Gilman’s point (5681).”

At high altitude and walking on scree and snow, Andrew calls their pace ‘poley-poley’, which is Swahili for ‘slowly slowly’. “Even at this pace each step was a challenge and there was a lot of heavy breathing around and not as much banter,” he says.

There had been a two-foot dump of snow a few days before and although there were sections where hikers had trodden a path through the snow, there were other areas where the barefooters had to negotiate their own route over the snow and ice.

“As the iconic Uhuru Peak sign edged closer and closer, the moral of the team lifted and the hardships of the past five days started fading. We reached the peak as one very emotional tribe knowing that we had achieved what we had set out to do. The entire barefoot team had summited – sore – but with no serious injury.”

You can read other reports the Barefoot Challenge on www.barefootimpi.org. Images above from Andrew’s blog post.

The pair spent their last week on the ice with the team British Green after they made the decision to help one of the team, Andrew Carrie, who fractured his arm just before halfway. Braam and Pete shared Andy’s load, adding an additional 9kg to their existing 70kg sled loads. Only days from the end, Andy was grateful for their assistance, which got him to the finish. Braam commented: “I just can’t explain how tough this race is, there is nothing on the planet that compares.”

The conditions experienced by the pair included poor visibility, soft snow underfoot and a gradual uphill towards the pole. The extra weight they carried for the last week slowed them down quite a bit. From a physical perspective their strides shortened and extreme fatigue set in due to the altitude and cold. Temperatures continued to drop as they walked towards the pole; often down to -45°. In these conditions the pair has little appetite and they had to force feed themselves to keep their bodies fueled. All they wanted to do was to sleep.

Over the last week the pair averaged 31km over four days and 35km for the last two days. They spent 11 hours each day skiing, with only two 15-minute breaks.

The Norwegian team of Erland Gray, 28, Harvard Svidal, 35, and Mathias Seim, 23, were able to maintain a consistently impressive pace, to cross the finish line first, reaching the pole on Friday, 20 January (15 days). The Welsh team, Mercury, of Billy Morris and Marc Morgan placed second, completing the race in 22 days. Pete and Braam (Team South Africa) reached the pole, with Team British Green, at 6am South African time (GMT+2) on Saturday, 28 January after 24 days on the ice.

“Words cannot express how this feels. When I started I had no idea how challenging this was, we knew it would be tough but this was extreme. This race has taught me how sacred our planet is and I respect it more than ever before,” says Braam at the finish.

In an update on Facebook Pete sounded relieved to have finished this man-haul: “Disorientated; freezing but ecstatic to be here”.

The entire race was filmed by the Johannesburg-based production company Urban Brew Studios and will be broadcast as a four-part documentary series, Cold Sweat, on SABC 3 later this year.

You can read content from the race and watch video clips on www.coldsweat.tv.

In a pre-departure post on his ‘The Science of Sport’ blog, Ross gives some insight into the team’s preparations for walking on the sharp and jagged shale and dealing with the toe-freezing cold. Indeed, the three gremlins that the team has to deal with are altitude, cold and terrain.

Altitude
Well, at 5,898m Kili is a big ol’ mountain and many an affected climber has had to skip the summit and return to a more comfortable elevation. As Ross says, “It’s impossible to know who will thrive at altitude, and who will suffer”.

The trip has been designed to take one day longer to ascend, which gives the team a day of adaptation at 4000m. ”We also have a day where the change in altitude is minimal (from 4300 to 4700m, so only 400 m ascent) and so these are two “buffer days” that we are optimistic will allow us to get above 5,000m feeling strong for that final push,” he adds.

Terrain
The sharp and jagged shale is the team’s big worry. They’ve all been walking and running barefoot for six months to build up the skin on their soles. “Getting the feet tough enough is just a matter of being habitually barefoot. It means walking on tar, gravel, off-road at every possible opportunity until “nature’s outsole” becomes so thick that those small stones feel like pressure, and not pain,” Ross says.

Unlike the rest, Ross only joined the expedition three months ago as a participant so his feet haven’t had the same period of time to toughen.

To deal with the sharp terrain they’ll be walking really slowly. Ross explains: “When you are walking 4.6 km in 7 hours, you are taking 9 minutes per 100m. Try walking that slowly. Now, the good thing about this is that if you walk as slowly as that, you can get away with walking on quite sharp, rough ground. Try it. Find some gravel and walk your normal speed (about 1 to 1.5 min per 100m), and then repeat at 5 min per 100m pace. Feel that difference.”

Cold
The ground on the mountain is cold; there’s no escaping this reality. To escape frostbite the team has designed a disciplined foot-warming regime, which was developed during cold chamber training sessions. Their current plan (flexible and dependent on conditions) is to walk for seven minutes and then to actively warm their feet for three minutes. They’ll repeat this for an hour and then stop for 20 minutes to properly re-warm.

They’re expecting a daytime ground temperature of -5C at higher altitudes. At night this drops further so they’ll start their summit day after sunrise to reach the summit before sunset. With the summit attained they’ll don shoes for the descent.

Ross’ teammates include Andrew King, Hedley Young, Camilla Howard and Clyde Barendse. Sean Disney is their lead guide. They’re also joined by some media people (camera/video).

Ross’ blog posts are always informative and educational and he’ll be sending out content during the expedition. His website is www.sportsscientists.com. Also keep an eye on the expedition website for any news during the seven-day expedition.

[They plan to be back in South Africa on 31 January so they may have started hiking today.]

In a post on planning this expedition Thamar writes, “The hardest part of living your dreams is taking the first step. Richard and I knew we wanted to do something epic but couldn’t decide where to start as there are so many places we want to experience. The seed was planted but the journey undefined. What we did know is that we wanted to do something extraordinary in a way that we could encounter a place head on and on by our own means. Finally we took the first few steps gave our trip roots by deciding on a region of the globe and that we’d like to cycle. And so slowly the expedition started to take shape and grow in our hearts.”

This expedition should see them on their bikes into mid-July 2012.

Their website is www.beyondthewall.co.za and they’ll also be on Twitter.

Alex has had an Empty Quarter crossing expedition on the cards for some time. In fact, this time last year he was out there – Empty Quarter part 1.

“We are also going to suss out the 3^rd version of our cart which has evolved considerably. Most of the trip will take place in the area of Mugshin, close to the southern border of Saudi Arabia. We still haven’t got permission from the Saudi authorities [for the Empty Quarter crossing expedition] , so the main expedition will take place in 2013,” he says.

The Cape locals arrived at the half way checkpoint just after 17h00 on Sunday, 15 January, having survived 375km of some of the most impossibly harsh icy terrain on the globe. The pair are currently observing a mandatory 24-hour rest and recovery period before they take on the remaining 330km of the race.

Team South Africa currently lies in 4^th position, almost tied with the British team currently in 3^rd place. Race observers are unanimous that the South Africans are putting in a great performance, considering that they are almost strangers to the icy temperatures.

“This is the hardest thing I have ever done, we’re often racing at “-40°, for at least 35km per day, pulling a 70kg sled behind us,” says Braam.

To view the team’s minute-by-minute progress visit www.coldsweat.tv.

Braam and Pete are also on Facebook.