I recently spent a week in Hardangervidda, Norway testing the pulk with full weight and checking out the rest of my kit.

The Hardangervidda is a mountain plateau in the Hardanger region of western Norway. It is the largest such plateau in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate and is the site of one of Norway's largest glaciers. Much of the plateau is protected as part of a national park.

After reaching the chosen location I put the tent up and weighed up 350lb of snow - to do this I took a large set of scales and filled bin bags with snow. It had been minus 8 deg C the day before but now the temperature had risen to a massive plus 6 deg! It even rained for a while! The snow was a bit wet and not ideal and much sweating was done. I managed 3 KPH quite easily although the pulling was hard, I may have to relay ½ a load at a time on my initial ascent out of Hercules Inlet in Antarctica as on the flat the pulk was fine but anything more than a minor slope became very difficult. Although there was no Sastrugi (snow waves and ridges) there was some pressure on the frozen lake around the many small islands, and the terrain was about as realistic as I could hope for in Europe.

The new tent was fine as were the skis and skins. Boots were very comfortable although a small split developed in one (now sent back to Norway for replacement).
I have also revised my fluid intake on the march (up to 2 litres of tepid water and squash now) and will normally only take hot drinks at morning and night.

I can recommend the area for serious training and drove through the mountains in a British 4x4 with ordinary tyres with no problems. Many valuable lessons were taken on board and as a practice run has ironed out many kit related issues that I would otherwise have found out the hard way. There is no doubt in my mind however that what I am undertaking is going to be the toughest physical and mental test of my life, but unless I give it a go I will never find out!

It's getting closer at last.

Mark Langridge Feb. 08