BRANDO YELAVICH EXPLORER

In Nansens Footsteps Greenland Film. watch now How it was for me! Greenland was a whole new challenge for me. A new environment, new risks and new dynamics. I am used to being cold, uncomfortable, wet, hungry and fatigued. My body goes into survival mode and my mind goes where ever it wants to…because it has always been me, just me. All of my expeditions have been solo, so being a part of a team posed all sorts of new difficulties that I hadn't necessarily considered. Expedit

After completing the crossing of Greenland, we had a few hours to wait for our pick up. I packed up all my gear except for my sleeping bag, I literally crawled inside it and fell straight to sleep. I dreamed about a blank canvas ready to be painted. My paint was made from the blood of all the creatures I had taken the lives of during my first life changing expedition around the coast of New Zealand. In this dream I painted a tribute to them all as a way of honouring them...I

The snow conditions were the worst they have ever been, it’s like a test to see how tough it can get before we finish. It wasn’t deep powder though, it was warm snow and it was sticking to the skins on the bottom of my skis. Warm snow means we are getting lower and the air temperature is much warmer, especially when you compare it to some of the previous temperatures we were walking in. We are sticking with the British team for the rest of our journey. Our team lead the first

I woke up sweating this morning, it felt so foreign! The sun was shining and had heated up the tent, it was so nice and cosy waking up to sunshine after a 7 hour sleep. I packed up and we set off into the sunshine. The track that we had been following yesterday had partially filled up with snow drift but we managed to stick to it. It felt like a long day today, my mind had time to wander, I started planning future expeditions. I would like to do something with Ngaio on the oc

I woke this morning to the sound of snow falling on the tent. Its such a beautiful sound, but it meant it was going to be a hard physical day. I got up and changed into my outside gear, I was pleasantly surprised with how warm it was, around -9 degrees I think...toasty warm! I loaded my sled, packed down the tent and headed over to the group. The snow was so deep, our guide Bengt lead the way. His skis disappeared into the powder and his sled flattened us a path. I was number

Definitely the biggest day yet, and its only the beginning of the big ones. We have been up for 16 hours and have only just started boiling water for dinner. It was a warm start tp the morning which was nice, but it made the snow soft. At about 10am it started dumping down with snow, it was a complete white out for most of the day which led us astray. The dynamics changed a bit today, Bridget and Holly went at the end of the line and Keith and I were rotating at the front of

Today we were again, faced with trying weather conditions. When we came out of the tents after lunch there was a complete whiteout. Its like being inside a pingpong ball, white surrounds you and you can't see past it no matter how much you try (Trust me, I've tried). It is still possible to walk in a whiteout, it just makes it slow going, a bit tougher mentally and harder to keep the line straight if you are in the front! There is absolutely nothing you can do about the weat

Last day of week three and I am absolutely wrecked. Today we skied 32.8 km and it took us 11 hours. Hard pack crusty snow is the best when you are trying to drag 60kgs behind you! Today the snow conditions were crap, it snowed over night so everything had 5cm of fresh snow on it. This is the first time in my life i will say this... I wish there was less fresh snow. I could feel the extra friction from the moment i started walking. The morning was windy and cold, it didn't tak

Twenty days on an ice cap. Nothing grows here, there isn't anything colourful, except for us of course. I saw an ice halo today, its like a frozen rainbow, it was very cool! So the good news is that we have officially passed the half way mark in distance. It took us all this time to ski 277 kms, that's an average of 13.9km per day, if we were walking every day, but as we all know we had full days without walking due to the weather. Today we walked 31kms which is great! Now th

I had a terrible sleep. I only managed to get one hour before I had to get up to start the day. I was fighting back tears all morning. Even the most simple tasks like communicating with the team, putting my boots on or warming my hands, they just felt like impossible tasks. The day was sunny but also very windy. The wind chill temperature was -39 degrees, it was freezing (I hope you aren't sick of hearing how cold it is because theres plenty more where that came from). Once I

I woke at 6am to see ice crystals dangling from the roof of the tent. I wanted to stay snuggled in my warm bed but I needed to get up, get the cooker going and melt water for breakfast. I had dreamt that I was gifted 'perspective' by a magical bird, it flew over me and then I was looking at myself through the birds eyes. I sometimes think my imagination is way cooler when I'm asleep and there's nothing to hold it back. I was behind schedule this morning because of my lack of

I woke up at 6am, today was to be the first of the big days. We are on a mission to make it to the summit ridge in four days. From that point we will slowly descend back down to sea level. We said goodbye to the DYE II building and started on the first leg of the day. The first leg was 90minutes, they are getting longer so we can cover extra ground and reach our four day goal. The extra walking time has given me extra thinking time, I've been planning all sorts of expeditions

I woke up feeling pretty tired this morning, I got the stove going and melted the water for the day. I began to make my usual breakfast, 300grams of oats with four dates, but alas, I had run out of dates! I was desperately digging around the bottom of my food bag when I found four frozen banana. Breakfast was 300g of oats with a banana, yum! We set off at 9am with DYE II in our sights. The day seemed to whizz by, my mid was busy with thoughts of what might be inside the war r

We survived the most epic hurricane I have ever experienced...It was the only hurricane I have ever experienced but man it was full on. 137km per hour winds, zero visibility and snow that hits your face like a shards of glass. I found the storm pretty exciting as I waited for it to grow to its full force. The tent was flapping sooo much I wasn't sure it was going to stay in one piece, we eventually drifted off to the screaming wind. I woke up at 4am, the wind was deafening an

I woke up early this morning, the team was only walking until midday because of an anticipated storm. The updated forecast this morning said the incoming weather was a hurricane with wind gusts higher than I have ever experienced. We all wanted to make the most of our time before the storm so we began walking at 8am. We walked for 4 hours and covered 9km. During that time we spotted the British team (who shared their M&Ms with us) a few kms to our left. It looked like they we

Last nights sleep was like trying to sleep in a deep freezer, cold in an understatement. My breath had frozen to the outside of my sleeping bag and I had ice in my eye lashes. The morning routine was a challenge, my hands didn't want to move and it felt like I didn't even have fingers. I wore my face mask for the first time today, there was a tiny gap on my cheek leaving it exposed, the cold air hitting it felt like fire! To break up the day i decided to find out why my team

Today was about learning for me. I’m so used to walking at my own pace and covering large distances. It is a new experience for me to have to move as fast as the slowest team member. Something else I have learnt is that being the slowest is not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you are unfit, or that you are weaker. It can mean that you are steady and consistent. It means you won't burn out and need two days of rest, it means you are less likely to get sick becaus

Before the storm hit, the sun gave Keith a hiding. It seems a little ironic as he is one of the Australians in the team, so I assumed he would be used to blazing relentless sun. But no, he has been grilled like a shrimp on the barbie and now his face is peeling. When I sleep I’m not sure if it’s snow falling on my face or Keith’s skin! The skiing today was great, just very very cold. I couldn’t find my wind stopper underwear so I borrowed some pure merino wool from Hollie to

The storm woke both me and Keith up at about 5am. The tent had its pegs thrown out by the wind and the front was flapping like crazy. I opened up the door into the outer tent, it had a huge pile of snow that had covered our boots and cooker. I grabbed the spade and dashed out to put the pegs back but the wind was too strong and I couldn't get the tent to stay down. I was only outside for about 30 seconds, I couldn’t get an eye on the other two tents to see if they had blown a

I woke up to the tent flapping in the wind. It’s been so still for the entire trip until today. It was probably only blowing at 12-14km per hour but it took the wind chill down to about -35 degrees. After the daily 300g of oats with four dates I geared up and got myself out of the tent. My hands were intantly frozen as I rummaged through my sledge looking for my thick gloves. We left the camp spot at 9am on the dot, walking into the wind. The wind was freezing my mo with ice