We are sitting in a posh Chinese eatery slash pub in Camden, London sometime in March 2023. Marathon des Sables Tent 56 get togethers are usually in London since we are spread across the country. Talk has turned to future exploits, I’m off to the Azores for the Ultra-X 120, Dougie and Barry and off top MDS in a week or so and Ross, Chris and Dom have caught sight of the Beyond the Ultimate Ice Ultra and discussing entering for 2024. Its sounds like a great race, I said, but I actually have my eye on the BTU For Rangers Ultra in Kenya since I’m not sure about buying all that specialist kit for the Arctic and it would be awesome to see all the animals.
The BTU Ice Ultra is a 230km footrace in northern Sweden. It is a self sufficient trail race, meaning you need to carry everything you need for the race on your back, the exception here of sleeping bag and warm camp clothes that go in a night bag - this accommodation being made as a -20 sleeping bag is enormous, weighing about 2.5kg. The route takes place in one of Europes last wildernesses with terrain varying in from birch forests, barren mountains and frozen lakes.
Fast forward to the end of the summer and I’ve just got back from an incredible week in Tanzania with my family and honestly, I’m feeling completely lioned, zebra’d and giraffed out taking some of the excitement out of the For Rangers Ultra. Barry has decided he is going to join the Ice Ultra with the other 3 and I’m hit with a sense of fomo. The race is now full but I could always join the waitlist and see what happens.
That’s how I have ended up here on the 18th Feb 2024, in a rustic log cabin an hour and a half outside for Gallivare, Sweden. Deep in the Arctic Circle. James from Expedition medics is checking my kit and is currently unhappy with my choice of leg wear. He is going through the required kit list line by line to make sure I have everything I need to survive at temperatures that can go as low as -50 degrees C, and I’m starting to sweat a little under the pressure - it would seem it doesn’t matter how many times you have gone through the list, packed and repacked, come kit check time the pressure is on. Eventually he grudging decides to let my leg wear choices through, with a note that if I stop I will probably freeze…
With our kit checks complete and travel bags stored away until the end of the race its time to head out to tonights accommodation, teepees on the snow. We are driven down a snow road a few hundred meters in a minibus. “I know it doesn’t look like it but trust me your tents are here,” says our driver and as she swings the minibus to the right the headlights illuminate 5 canvas teepees, flapping ferociously in the wind. Barry and I are in this, the first minibus so we set off towards the tents. All of the sudden James’s seriousness through the kit check makes sense, it is bitingly cold and for the first time I feel the very real sense that bad things can happen out here if you don’t pay the conditions the respect they deserve. We make it to the tent through the soft snow, regularly going knee deep as we circle the tent trying to find the opening. Inside the tent, littered on the floor are 7 reindeer skins, all that separates us from the snow.
Inside my sleeping bag I’m toasty, and despite being slapped the head continuously by the sides of the tent blowing in the wind I drift off to a fitful sleep.
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