Photo by: Tom McGuire
Arctic Cowboys Start Northwest Passage Expedition at Button Point Floe Edge
Fifteen days into The Arctic Cowboys Northwest Passage Expedition and the team is making good progress. They’ve had some great paddling days. Today, the team on the water and at home base have been putting in a lot of work to determine the best places to cross Prince Regent Inlet, about a 46-mile crossing. This is the largest crossing they’ll experience on their expedition. Two days ago, ice blew into the inlet causing some rerouting plans and some hard discussions to ensure safety. There is some fog in the mountains and it’s making it difficult for the team to see where the ice begins and ends. They won’t be taking any safety risks other than the inherent risk that comes with an expedition. Later this week, winds will be whipping up making sure the team stays put. Decisions will be made on when to cross…tomorrow or later in the week.
The naming of today’s camp, the Devil’s Nipple, is bringing West and Jeff back to Texas. West says there is a peak in Texas that closely resembles the place where they pitched camp.
They are still seeing a lot of birds. New varieties that they reported seeing today are Black Scoter, Ring-billed Gull, Surf Scoter, Short-billed Gull, and Pigeon Guillemot.
On Monday, we are mailing a much-needed resupply to the team. Barbara took charge by driving all the way to Austin, Tx. and back to gather the requested gear to send to ensure the team is well-equipped. While it was a 10-hour round trip, it gave her the opportunity to touch base with Tom, in person, who speak multiple times a day, pouring over enterprise-level tools like Copernicus radar and optical terrain and navigation maps, monitoring hour-by-hour weather updates and double-checking everything including wind speed direction over distance, tides charts, current and swell directions, ice drift forecast, fog, and many more metrics, in order to give the team the best information so they can make informed decisions.
Meanwhile, West’s wife, Lizet, is preparing to embark on her own thrilling adventure, hiking in the mountains overseas.
Total: 348.51 Expedition: 270.51
