About destination:
• Cape Chelyuskin (Russian: Мыс Челюскина) is the northernmost point of any continental mainland, and the northermost point of mainland Russia. It is situated at the tip of the Taymyr peninsula, south of Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.
• Cape Chelyuskin is 1,370 kilometres (850 mi) from the North Pole.
• The cape was first reached in May, 1742 by an expedition on land party led by Semion Celyushkin, and was initially called Cape East-Northern. It was renamed in honour of Chelyuskin by the Russian Geographical Society in 1842, on the 100th anniversary of the discovery.
• A weather and a hydrology research base named "Polar Station Cape Chelyuskin" was constructed in 1932, and headed by Ivan Papanin. It was renamed the "E. K. Fyodorov Hydrometeorological Observatory" in 1983. The station has a magnetic observatory and stands on the eastern side of the point.
• Polar Station Cape Chelyuskin is situated 2000 km from nearest winter road and 4000 km from nearest stationary road.
• It has no accsess from land
Driving distances:
20 000 km all together.
From this 5000 km winter roads and 4000 km extremly hard terrain without any road.
About our cars:
• 3 cars : Toyota Land Cruiser 95 Prado , Toyota Land Cruiser 80 and Toyota Land Cruiser 105
• All the cars specially built for long trips, cold and extreme driving conditions.
• Extended fuel tanks(250 L per car), winches, extra heatings, big tires, sleeping places, etc.
• 2 specially built trailers for fuel transport (600 L per car)
• All spareparts, instruments and provisions for 2 months in every car.
Overall driving conditions:
• Driving all asphalt roads at maximum speed (105 km/h)
• Lunch in cars when driving
• Every day 14 hours driving without breaks
• 10 hours for sleeping, breakfest, dinner, car mainteance ,etc.
• Usually 6-7 h for sleeping. All the 2 months sleeping in the car.
• Engines and additional diesel heating running 24/7
• Engine and batteries fully covered from wind and insulated from cold. For the nights covered with tarp.
• Extreme cold, up to – 54 C
• Lots of trucks immobilized on winter roads due to extreme cold. Road blocked often.
• Bad fuel , lots of troubles for us for long time.
• Starving polar bears attacking people at Severnaja Zemlja close to our destination. Also hunting us.
• Sea ice in very bad condition.
• In this year more snowstorms than usually
Driving Conditions when driving hardest part of expedition
• EXTREME COLD UP TO -54C
• ADDITIONAL WIND (CHILL) UP TO 30 M/S
• DEEP SNOW , THEORETICALLY NOT DRIVEABLE
• BAD ICE, THEORETICALLY NOT DRIVEABLE
• BAD FUEL, NOT USABLE IN ENGINES
• EVERYTHING SOAKED WITH DIESEL FUEL. Barrels were leaking and breaking , canisters were leaking and breaking , hoses were breaking and leaking, clothes , gloves, bags, everything in car and trailer soaked with fuel, not insulating from cold anymore. Fuel temperature -45C, handling fuel burns skin.
• Short days, because polar night has just finished
• Visibility in snow storm 0
• With 0 visibility always stuck in snow
• Auroras every evening
• GPS not accurate at this area (+ - 20 m when solar storm)
• Not possible to drive own prints because of snowstorms and gps problems.
• Even kevlar tires weared and starting to break
• Hungry polar bears around all the time. Very scary and hard to take toilet procedures. Not speaking about cold and wind...
• Driving last 1200 km taked us almost 2 weeks
• Everybody exhausted,injured,mentally tired
• Almost everybody had some sickness too.
• Only treatment- eating garlic, coldrex and sleeping in back of car.
•
In middle of our trip we lost our leading car on the sea ice. With those car went down our expedition money and satelliite phones. Crew was evacuated with helicopters. With 2 remained cars we managed to drive to our destination and return later by the impossible route through swamps , covered with deep snow.
