Jethro De Decker arrived at Pelly Farm 03:45 this morning. He is perfectly fine and could have easily gone back to Pelly Crossing. However, we decided to make the farm our finish line. This means Jethro is our one and only finisher for the longest distance.
Ilona had also reached Pelly Crossing later last night. She had impressed us with her incredible skills on xc-skis and I will be honest, I never thought it was possible to move this fast with xc-skis on the trail we have (this is not a xc-ski track!) and in these kind of temperatures. I guess it did help that Ilona is from the Northwest Territories. So, she knew exactly what to expect. However, even to her the frostbite caught up on this last stretch and she had to stop. She herself was very surprised that it was actually her fingertips and not her toes where she was expecting it more to happen.
In the meantime, Roberto Zanda had to be brought to hospital. His frostbite is more severe and he will get treatment for several days. So far I have no further news. I am not sure if I can talk to him today. If it is possible and he want to let everyone know how he is doing I will share it with all of you.
It was a tough year. For the athletes and the crew. Later on today I will write a longer statement/summary. An important part of my summary will be my thoughts on the many cases of frostbite we have had this year. I would like to invite all this year’s participants to share their thoughts with me and everybody else following us here or on facebook. I will likely get a lot of questions in the next few days as to why we do what we do, what we thing about this extreme cold and so on? And I can of course only guess what you, the athletes, think. Some feedback I already got and it was very positive. But I have not spoken to everyone. If you want you can email me or send a private message on facebook.
