La photo inquiétante et l'appel postés cette nuit par l'aventurier Mike Horn en détresse dans l'arctique: "Nous sommes à bout de force, nous avons perdu beaucoup de poids"

Lancés dans une traversée de la banquise arctique en skis de randonnée, les aventuriers Mike Horn et Børge Ousland font actuellement face à d’importantes difficultés. Mais ils semble vouloir poursuivre leur route malgré le peu de nourriture qu'il leur reste. Mike Horn a posté une photo de son ami Borge Ousland, puis l’a soudain effacée. Sur cette photo (repostée depuis, et visible ci-dessous), on peut voir le visage de l’explorateur norvégien, emmitouflé dans une cagoule et une capuche fourrée, avec une gelure assez avancée sur le bout du nez. Dans le message initial, depuis supprimé, Mike Horn déplorait une situation des plus chaotiques: 

“Nous avons installé notre campement avec Borge Ousland derrière une grande arrête, juste à temps avant que les vents violents ne nous frappent. On a bien cru que la tente allait s’envoler avec nous à l’intérieur. Nous allons tout faire pour continuer cette expédition, en espérant avoir la météo de notre côté. Chaque jour, nous réévaluons nos chances d’avancer et de mener à terme cette mission. Avec ce climat instable et la dérive des glaces, il nous est extrêmement difficile de prévoir le nombre de kilomètres qu’il nous reste à parcourir. Au moment où je vous parle, nous sommes à bout de force, nous avons perdu beaucoup de poids. Nous nous sentons faibles et nous n’avons plus beaucoup de nourriture, nous en avons assez pour nous sortir d’ici mais ce sera très dur."

Puis ce message a été effacé pour laisser la place à un autre avec un résumé plus positif de la situation, sans doute à destination de sa famille:

“Il est certain que j’ai connu des week-ends plus faciles dans ma vie d’explorateur. Après les obstacles et les difficultés sans fin de la semaine dernière, Borge Ousland et moi-même sommes reconnaissants de commencer la semaine avec un nouvel état d’esprit. Aujourd’hui, malgré nos blessures (comme on peut voir sur la photo), nous nous sentons fatigués, mais rien ne peut nous arrêter. Nous savons que l’arrivée est proche, nous devons maintenant rassembler la force qu’il nous reste pour nous battre et y parvenir”

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Expedition Update 34: Safe to say that I’ve had easier weekends in my life as an explorer. After last week’s endless obstacles and difficulties, @borgeousland and I are grateful to start the new week with a fresh mindset. Today, despite our sores (as seen on this photo), we are feeling tired but unstoppable…we know the end is near, so now, we must gather up the strength we have left, and fight to get there. What better way to start the week than with a massive storm?! We therefore had no choice but to set camp and wait for the chaos to pass before we can confidently venture outside again. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise in some weird way…our bodies were really in need of some rest after the physical and emotion exhaustion we went through over the weekend. Although we have rarely been in such a bad storm, the bright and uplifting side is this! Finally the wind is in our favour pushing us towards the south, rather than back to the north. This good news certainly gave us an energy boost, and the confidence that maybe we will be able to end this expedition the way we have initially planned. This unexpected turn of events must be due to all the positive vibes you have been sending our way. @AnnikaHorn and @JessicaaHorn have been updating me with your messages of support and I can only admit that this has been giving us the kick of energy we needed. It is a hostile world up here…and the constant unstable conditions have made it quite clear that we are not welcome here. In some twisted way, I ask myself if nature has been taking it out on us because of the manner in which we humans have been treating and respecting our planet…one thing is certain, something is obviously not quite right. With just over one week of food rations left, we are carefully planning each and every next step. We are longing to get home, but there is no giving up…we are here to fight until the very end. Thank you all for your heart-warming support, we will be keeping you closely updated! #NorthPoleCrossing #Pole2Pole #MikeHorn

Une publication partagée par Mike Horn (@mikehornexplorer) le 25 Nov. 2019 à 6 :30 PST

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Expedition Update 33: Last night was our coldest night so far. @BorgeOusland and I didn't manage to sleep much, the cold kept on waking us up. So we got up, out of the tent and started skiing at -40C in a beautiful clear night with the moonlight reflecting on the snow. This was the first clear night since we left the North Pole. Although the moonlight offered us a beautiful setting to walk in, today was another close-disaster day; but thanks to the good reflexes we have acquired over time, the situation turned out to be manageable. As we were walking Borge’s sled got caught up on some ice, so he started tugging at it to release it but the pressure of the tug caused the ice below him to give way. It was only at that moment that we realised we were walking over very thin snow-covered ice. Half of his body fell in this slush icy water, but he immediately rolled himself back and managed to get back on the more solid ice. He was wet from the waist-down on the outside of his clothing but luckily the moisture hadn’t made its way through the layers to the skin. As soon as he was out, he rolled himself in the snow to absorb a max amount of moisture. We call this method freeze drying: the moisture is absorbed and frozen by the dry snow, which can then be brushed off the exterior layer of our waterproof clothing. In these situations, the other person feels completely useless. There is nothing you can really do except assist with the detaching of the sled and potentially already setting up the tent urgently if clothing needs to be removed, changed and the body dried. We are slowly approaching the latitude of 85 degrees north on the Norwegian side, which for reminder is the same latitude where we got dropped off by Pangaea on the Alaskan side. But in the meantime we covered over 1000km of terrain passing by the North Pole. Our goal now is to power our way through to 84 or 83 degrees north with the remaining food we have, which slowly but surely starting to run out. But we are well prepared and have explored all possible alternatives, with just over 10 days of food left, it is finally time for us to go back home to our loved ones! #NorthPoleCrossing #Pole2Pole #MikeHorn

Une publication partagée par Mike Horn (@mikehornexplorer) le 21 Nov. 2019 à 10 :01 PST