| Stove failure drives TREKker off the ice Christina Franco, a 42-year-old endurance athlete with one major polar Expedition under her belt, was forced to abandon her solo bid for the Pole after only two days on the ice..."I do not blame technology," she said at her website. "The world at minus 50 has a completely different set of rules. Even metal snaps like a chocolate bar at those temperatures." Publisert: 09.03.09 12:04 Christina Franco, a 42-year-old endurance athlete with one major polar expedition under her belt, was forced to abandon her solo bid for the Pole after only two days on the ice near Canada's northernmost piece of land, Ward Hunt Island.  Malfunctions with Franco's stove - crucial for boiling water, cooking food and heating her tent in -50 C weather - forced the British resident to call for a rescue just 48 hours after the March 3 start of her planned 775-km journey to the Pole via snowshoe, ski and a floating sled. In a web posting describing her "devastation, relief and a Giant hollowness," Franco said it would have been suicidal to continue without a working stove and impossible to replace it in time to complete the trek before ice conditions deteriorate by May 1. "There was a plane in the area at the time of the failure and as it was -50c we took the decision to be lifted from the ice," she stated. "With no way of warming myself or making hot food frostbite would set in quickly at these temperatures." She said she intends to attempt the Ward Hunt-to-North Pole trek again next year, and plans later this spring to make a dash to the Pole on skis from a floating Russian research station north of Norway. "I do not blame technology," she said at her website. "The world at minus 50 has a completely different set of rules. Even metal snaps like a chocolate bar at those temperatures."  Franco added: "We are pushing limits trying to live in those conditions and we know it when we go up there; it is part of the chAllenge. It was very bad luck, but I was also very lucky there was a plane so close by." The feat Franco was attempting has been called "one of the last polar firsts" and was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of U.S. adventurer Robert Peary becoming the first Explorer to reach the North Pole on April 6, 1909. |
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