Team Ski Strap:
"We had a lovely first rest day today. It has been windy and wet all day long, and we were quite happy to be warm and dry in our tents. This afternoon we played a few rounds of hearts and gin rummy. The wind really picked up this evening and is currently blowing somewhere between 40-50 mph. It's quite loud in the tent at the moment! It's also quite warm out which means that the snow falling is very wet. It takes no more than a minute outside to be totally soaked. We currently have descent drifts building up around our tents which might require some digging out during the night. There's really no activity people enjoy more than that.
But we are warm, dry, and cozy and going to try to get some sleep and see what we get tomorrow!" -Update from Taylor
Team Cocoa-Motive:
"Today was warm and wet. Snow drifted all over our campsite last night and if we hadn't known where we left our sleds they could have been difficult to find!! Visibility was near zero and it was snowing verging on sleeting, then sleeting verging on raining. We set off knowing it would be hard but just after our first break, the snow started to clump all over our skis, tops, bottoms, and sides. We stopped to apply wax but it didn't last long. It was like skiing with platform skis there was so much caking going on. But, we are tough and we just slowed down and cursed a bit. Then, after 5.6 miles of hard hard slogging, we set up camp.
We were wet and tired and the wind was picking up. We wanted to have enough time to make a good camp, relax a bit, and dry out, which we did. Then the wind shifted and increased, and we settled into life in the tents with almost every piece of gear and clothing hanging from the various drying lines while the stove pumped out heat. We have so much stuff drying, or not drying.
Now it's late, and we are all going to bed. Tired but happy to be in a cozy tent with the wind blowing outside. We will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully colder temps and less wind. No rain or sleet and harder snow. That's all we want! Goodnight!" -Update from Annie