One of the things, believe it or not, I look forward to once the expedition starts is catching up on my sleep. My goal for a big trip is to get at least eight hours of sleep per day. With midnight creeping only a few minutes away, I'm still ticking off tasks and sleep seems farther and farther from my grasp.

I'm number crunching now it's making my head hurt - trying to calculate the amount of food we will carry in our sleds, where to position our resupplies, the distance between food caches and the locations of crevasses. If there is a simple logarithm, to figure out all this I don't know it.

A note to all those still in school: Listen to your teachers. You WILL have to use this stuff when you get older. (Although, I still have yet to find the practical application in polar travel of calculating the area under a curve.)

Today was busy. Checking Dong and Bill's gear, finalizing the shopping list, tracking down gear and supplies and finally shopping. We are on a fairly tight time crunch so there is a subtle pressure that hangs over each of these tasks. At the supermarket, we attracted more than our share of curious onlookers pulling 180 soup packets off the shelves. Or scooping up 180 Rittersport candy bars, 36 salamis, four bottles of olive oil, 20 packages of butter... You get the picture.

I wondered if the checkout clerk might be able to file a workman's comp claim from suffering some sort of 'repetitive use' injury from scanning so many items without a break.

Upon leaving the store, Dong offered that it was easier to go grocery shopping with me than his wife. A statement which he decide to follow with a thorough description of how men and women are different when they shop. My apologies to any offended party - I'll work on the entire team's discretion in the weeks and months to come.

Not sure if I'm naturally unlucky or what, but the customs officials in Punta Arenas are on strike again. It seems that when I was here last year they were striking as well. This many not mean much to you or I, but if you were a portion of freeze-dried dinner, you might raise an objection. After all, you were scheduled to be in a sled making your way to the South Pole.

Special thanks go to Adventure Logistics and Expedition's staff (ALE) in taking out an extra big scissors to cut through all the red tape. The aforementioned food is safely in the Bodega 3 (storage) awaiting tomorrow's massive food pack operation.

You may not realize it but there are big changes happening to the Save the Poles web site. Tim Harincar of Webexpeditions.net is working diligently to get the site 'South Pole ready'. please note the addition of route tracking on a Google Earth map and Newsvine link on the home page. Of course, we are all holding our breathe for the completely revamped Global Warming page featuring Wolf Ridge's climate change curriculum, updates from Center for Biological Diversity, Seventh Generation info, great RSS feeds and much much more. Come on Tim, I know you can do it!

Image: An early view of a rapidly filling grocery cart in Punta Arenas' Lider Supermarket. Oh yeah... Pringles!

Remember, it's cool to be cold. Save the Poles. Save the planet.

For more information, please visit www.savethepoles.com

For information about guided Antarctic expeditions, please visit http://www.antarctic-logistics.com/

For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com

For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net

Here's a philosophical question that I was wrestling with today: to what degree of honesty I should strive toward with my web updates? For example, do you really want to know that I wear my underwear for over 30 days straight? I'm guess yes. The finer points of my morning constitution while on the ice, however, I will respectfully leave out.

In the nature of full transparency I will say that I had an incredible night sleep. Running on so little for the few weeks prior to leaving Colorado it was a welcome relief to be in an actual bed. I must have slept soundly as well because I woke up with my mouth gaping and the side of my face wet with drool. You wanted the truth, right?

I'll work on my discretion for future reporting.

Today was spent in a few staff meetings with the crew from Antartic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE). I tried to multi task as best as possible preparing tomorrow's shopping list. Caloric value, packability, weight and simplicity to eat are big factors in choosing proper food items. Flavor, while important falls farther down on the list. I've learned not to judge the quality of food until I am on the trail for a few weeks. Amazing things always seem to taste better when you are really, really hungry.

Here is a quick sampling from my list:

180 chocolate bars (100 grams each) 720 pieces of hard candy 45 Pringles canisters 39 pounds of mixed nuts 18.5 pounds of cheese

Bill Hanlon, my other team member, arrived from Canada today looking fairly bright eyed. After a brief introduction to Dong (we had never met as a group before) we were off in search of dinner. Being Sunday, most restaurants were closed and I led our small group down some of the shadier backstreets of Punta searching for the only place I knew was open.

Luckily Bill, originally from Ireland, spotted an Irish Pub - a place definitely not closed on Sunday and we proceeded to do our part in preparing for our upcoming ski to the pole. Eat, eat and eat.

The explorer's favorite (and now mine) suggested ALE's Peter McDowell is a dish that consists of a slab of greasy meat (some kind of beef) topped by two fried eggs onions and a heaping mound of fries - never mind the veggies - seems like explorers (and Chileans) are not big fans of eating most plants.

If it would have been a contest, Dong would have won, finishing the meat/egg/onion/fry combo as well as chicken soup which seemed to actually contain half of a chicken. Bill did his part too and managed to be the first entry in the clean plate club.

During our meal, we talked about the upcoming journey and some of the obstacles we would face. White-outs, sastrugi, wind, extreme cold. I talked a little about the our menu and my shopping list for the next day. After a while, I felt the conversation ebb a bit and both men seemed reluctant to finish their last bites.

That meal, I realized later, was one of only a few 'real' dinners left before we get to the ice.

Image: Dong and Bill showing off their 'explorer's portions'. Soon it will be freeze dry, oatmeal and Clif bars.

Remember, it's cool to be cold. Save the Poles. Save the planet.

For more information, please visit www.savethepoles.com

For information about guided Antarctic expeditions, please visit http://www.antarctic-logistics.com/

For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com

For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net

I'm not sure if I was born with this ability or grew into it out of necessity but I have the uncanny knack to sleep just about anywhere at anytime. Flying out of Denver yesterday, I was asleep before the plane took off.

I was looking forward to the flight from Dallas to Santiago as an opportunity to bank a few extra z's but couldn't seem to get comfortable enough. Still, I know I slept because every so often I actually woke up - contorted in one position or another with my neck cricked awkwardly and throbbing in pain.

I shouldn't be complaining. Compared to my predecessors like Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen a little pain in my neck is hardly worrisome. They had nearly a year's worth of adventure just getting to the actual jumping off point of the expedition. Then over wintering, then a journey through uncharted terrain. Finally a doubtful return trip.

Me? Just a casual evening of sitting in a chair in the air (i.e. flying), arriving in Santiago, passing easily through customs then relaxing at the Medas grill for a salad and a big glass of water. (I'm trying to stay hydrated).

In Punta, I met up with some of the other ALE (Antarctic Logistics and Expedition - the company who hired me to lead the expedition to the South Pole) staff. It's fun to see familiar faces and hear stories of expeditions to Greenland, northern Norway and climbing in Europe and Asia. I also met Dongsheng Liu, my Chinese team mate. He looked fit and ready to go. I was also pleased to see he had packed only two small bags. Traveling light is an important component to being successful.

There are other expedition teams in Punta now staging for various Antarctic trips. It is interesting to see the different styles of teams and philosophies. More than anything however, there is a spirit of camaraderie and excitement. Here are others with a polar dream and love of ice and cold.

I have been corresponding with Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado and we have sketched out the rough outline of some basic research I'll be doing in Antarctica on his behalf. I will be collecting more qualitative information on snow and ice conditions in two basic areas:

(1) Rough, wind-driven accumulation surfaces: regions with sastrugi greater than ~60 cm height noting wind direction(s) that formed them either by a 'formational' wind, that creates smooth 'accumulation' features; or an 'erosional' wind that undercuts these features creating sharp, undercut, or 'sandblasted' features.

(2) Wind glaze: regions with a 'sheen' in the southward direction, no sastrugi or low, platy surface features, and (importantly) a network of thin surface cracks spaced by 3-20 meters.

In both cases, I will be taking pictures with the following data added: latitude, longitude, elevation, date, and pointing direction of the camera. I will also take notes on the sastrugi height, or glaze layer, crack width. I'll explain on how all this relates to Ted's work in a future update.

In the mean time, join me in a silent salutation of joy. Tonight I am sleeping in a bed not a planer or not sleeping at all. I'm tired and having a hard time keeping my eyes open, but I am hesitant to go to sleep just yet. Punta Arenas is the southernmost city in the world. Just over Magellan Straights is Antarctica... Snow, Ice and Adventure is calling.

Surely a few more minutes awake to dream and plan couldn't hurt... Image: Roughing it in Santiago: Ensaladas at the Medas Grill.

For more information, please visit www.savethepoles.com

For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com

For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net

With about 4 hours of sleep in the past two days, I am more than ready to be sitting on a plane preparing to take a very BIG nap. Despite a hectic few weeks, I actually feel really good. I am excited to finally be underway. For almost three years, I have been planning and preparing for this moment.

I'm not nervous or excited. As time passes and I gain more experience, I seem to get more pragmatic than anything. There are still some big hurdles to jump before getting to the ice and our starting point at Hercules Inlet. I've definitely learned to manage my expectations. Anything can happen between now and then and the list is fairly long: customs in Santiago, making sure all the gear makes it to Punta Arenas, food purchase and pack, final gear tweaks, sewing fur ruffs on the Sierra Designs Anoraks, some lingering office work, and a few other odds and ends.

Still, I can't help but be a little excited. I'M SKIING TO THE SOUTH POLE. For around 53 days, I will be traveling across one of the last great wilderness areas left on the planet. Along the way, my team and I will have innumerable successes and hardships. Pared down to the bare essentials of survival we will become intimately familiar with the personality and moods of Antarctica.

While I have skiied to the South Pole before, the STP team will be traveling along a different, longer route which adds another level of excitement as well. More important (and the ultimate goal of the Save the Poles expedition) is the team's effort on real world solutions to global warming. Over the next two months, savethepoles.com will feature steps that we can all take to reduce carbon emissions. Please visit the global warming page regularly and learn more from Save the Poles partners Newsviine.com, Center for Biological Diversity, Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, Science Teacher Lynae Anderson and her students at Lakeville High School, Seventh Generation and much much more.

So this is where are paths diverge dear reader. You on your own adventures and me on mine. We are all explorers in one way or another. Still, I believe the goal of explorers in the 21st century is not to go out and conquer these places, but more to protect them.

That is the ultimate goal of the Save the Poles expedition!

Image: Expedition electronics - satellite phone, pda, expedition battery, digital camera, hd video camera, battery charger all packed in Granite Gear soft storage cells.

For more information, please visit www.savethepoles.com

For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com

For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net

A new remote audio post has been added to the blog...