June 21, 2010 at 21:43
It has taken me a while but I finally managed to publish a short story about the North Pole trip on the website. You can find the story under Expeditions. And the photogallery now contains about 15 photo’s about the expedition as well. In the mean time, I’ve also visited the offices of Exqi for an interview about the trip. Exqi is making a documentary about the expedition that will be aired on Belgian TV in September.
I’m also making plans for a short climb in September 2010. Not an 8000 meter peak this time but the Eiger. You can find more information about our plans under Expedities/Toekomstplannen.
You will also find a new logo on the right hand side of the site. Opteon is an IT-company from Gent that will support my expeditions in the following years, and I sincerely thank them for their support.
April 12, 2010 at 15:43
After a few days of unpacking, drying equipment, packing up and socializing, the members of the Nordboundquest team are leaving Longyearbyen to go back home after our adventures on the polar ice. We didn’t make it to the North Pole but everyone seems satisfied with the expedition. The team spirit was top, we laughed a lot, we’ve been able to enjoy the environment f the polar ice cap and most of the team members have move their boundaries with this trip.
Here and there, some wounds still need healing. I have a few blisters on my fingertips as well which makes typing this blog a bit of a challenge. But those wounds will all heal fine so they should not bother me on future expeditions.
Saturday evening, we also bumped into Alain Hubert. Alain is in Longyearbyen for a Last Degree trip. He’s leaving for Barneo with a number of people tomorrow. And yesterday evening, we went for a drink with a Dutch team. They were on the ice at the same time as us but they got about 10 km closer to the pole.
The trip was a pretty good experience. And maybe I will do something like this again. A similar challenge in Antarctica would be a logical next step. But now, I need to focus on my K2 expedition in 2011 first.
Soon, I will add a short story about the trip and some photos to this website.
April 9, 2010 at 22:05
The wind has been a bad influence the last days, throwing us back south day by day. Last days we struggled to arrive at 70 km every evening just to wake up kilometers further away. By this morning we drifted away to 80 km, again. No use in pursisting this way. Probably we will be picked up by helicopter to first fly us to the northpole to give us the possibility to take some pictures and then bring us back to Barneo station.
Although the wind should turn south and finally give us the right push for the next couple of days, it’s too little too late.
More information on the expeditions website : http://www.thenorthboundquest.com/
April 6, 2010 at 20:59
Friday, the helicopter flew us in from Barneo station to the ice and droppes us on the 89° on 107 km from the northpole. Since then, conditions have been good: hardly any wind, no open water, smooth ice and no polar bears. Only temperatures are harsh untill -32 °C yesterday. Forecasts give softer temperatures (- 5° on wednesday) but increasing winds.
Whem I said we had no open water, I was’nt fully correct. Yesterday we met our first lead: a 10 cm gap. No reason to panic.
Tonight we sleep at 60 km from our goal. Drifting ice has already proven to be the cause that we wake up closer or further away from the pole.
More information on the expeditions website : http://www.thenorthboundquest.com/
April 2, 2010 at 7:55
Heading for the airport. 0 degrees celsius here. It’s a north pole heatwave 
March 30, 2010 at 22:31
I’ve been in Spitsbergen for 2 days now. Monday, I took a flight to Oslo and from there on I flow to Longyearbyen the next morning. I only spent one night in Oslo, but that was long enough to realize how expensive Norway is: 35 euro for a 5 minute taxi ride.
In the mean time, I’ve moved on to Spitsbergen. And the first day was pretty cold. When I arrived around lunch time the temperature was about - 15 degrees Celcius. That temperature combined with some wind means that even here you need to be carefull for frostbite.
I was the last one in the team to arrive and now I’ve met Troy and Perry as well. They were the only two that I’d never met before. I’ll be sharing a tent with Doug and Perry. Doug also volunteered me to pull a big sled. There are 4 big sleds that weigh a few kilos more. These bigger sleds will be used as a boat when we need to cross water. Yesterday, we took the sleds out for a little tour for the first time to test the equipment. And that went pretty smooth. It was cold and there was a little wind, but as long as you keep moving, you can keep yourself warm.
Longyearbyen itself is a little town but now that the polar season is starting you can find a lot of future polar travelllers here. And we ran into Uma Thurman. She’s working as a waitress in the Svalbar so Doug and me made it our local during the couple of days we will be spending on Spitsbergen.
On Friday morning at 10 am, we will be getting on a flight to Barneo. Barneo is the base that the Russians are setting up on the ice. When we arrive there, we will be getting on a helicopter that will drop us at the starting point. The team spirit is good and we’re all ready for this trip. Now all we need is reasonable weather and ice that drifts in the right direction.
March 28, 2010 at 22:36
Tomorrow, I will be leaving for my next expedition to the North Pole. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be giving an interview on Radio 2 Antwerp. And after that, I still need to work my last day. But around 8 pm my flight to Oslo is leaving. The rest of the team has already left and will be arriving in Spitsbergen tomorrow.
Douglas called me last night to tell me that there were issues with his flight. The airline was looking for another airplane. There is something about Douglas and flights. This is the fifth time that something goes wrong with one of his flights on his way to an expedition: either the pilot is drunk, or there are technical issues or there is a wrong date on his visa. During the expedition, you couldn’t wish for a better team member but it’s better not to be on the same flight as Douglas .
On Friday, I’ve completed a last training with Raf, my personal trainer. This time, we focused on the back muscles. The training sessions are starting to work out better each time. My endurance is pretty good, but certain muscles are going to require quite a bit of training for my next K2 trip. The next couple of weeks on the North Pole will be a good physical training as well.
Yesterday, I went for a swim and today I went for a 10 km run. The intent was to run 20 km but my agenda was pretty full for today so I ran out of time. The 10 km went pretty smoothly anyway. If the km on the Northpole would go as smoothly, we would reach are target very quickly.
For more information on the North Pole expedition, check out www.thenorthboundquest.com.
March 21, 2010 at 0:29
Slowly but surely, we are getting closer to the start date of the North Pole expedition. On 29th March, I will be flying to Oslo. From there, I will continue to Spitsbergen, an island above Norway, the next morning. There I will meet up with the rest of the team and we will stay there for a few days more for the final preparations. If all goes well, we will be flying to a base on the Polar ice on the 2nd April en 10 days later we should be on the North Pole.
You will be able to follow this expedition via this blog as well. My brother will write about my adventures every day. You can also find more information about the expedition and about the other team members on www.thenorthboundquest.com.
On top of that, the expedition will be probably be aired on Belgian television. Exqi is making plans to create a documentary about our trip. Yesterday, they came to shoot one of my training sessions.
Since a few weeks, I have picked up the regimen of training session with my persional trainer Raf. That means an hour of pain and exhaustion every week, followed by some relaxing in the sauna. Allthough I’ve kept training since K2, it is very obvious that some muscles have not been challenged thoroughly in the last couple of months. And that shows during the weekly training sessions.
Today, my salellite phone has arrived as well. I have my own Thuraya satellite phone, but that doesn’t work on the North Pole. So for this expedition, I’ve rented an Irridum phone.
I have also given a few more lectures in the last couple of weeks. First I did one in Oostakker and last week another one in Retie. There is another one planned for Tuesday, 23rd March. I will be giving a lecture in Hoegaarden about “Life in the deathzone: Climbing 8000 meter peaks”. In this lecture, I will talk about my expeditions to Cho Oyu, Everest and K2. The lecture is in Dutch and starts at 8pm.
February 6, 2010 at 23:35
I’ve been travelling around the world for work now since a few weeks. I’ve started off this trip with a week in India. Then I travelled to Manilla and last week I was in Shanghai. Yesterday, I’ve arrived in San Francisco where I will meet some friends. Later this week I will then pass by Chicago and New York before I return to Belgium.
Training for a North Pole trip is not always that easy when you’re travelling. Not every hotel is equipped with a decent gym. But more importantly, during the day I have meetings with local management and at 4pm Europe wakes up. Which means continuous phone calls and conferences, sometimes until 1 am. It’s not always easy to find a gap in there for a workout. Last week however, my hotel had a very nice swimming pool on the 85th floor, so I was able to go for a swim a few times.
Last Thursday I have given another lecture. Xindanwei, an organization in Shanghai, had tracked me down via Caroline Zeller. I’ve met Caroline in Brussels but these days she lives in Shanghai. And Xindanwei asked me if I had some room in my agenda for a lecture on mountaineering and project management. That was my first international lecture.
Preparations for the North Pole trip are going well, although I could do with some more training. Everybody seems to be training hard, all the equipment has been bought or ordered, flights have been arranged and everyone is very enthusiastic. On the 6th March, the Belgian/Dutch part of the group will meet one last time to go over last minute details and on the 29th March I will fly to Oslo. Now, we just need the ice to drift in the right direction.
November 28, 2009 at 15:58
Last week, I gave a lecture in the offices of The Hub. The subject of this lecture was “High Altitude Project Management”. During the lecture, I talked about a number of principles that apply both to project management and mountaineering. We also collected 150 euro for Doctors Without Frontiers that evening.
A few weeks ago Victor Saunders was in Belgium. I’ve been climbing with Victor since 2001 and together we have climbed Mont Blanc, Vinson, Cho Oyu, Everest, Carstensz Pyramid and Elbrus. During that weekend, we went rockblimbing in the Ardennes, but we also talked at length bout K2. Amongst others, we talked about the route and the team. The result of all these discussions was that we have confirmed our intent to set up a new K2 expedition in 2011. We would like to approach the 2011 expedition differently than the one in 2009, but I will talk more about that later.
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