August 26. 19.4 km, ~200 feet of climbing. Camped just under 7,000 feet.

The day started well enough.

We marked Arjen’s birthday in the morning with small cakes pulled from sleds, a brief pause for something sweet and human before stepping back into the white. Spirits were good. It felt like a reset after the previous day’s emotional weight.

Then the light went flat.

Not windy, not stormy, just empty. The kind of whiteout where the horizon dissolves and depth disappears, where you stop trusting your eyes and start skiing by compass, GPS, and instinct, except for instinct tended to send the course in circles. Progress became incremental and oddly exhausting. We switched navigation pairings, an experiment meant to spread the workload and reset rhythms. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it exposes friction you didn’t know was there.

The skiing itself was not especially hard. But mentally, it was demanding. Holding a bearing in whiteout requires patience and quiet cooperation. Small corrections matter. Tone matters. When communication gets sharp, even unintentionally, it’s hard not to feel it more than you should. I didn’t handle that well. I lost my cool at one point, frustration leaking out sideways. It wasn’t my best moment, and I knew it as it was happening.

Expeditions have a way of stripping away buffers. Fatigue, monotony, and constant proximity compress emotions until there’s less room to step back. I pride myself on being a good team member, but that doesn’t mean friction disappears. Sometimes it just waits for the right conditions to surface.

Those conditions were very much present.

Several of us experienced something stranger as the day wore on. In the white, perception began to bend. I was convinced there was a cabin off to my right, warm light glowing from inside, a fire burning. Others saw cliffs where none existed and instinctively steered away from them. It’s unsettling how convincing these impressions can be. The mind fills gaps when the world offers no reference points.

Looking at the map later, it was clear we struggled to hold a clean line. Small deviations added up. The wandering track mirrored the mental state of the day more than any single decision did.

By evening, the edge came off. We gathered in Arjen and Caro’s tent for dinner, crowded close, laughing more easily again. No debriefs, no fixing. Just food, warmth, and the quiet relief of being together after a day that asked more than expected.

Not every day out here is graceful. Some are about friction, recalibration, and learning where your own boundaries are. Tomorrow would be better. But today mattered too.