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Some
of the coldest places in the world
Mariano
Loréfice -
Aventurarse Expert
 To
feel the cold, it is not necessary to go to the North Pole.
Hypothermia can be acquired without a temperature below
0°C. 10° and a little rain is enough. On the other
hand, the thermometer can display several degrees below
zero, and we can be in danger of freezing, but we can pedal
without feeling cold.
If we head towards
Nordkapp during the Summer, crossing the Arctic regions,
with some luck we might travel for 24 hours with a temperature
of 5 to 10° and arrive at Europe's Northernmost point,
72° Northern latitude (Its equivalent in the Southern
Hemisphere is found 1000 kilometers away from the Argentine
Antarctic base). If we made the same trip during the Winter,
conditions would change radically. We would have to administer
our efforts to regulate our temperature with utmost precision.
In Patagonia
In Argentina, almost every climatic and geographic condition
can be found. In what we could call "the country of
five continents", it is possible to train fro rough
circumstances abroad.
In Patagonia, the cold can be extreme, but the wind is what
makes conditions truly hostile. The terrible dirt roads
on highway 40, intransitable because of the violent gusts
of wind, make one feel lonely in the long distances that
separate one population from another. In these circumstances,
one discovers the necessary willpower to get up after every
fall and to bow down and overcome obstacles that, with patience,
are only a matter of time. In the desert stretch between
Bajo Caracoles and Tres Lagos (in the province of Santa
Cruz), 340 uninhabited kilometers, I spent the night on
highway 40, with my tent full of rocks to keep it from flying
away.
The wind made it hard to keep the bike standing when I stopped.
I remember the surprise of a hospitable man who awaited
me, hoping to tempt me with the backdoor of his truck open.
I said farewell, lying down on my saddlebags and eating
the oranges he had left me, as I watched my bread fly away
with the wind.
170 kilometer stretches of trying to stay close to the ground
and working for 14 hours, only averaging 11 kilometers an
hour! All of this under the punishment of the wind, whom
I learnt to befriend.
What should I say about the slippery ice? Traveling from
Calafate to the Perito Moreno glacier, I found myself, after
descents, in areas where the ice cracked and made me land
harshly on the floor.
In the Garibaldi pass (Tierra del Fuego) the ice, after
being coated by the rain, didn't let me walk without slipping.
I had to find snow to continue a difficult, but not impossible,
struggle to make it through.
Patagonia was a good teacher. I admire her, not only for
her harsh manners, but also for her beauty. But above all
she was a test that allowed me to confirm my taste and conviction
to face difficult adventures.
From Alaska (U.S.A) to Yukon (Canada)
In Yukon's interior, after crossing White Horse, temperature
dropped way below the ones I had suffered in Alaska, where
the sea regulates the temperature. The snow was not merciful
and everything became more complicated than I had planned.
The Winter's only advantages were the lack of mosquitoes
and bears, which fill Yukon during the Summer.
Canada during the Winter (as hard as it gets)
28 stretches full of snow, with thermal sensation between
-35 and
-67°C. In the 1967 lap around the world, after crossing
Asia, I flew from Peking to Vancouver to face the cruel
Winter of one of the coldest places in the world. To be
back on Canadian grounds(most of the time it was ice), back
in one of the countries I love most, filled me with satisfaction.
I also felt triumphant at being able to cross the mysterious
Orient successfully. These feelings filled with strength
to face a challenge that had scared me the year before,
but suddenly looked relatively easy.
In British Columbia: crossing the Rocky Mountains
On the 19th of December I started out from Vancouver, optimistic…
When I had just covered 75 kilometers, nightfall came and
the police warned me to get out of the road because of the
huge amounts of snow that would fall in the dark. In the
police station, an old man told me that the weather would
not improve until next Spring, and that in those conditions
it would be impossible to ride on a bicycle. He ended up
offering me his house to stay until March or April. On my
second day of travel, I had to put chains on my tires to
have traction is the snow and to not slip in the ice.
Crossing those mountains meant having to pedal uphill for
long stretches, sometimes 40 kilometers without a break.
I had to keep warm as I went up, and avoid transpiring,
because as soon as I got over the hill, effort diminished
and transpiration froze to the skin. During descent, ice
sheets sometimes formed on my chest. At those times, speed
could be deadly, not only because of the danger of falling,
but also because it could mean freezing to death. I had
to resist the cold in my feet, hands and head, and pray
for an uphill to come soon. It was more enjoyable to slow
down to 15 Km/h than to speed up to 50 Km/h. 10 Km/h was
even more agreeable than that. Speed was completely unimportant.
The slower, the better. That's what my life depended on.
 I
felt like "Iceman", everything froze. The capacity
of my thermos was never enough for the long distances that
separated me from one population to the next. On occasions
I used a Camelbak hidden between my clothes, but after sucking
waster out of the tube, it would freeze and cover up the
tube. The vapor that came out of my mouth would freeze instantly,
sealing my beard to my mask, and forming stalactites that
hung down to my chest. To melt the ice, which didn't allow
me to take of my mask and eat, I had to use warm water.
Vapor wasn't allowed out of my last jacket, it froze and
became hard. My goggles would freeze, and keep me from seeing
through them. Sometimes, when the wind blew against me,
and I couldn't use my goggles, a curtain of ice would form
on my eyelashes. When snow was heavy, visibility became
terrible, and cars along the side of the road warned me
of the danger, but I didn't pay attention and kept on.
One day, as I made an effort to open tracks among the snow
at the side of the road, a truck ran over me and destroyed
my back wheel. It was a product of my own carelessness and
fatality, and on the 31st of December, in Banff, I celebrated
the fact I was alive, New years, and my 28th birthday.
After that day, I had to maximize my attention and care.
It not only meant to watch out in the most transitable stretches
of the road, but to keep an eye, with my helmet rearview
mirror, on the cars that came from behind. I had stripes
of light-reflecting material on my back and on the bike.
Deep into Canada
The continental cold climate in the province of Saskatchewan
makes temperature drop under -35°C, and makes winds
accelerate up to 60 Km/h. In some cities it snows during
eight months, every year. The people who lived there asked
me if I was crazy. My answer was that if I were crazy I
would have died a long time ago. I had to be in a lucid
and attentive state, because my life depended on it.
It is only possible to resist the conditions of the "frozen
white country" for a while, until being defeated by
its climate. But to cross it in a bicycle for two months,
it is necessary to adapt until the point of considering
these rough conditions beautiful, not aggressive; discovering
wonderful patterns and colors in the monotonous white scenery.
Conviction, not pressure, that comes from the indefinite
taste for difficult challenges, is the most important ingredient
to plan, and get across, difficult projects. Luckily, this
magic product is not for sale. It can't be bought with a
sophisticated bicycle.
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