Basically red tape, but the logistics are a nightmare. I wouldn´t be able to do this without my very good friend, the Arctic explorer Jegor Makarov, native Yakut of the area. His knowledge of this area is the most profound on earth today. And he will join me as my partner on this trip. A great man. Anyway, he just returned from a small reindeer camp outside Oymyakon with the news that Misja and Kejsa, which i had hoped would join us, jumped ship. Fully understandable, because this winter they´ve had major problems with wolves taking their reindeer. So their mum, who is in charge of this small reindeer collective, said no.

But this didn´t deteer my friend Yegor. He found another team of reindeer herders in Khabarovsk who will do this extra ordinary journey with us. An amazing guy, jegor, I really look forward to travelling with him. We will have 30 reindeer and 15 sledges, but we need to buy all the equipment like tent, chain saw etcetera, since these reindeer herders are very poor and have nothing.

I feel sad, of course, that Keisha and Mishja couldn´t come They´re great personalities. but this makes the trip even more dramatic, interesting and challenging. the new reindeer herders insisted on bring one of the men´s wife to do the cooking for us, which was news to me. That really adds on the drama. This is a really demanding trip. But I look forward to it!

By the way, the temperature in Oymyakon is -59 degrees Celsius right now.Extremely cold!