Arctic Expedition Part 2

We woke up early the next morning and set out for our expedition. It was a lot of flat ice land for much of the way. Some of the time we would encounter some steep slopes where we had to carry our dogs and equipment up. It would have been difficult literally carrying them up on our arms and backs, so we had a system where one of us would scale up and on to the other side, hammer a pick down, and tie a rope on it for us to have something to pull onto. It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination easy or quick, but it was safe and stable.

After that little obstacle we continued on mostly unhindered. At first I though the arctic was a beautiful place. Like a winter wonderland, but it's getting tiring. Everything is almost completely white and so are the animals. It's like walking in a desert, every direction looks the same. At least there's abundant water, though.

We finally came upon am obstacle we had no chance of going around or over. It was a glacier around 40 meters. Even if we could use the same method as earlier it would take too much time. And I didn't want to scale this thing. It gave a foreboding air, as if anything that dared touch it would die immediately. I voiced my what I knew to sound childish complaint, "Captain, I don't think we should approach. We should find away around this glacier."
"You can't be serious. It's our job and our privilege to map the deepest reaches. And as you can see, finding a way around is near useless. Just by looking left to right we can see how far it spans."
"Please."
From my desperate tone the captain looked back at me, at my shaken, hopeful eyes.
"Bah! Fine, we'll setup camp early and wake up early so we can make up for the lost time."
"Thanks, Captain."
"Wouldn't want you working in your shape, anyways. Rest. That's what we all need."

Exactly like yesterday we setup our tents and tied down our sled dogs. And opened our provisions, our dinner. During this time the captain would often brag about his family at home. Lording over us his beautiful wife, who I thought cute, but not eye-shatteringly beautiful; the captain would probably gut me for saying such a thing. He would also talk about his kids; the first one had just entered school and the second born a year back. After the expedition he said the first thing he'd do was see his family. I thought he was lucky and I was admittedly jealous. Nothing was waiting for me back home.

That night hell would descend on us.