Barneo-2006. Summary.

All Barneo activities were successfully terminated on the 30th of April, 2006.

This year season had a bad luck start. During the airdrop tractor had crashed and we had to postpone the first landing of Antonov-74 by a couple of days. The 1,000 meters runway was ready on the 3rd of April instead of the 1st.

But nevertheless all pre-arranged arctic programs were successfully completed.

Also the weather was very unpredictable and unusual for this term of the year. The temperature was 10 °C degrees above the average and there were a few sunny days this April. Our helicopter crews found nice ice floe, where we were able to build 2 crossed airstrips, to place 8 living tents, 2 cabin companies and galley. We had three An-74 and four Mi-8 on the ice at the same time!

During running the Ice Base 19 passengers’ and 5 technical Antonov-74 flights Longyear -Barneo – Longyear were made. Within University of Washington’s North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO) scientific project 6 landings of Hawker-748 and 5 landings of Twin Otter aircrafts were made with the use of Barneo icy runways.

This year near 380 participants visited Barneo, even more then the last year (293 participants)

Barneo-2006 proceeded programs

This year we started Barneo operations earlier than usual (on the 18th of March) to proceed the planned pick up of Mike Horn and Borge Ousland from the North Pole. Mike and Borge bravely reached the North Pole on the 23rd of March! Next day our helicopters picked them up to the Barneo base, where they were waiting for the first passenger flight from Longyear with their relatives and friends. The first unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole during Arctic winter was successful.

At the beginning of April 54 runners participated in North Pole Marathon around the Barneo camp.

We had the honour to support the program of Prince Albert II, which was held on 12th – 16th of April with a help of Russian militaries. In spite of the bad weather and ice conditions all 6 dog sledges of Albert II group reached the North Pole on the 16th.

We made several resupplies for the groups who went from the Cape Arcticheski to the Pole and then to Canada (Bettina Aller, Martin Harvey, Georgy Karpenko). We picked up from the Pole to Barneo - Karpenko (dog sledge), the group of 7 Finnish skiers and group of 3 Norwegian skiers (Cecilie Skog, Rolf Bae, Per-Henry Borch) who came unsupported from Canada.

Besides we had numerous groups of tourists, one degree and half degree skiers, Rick Sweitzers’ groups who made almost 2 degrees trip and successfully reached their goal, a group of 3 brave Spanish parachutists who made a jump from the height of three thousand meters right on the North Pole, a group of divers from Poland who made their activities on the North Pole.

In sector of scientific programs we supported the resupply and personnel rotation made by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (Russia, St. Petersburg) of “North Pole-34” drifting station; we provided NPEO project with airstrip, fuel, accommodation and helicopter support; we supported Russian Institute of oceanology in its researches.