Monday, August 04, 2008

Seiffert Update: York Factory or Bust

The Seiffert brothers, Matt and David, are making fast times as they rapidly descend towards Hudson Bay. Last night came this latest update from their family, based on GPS data sent to them daily...
If my measurements are correct, Matt and David made 34 or more miles today, a bit faster than in the previous few days. That could be from motivation to reach the end, but I also suspect that they are benefiting from the fact that the river is definitely descending. It looks like they are 40 or more meters closer to sea level. If they maintain this pace, they could be at York Factory by Thursday or Friday. As far as I can tell, they have been in a sort of canyon for quite a few miles now - the land appears to rise about 40 to 50 meters on either side of them, where they are currently camped on the south bank of the river (there are no islands to speak of where they are right now). I think that it will flatten out a bit before they reach the end of the river. When that happens, we will be scrambling a bit at this end. Their return journey will involve a plane, a train, and our automobile. One result of that will be that these updates will be interrupted for a few days while we are traveling. We will let you know before we go that they have finished, and we will have some more info for you when we get back (I hope that the guys can add some stuff of their own by that time...)

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