Cold Shores - Skiing For Land Mine Awareness

This is just a quick blog entry to publicise the Cold Shores expedition; the 2010, British led attempt to traverse the Arctic Island of Svalbard. I used to do a fair amount of mountaineering and this looks like good hard fun. It has a more serious side which we think is a worthy cause. Many British servicemen and those of our allies and innocent civilians in conflict zones worldwide, have become casualties as a result of landmines, and The Halo Trust is an organisation which actively works to remove these weapons. You can read more about them at http://www.coldshores.co.uk/.

We supported them by helping them through the process of specifying and sourcing a solution to power their communications and photographic equipment. They initially came to us with the intention of using our wind turbines but we identified that this was not the best option and that some solar and some specialist battery systems were more suitable for their needs. We don't ordinarily get involved in small solar projects but because of our long experience in expeditions and our sympathy to the cause we have worked to provide them with a solution. We had their leader - Dave Leaning - in for two days and customised the gear for them and taught them how to use it all and made sure it worked with their comms and photo gear.

Over to them now and good luck. You can help them by donating money either to the expedition (these things do cost a bit) or to Halo Trust at http://coldshores.co.uk/donate . You can monitor their progess on line over the coming weeks.