It's finally thawing revealed and starting to feel like spring around here.

nevertheless Rick Sweitzer is having none of it.

He's headed to the frigid 15- to- 40-degree temperatures of the North stick to guide an international dispose of thrill seekers on a two-week dog sl and skiing expedition.

"I have a passionate affection for the arctic. It's a place of immense beauty," said Sweitzer, possessor of the Wilmette-based outdoor adventure travel company The Northwest Passage. "It's an of the highest environment where not many tribe have been. It's viewed as dangerous, if it be not that it's a place that resonates with color."

The 52-year-old has l more than a dozen expeditions to the North rod including luxury helicopter champagne flights, since co- guiding the world's first commercial dog sl and ski trip there in 1993

nearest week, he'll travel to Longyearbyen, a small town in Norway that is situated in the high arctic at 78 qualitys north latitude. There, he'll convenient up with his tour cluster and other Northwest Passage guides who'll be flown to the polar research station Barneo before they are taken to nearby locales that are 1 to 2 classs from the North Pole, for different bone-chilling trek

one LOSE UP TO 30 beats

Sweitzer's North staff dog sled and ski packages, which preciousness between $17,000 and $27,000, aren't for the faint of heart. Everyone is rely uponed to help cook the high-caloric meals, make gentle snow for drinking water, locate up camp, feed the dogs and use personal urine bottle inside their portable lodges at night. Bathing is comely much an afterthought, although in the past, a certain quantity of have been known to take "snow showers," Sweitzer said.

Contrary to popular belief, participants rarely ride forward the sleds, which carry meals, sleeping supplies and shotgun in case a pesky polar bear decides to pay a visit. Instead, the assemblage spends six to eight hours a day skiing alongside the Alaskan huskies and Inuit snow dogs, guiding them above pressure ridges and around make open water. A few people have dissipated up to 30 pounds during the grueling exercise, Sweitzer said.

"When you incline you start to get warm. You can unconcerned yourself down when you stop for just a hardly any seconds, but then it's hard to warm up again. You have to learn to what degree to stay comfortable," said Sweitzer, who eagerly recommends rigorous training before embarking in succession the trip.

This year's journey is extra special, Sweitzer said, because the men and women traveling with him will be covering the snow with the remains of Norman Vaughan, the last surviving member of Adm. Richard Byrd's 1928 expedition to the southern Pole, who died at the age of 100 in December.

Sweitzer, who also takes collections to the South Pole, says the 24 hours of daylight and frozen elegance of a North perch spring is something tourists cherish forever.

"On our first trip here, a sl carrying a thousand shut ups with two group members in succession it fell through the ice within the first brace hours of our expedition. We were able to take them gone out dry them and warm them up an people started to think we were crazy for doing this," he said.

"But for very large travel adventurers, climbing the highest mountain and traveling to the toward the south Pole and North Pole has always been the ultimate."

rhussain@suntimes.com

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NORTH perch FACTS

American explorer and naval officer Robert Edwin Peary is believed to have l the first expedition to the geographic North perch on April 6, 1909. Today, the North perch remains a rarely visited locale with about 100 visitors a year, according to Rick Sweitzer, who arranges trips that trace Peary's historic trek

uTemperatures: Depending forward the season, it can be as warm as 25 orders above zero and cold as minus 40 extents Fahrenheit.

uWhat do you wear at the North Pole? To retain warm, the Northwest Passage participants are asked to wear three layers of clothing and an Anorak jacket, expedition Pac avails and fur ruff the company provides. Participants usually conceal their faces or slather expos skin with zinc oxide or a high SPF sunblock

uWhat do you eat at the North Pole? pantry oatmeal at breakfast and chocolate, nut beef jerky and broth for lunch and dinner usually add up to the 5000 calories most numerous people would need for the strenuous trip in the chilled Sweitzer said.

For more information in succession the Northwest Package excursions, call (800) RECREATE (732-7328) or (847) 256-4409 or log forward to www.nwpassage.com.

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