Have managed to find a few snippets....
As you say the main Facebook page seems slow to start ...
https://www.facebook.com/BarneoRu/There is a second Barneo unofficial facebook site - which mentions another planned visit this year.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barneo/103205796399927 and on the 7th / 8th March it looks like artist Galya Morrell is at the North Pole
On her facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/galya.morrell there is a link to a great article dated 31st March 2018 which gives details of the planned schedule :
https://www.pythom.com/Preparations-for-2018-Barneo-North-Pole-Ice-Camp-are-in-full-swing-2018-03-31-33938 ### see below for details
There is an official Barneo website -
http://polus.tilda.ws/ ... but silent
And an article on Irina Orlova's facebook page Ирина Орлова earlier in March and lots of trucks loading up & shipping out - promises updates on the above...
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001774757853&lst=742656039%3A100001774757853%3A1522530050There is a Young Explorers trip planned for mid-April too:
https://sites.google.com/view/youngexplorerPreparations for 2018 Barneo North Pole Ice Camp are in full swing
Ice camp Barneo doesn’t have an address: the GPS coordinates of this tent city drifting in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole are changing every second. Every year, Ice Camp Barneo emerges on the map for just 35 days, from late March till late April, immediately after the sun rises on
2018-03-31 16:25:38.755000, by coldartist
....................
In a few days, two Mi-8 helicopters will take off in Siberia and will fly North, via Khatanga, Dikson and Island Sredny in Archipelago Northern Land. After refueling on Island Sredny, they will stay on route for as long as they have fuel. Once they land on the sea ice they will transmit their coordinates to the main land, after which an Ilyshin Il-76 cargo aircraft will depart from Murmansk to the helicopters’ location, which we call Zhalyuzi-1.
After air-dropping fuel at Zhalyuzi-1, Il-76 will continue on its way to the North Pole where it will drop more fuel along with paratroopers and will guide the helicopters to this new location, which we call Zhalyuzi-2. Once this mission is accomplished, the helicopters will begin the search for the Barneo-2018 site.
To find a perfect ice-floe is a tricky thing. There is a whole science about it. The Barneo floe must be oval-shaped, detached from the surrounding sea ice and must be at least 2 km long so that it can accommodate a 1,200 m runway and the camp. We have just received the satellite images of the area, actually of two different regions, and we see that this year the sea ice in both regions is pretty solid, varying from 1,82 m to 1,60 m which is enough to land An-74 with camp equipment, crew and visitors.
Once coordinates of Barneo-2018 are established, the camp from Zhalyuzi-2 will be relocated to this new spot, and the new Il-76 flight from Murmansk will air-drop tractors, extra fuel and more paratroopers. The construction of the runway will begin. Tractors will only clean the snow, and the rest is being build by hand. There are 3 shifts, working non-stop. In some years we succeeded in building an airstrip in just one day.
An inspection from Longyearbyen will arrive to grant an approval for the runway. Then two or three more technical AN-74 flights will follow, the camp will be built and the Flag of Barneo will be raised.
........ above selected from Python article referenced earlier
Lets hope some news starts to come through so we can follow it !
