Creative Director
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Some things to consider about that part of the adventure, from the viewpoint of me being the writer:
That said!
When the PCs take the Crossing the High Ice activity, I set the DC to 26 because that's a value that a typical 9th level party will have no problem hitting, and will have more critical successes there than critical failures. The number of waypoints on the ice is determined by how long it would take to cross that terrain at a typical speed of 25 feet, and if a group has access to faster speeds or magic, as detailed for "Faster Characters" and "Unusual Circumstances" they may be moving closer to a rate of 1 waypoint per day than one every 2 or 3 days.
If things start feeling like a slog, you can have an Expedition Event occur no matter what, giving the party something to do to break up the journey.
An arctic expedition like this should feel harrowing, exhausting, and dangerous. So to a certain extent, feeling like a "slog" is intended... you don't want the players to come away from this expedition looking back at it and thinking, "that was way too easy and quick!" But you also don't want them looking back on it and thinking it was boring.
The easiest way you can adjust the time spent in this chapter is to handle the checks on a weekly basis rather than a daily basis. In this variant, you'd adjust the "Day on the Ice" steps as follows:
Step 1: Daily preparations as normal, just that these happen 7 times without incident.
Step 2: Each PC takes the Cross the High Ice activity, with each roll earning 7 points on a success and 14 points on a critical success (with no points on a failure and losing just 2 points on a critical failure; this way a crit fail still hurts but it won't set you back a lot, because the goal here is to forge ahead).
Step 3: One event automatically happens during the week. I suggest picking form your favorites here rather than rolling.
Step 4: Advance waypoints by one per 8 expedition points earned. With this system, the PCs should earn between 28 and 56 points, so each week they'll advance 3 to 7 waypoints.
Step 5: Rest for the night. Just assume each night passes peacefully (unless you rolled a monster encounter and want to stage that encounter during one of the 7 nights).
Step 6: Attempt a single DC 7 flat check; on a success, one PC gets a nightmare from Osoyo during the week.
A good compromise might be to start on a day by day basis, then as the PCs get the hang of things ramp it up to week by week.